The Z490 Mini-ITX Showdown: GIGABYTE's Z490I Aorus Ultra and MSI's MEG Z490I Unify Reviewed
by Gavin Bonshor on August 4, 2020 10:30 AM ESTTest Bed
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
Test Setup | |||
Processor | Intel Core i7-10700K, 125 W, $374 8 Cores, 16 Threads 3.8 GHz (5.1 GHz Turbo) |
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Motherboard | GIGABYTE Z490I Aorus Ultra (BIOS F5c) MSI MEG Z490 Unify (BIOS 7C77v11) |
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Cooling | NZXT Kraken Z63 280 mm AIO | ||
Power Supply | Corsair HX850 850 W 80 PLUS Platinum | ||
Memory | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-2933 CL 14-14-14-34 2T (2 x 8 GB) | ||
Video Card | MSI GTX 1080 (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
Case | Corsair Crystal 680X | ||
Operating System | Windows 10 1909 inc. Spectre/Meltdown Patches |
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
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Showtime - Monday, August 10, 2020 - link
They are overpriced. I am looking at Intel unless those B550's go on sale.