AntonyLeatherputssixofthelatestZ490motherboards through their
paces,tofindthebesthomesforLGA1200 Intel chips
Mother country
LABS TEST
How we test
D
espite pre-launch rumours, Intel’s new 10th-gen CPUs
aren’t nearly as power-hungry and PSU-killing as
we’d been led to believe. However, you’ll still need a
motherboard with good cooling and potent power delivery to handle
an overclocked 10-core 14nm CPU, and that’s where this month’s
Labs test will help. We’ve picked six Z490 motherboards to pitch
against the new Core i9-10900K. We’ve run through our usual
performance benchmarks, as well as audio, storage and cooling
tests, to see which boards are worth your cash.
Our test kit includes 16GB of 3466MHZ Corsair Vengeance RGB
Pro RAM. We also use a 2TB Samsung 970 Pro SSD, plus a Samsung
960 Evo SSD, to test the speed of M.2 ports, as well as heatsink
performance, tapping into the internal temperature sensors to see
how well any M.2 heatsinks perform under load, using back-to-back
runs of CrystalDiskMark’s entire battery of tests.
We use Windows 10 with the 1909 update installed, plus an Nvidia
GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card. Our new motherboard and
CPU cooling rigs also sport a Barrow Ropilema test bench and full
custom water-cooling systems, including two 240mm radiators and
a Laing DDC pump.
We use RightMark’s Audio Analyzer software to measure
the dynamic range, noise level and total harmonic distortion of
the on-board audio. Other tests include our RealBench suite of
performance benchmarks, Far Cry 5 New Dawn, and Cinebench
R20’s single and multi-threaded tests.
We also measure the total power consumption of our test rig
with each motherboard installed, at both stock and overclocked
speeds. Our scores are based on a weighted calculation including
performance, features and value, with an overall score being the
sum of those three values.Contents
Asus Maximus XII Hero (WiFi) / p45
Asus ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming / p46
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master / p47
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Pro AX / p48
MSI MAG Z490 Tomahawk / p50
MSI MEG Z490 Ace / p52Results graphs / p53
LABS TEST / Z490 MOTHERBOARDS