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Z390 Preview – hands-on with ALL the new motherboards!

Matthew Wilson October 8, 2018 CPU, Featured Announcement, Motherboard

Today is the big day, Intel has officially launched the Z390 motherboard chipset alongside several new 9th Gen processors. Our main man Leo has already had a chance to preview a bunch of new Z390 motherboards, including the ROG Maximus XI Hero and ROG Strix boards from ASUS, ASRock's Taichi Z390, MSI's MEG Z390 ACE and Gigabyte's Z390 Aorus Master.

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Here are the timestamps for the video:

00:15 Introduction and chat about the processors
06:01 ASRock Z390 Pro4 Motherboard
07:10 ASRock Z390 Taichi Motherboard
08:15 ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming
09:00 ASUS ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming
09:58 ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero (WiFi)
11:00 ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula
12:50 MSI MEG Z390 ACE
14:32 Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master

Here is the spec sheet for Intel's currently announced 9th Gen CPUs compared to 8th Gen:

CPU uArch Cores/Threads Base (Ghz) Turbo (GHz) L3 Cache DRAM TDP Price
Core i9-9900K CFL-R 8/16 3.6 5.0 16MB DDR4-2666MHz 95W €595
Core i7-9700K CFL-R 8/8 3.6 4.9 12MB DDR4-2666MHz 95W €475
Core i5-9500 CFL-R 6/6 3.0 4.3 9MB DDR4-2666MHz 65W TBD
Core i5-9400 CFL-R 6/6 2.9 4.1 9MB DDR4-2666MHz 65W TBD
Core i3-9100 CFL-R 4/4 3.7 N/A 6MB DDR4-2400MHz 65W TBD
Core i7-8700K CFL 6/12 3.7 4.7 12MB DDR4-2666MHz 95W £460
Core i5-8600K CFL 6/6 3.6 4.3 9MB DDR4-2666MHz 95W £310
Core i3-8350K CFL 4/4 4.0 N/A 8MB DDR4-2400MHz 91W £220

Z390 is Intel's brand new chipset for Intel 9th Gen processors. You'll be able to stick with Z370 for the six-core CPU lineup but if you want to make the jump to the the eight-core Core i7-9700K or Core i9-9900K, then you'll need a Z390 motherboard. For an overview of 8 new Z390 motherboards, be sure to check out the video above.

We'll be hearing a lot about these new Z390 motherboard options over the next few weeks. We'll also be hearing more about Intel's 9th generation of Core processors too, so stay tuned for more.

KitGuru says: We'll have plenty of coverage on these new motherboards and processors over the coming weeks. Are any of you thinking about upgrading this year? 

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