Honestly, these have to be the most helpful videos on youtube when it comes to choosing a motherboard. Allows us to choose a product that most fits our needs and with complete peace of mind. Just great consumer advice and we really appreciate it. Keep it up Hammer on Box !
If you are lazy to go through the videos, this is the summary: Best Value Z490 (ATX) Motherboards: Asus Prime Z490-P & MSI Z490-A Pro Best Mid-range (around $200): MSI Z490 Tomahawk & Gigabyte Z490 Vision G Best mATX Z490 Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z490-G Gaming Wi-Fi Best Mini-ITX Z490 Board: MSI Z490i Unify & Gigabyte Z490i Aorus Ultra Best High-end Z490 Board: Z490 Godlike
ASUS makes amazing computer components. Really hope they will continue like this and tops the chats with their ROG and Crosshair motherboards for Ryzen 5000. I really hope they test their stuff so there aren't problems with their stuff like ASrock that failed overclocking the 10700k. I really enjoy the competetion between ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte that should change their name to Terabyte or Petabyte.
After after TWO faulty GPU's from Asus (RTX480 8GB which was overheating from day 1, returned for refund and bought a Nvidia GTX 1060S. - lasted all but 2 years on low usage before completely dying one day without warning. Not good at all. Plus 2 dodgy monitors (out of 3) and a mouse that died prematurely I definitely wont be buying anymore of their hardware. I'm sticking with Gigabyte. \o>
Got the MSI Gaming Edge Wi-Fi and like it a lot, wanted the Tomahawk but Newegg had a bundle that was $20 off so it was actually cheaper than the Tomahawk and it's one step above it too.
You guys seriously have the BEST motherboard reviews of any channel I've watched. Genuinely your video's have helped me make choices on motherboards for different platforms. Helped out a TON recently cause I just ordered a new pc this week.
Blame the USB forum for deciding they needed to kill off USB 3.0 and 3.1 branding and roll it all into the 3.2 family 🤣 (Unless there was some sneaky tweaks to the USB standards in there)
@@nikazanguri4522 I'm still using it a year later with an i5 10600k, and it's been really good. Though the RPG Controller for my fans is really low on the bottom of the mother board, that was kind of hard to plug in. Otherwise stellar board.
In the ~200 dollar value, you forgot to mention the MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge Wifi, as it Also has the features of the Tomahawk, but with Wifi 6 and I guess a total of 7 USB Type A Ports and a 20Gbps USB Type C Port
Does the ASRock Taichi suffer the same VRM problems as the lower priced boards? I'm a bit confused when you said all the higher priced boards are good, but then you said you wouldn't recommend anything from ASRock. Are you saying the Taichi is no good?
Can you test the LG 48inch CX tv. It's geared towards gamers and uses gsync as a strong advertisement. Heard it has blazing fast response times as well. Would be useful for some PC users.
Currently doubting between three boards and I'm not sure which one I should pick and why. The choices are: msi mpg z490 gaming plus msi mag z490 tomahawk asus prime z490-a
Wow , I’m actually like u but instead of the MSi gaming plus I’m thinking gigabyte Z490 Aorus elite ac . Did u buy or still liking ? If so , what did u buy ?
Vigers I haven’t bought anything yet however the tomahawk is kinda where I landed on, because after doing some research and reading reviews the tomahawk was mentioned the most therefore I figured it would be the best. Although, I reckon buying any of these boards won’t set you back or anything.
msi mpg z490 gaming plus = have used it for a year now, didn't cost too much, works perfect, can select a wide variety of RAM speeds, works well with my rtx3080 , no problems at all and highly recommend.
Thanks Steve. Your opinion on a few Micro ATX boards really appreciated - its my preferred mid-size form-factor. Asus Strix -G is good if you've got the budget and aspire to the i9. For me the i7 has all I need and some good future proofing I reckon. My rig is for Office work and gaming @ 1440p 60Hz, and no more, maybe 4k in a few years time. I really don't see a big benefit to oc the CPU, but oc RAM seems to be a no-brainer. Maybe the Asus Z490M-Plus (with a PCI card to add more USB I/O) is all I need.
I am wondering why the Gigabyte Z490 Gaming X was not mentioned when it comes to best value? Gigabyte's mainboards are mentioned to be avoided but not recommended, even though the Gaming X really performed properly in your previous VRM tests.
My 5 days of struggle is over just by watching this video. This is the only video on internet which can actually help in choosing and differentiating motherboards. I highly appreciate your work. Thanks a lot.
Random RU-vid Watcher I’m actually only using 3 port so not a problem for me .(mice ,keyboard and printer) I have no idea why you would be needing 10 ports . I have xbox controller connected via Bluetooth from mobo antenna . The motherboard is amazing.
The z490m gaming edge may have the same config as the a-pro but the cooling solution for said vrms looks much better. I would be interested to see how it actually performs temp-wise OCing a 10900k.
After watching this I orderd a Prime Z-490-P that unfortunately had DoA PCIEx16. RMA'd for an Aorus Elite coming tomorrow. The lack of built in USB ports on the Asus I wasn't too happy with.
Great Harvard Unboxed video. BTW, since you mentioned BuildZoid, he absolutely TRASHED the ASRock Z490 PG Velocita so that's one more ASRock board to avoid when it comes to Z490. Really just do yourself a favor and avoid ASRock Z490 boards altogether.
Got the Asus z490 Apex. Huge fan of the Apex boards for overclocking. Was hoping to see it in the video, but I understand why you didn't, since it fits in that price range you said was pretty much all good, just a matter of preference. Originally wasn't even going to get z490 or gen 10 Intel... but I couldn't help myself. So the gaming PC is getting an update this week as soon as I can get to it. Still really excited for Ryzen 4000 and may be updating my workstation with that later next year when it's out. It's going to be in need of an upgrade.
What was missing here is affordable Home server/NAS/unRAID/FREENAS or workstation board, i recommend the ROG STRIX Z490-H GAMING. Why? Its one of few boards that splits its PCIe from CPU to x8/x4/x4 so you have x3 full sized slots, + it has from chipset two x1 slots and one x4 slot [connected at x2 speed] since most home servers have no need for GPU, you have CPU routed PCIe for SAS cards, 10G lan etc. I have single 10G lan [x4], one SAS card [x8] and still have x4 and x2 slot for extra stuff in the future. If you need GPU to encode video, then still its great since you have x8 slot for GPU and two full sized x4 slots + x4 sized x2 slot for SAS card and 10G Lan and capture card. Also it comes with 2.5G Intel [I tested it works fine, but all Intel 2.5G NICs on z490 mobos that come with Intel 2.5G must be firmware updated first, files are available from mobo download section]
I've been procrastinating for a year on a needed gaming-only build. At first I was going 9700k, then 3900x, then 10700k, then waiting for Zen3, and finally got fed up. I've watched too many videos and read too many reviews to where I couldn't make up my mind. I realized all the indecision has simply left me on an old platform from 2014 for another year when I could have been enjoying modern nvme and such for all that time. So I said screw it and ordered a full 10700k/tomahawk platform. If Zen3 beats it, it will be by small margins to the point I wouldn't even notice. I need to stop fearing buyer's remorse because it's inevitable in the PC hardware space.
I recently went with the Gigabyte Aorus Pro AX board for my new build. With the Intel i9-10850k cpu and I'll be putting in my Gigabyte Aorus RTX 2060S 8GB GPU. That along side a 1TB M.2 Gigabyte SSD, 64GB ddr4 3200mhz corsair vengeance ram and a Corsair RM850 PSU. My question is.. I shouldn't have any issues with power delivery for the CPU or GPU should I? Factory clocked for now, probably wont overclock the CPU unless I absolutely needed the extra power for video rendering. Hope you're able to reply and help :) Thanks ! \o>
To make this easier you need to make categories, i.e. a.i.o cooling or clc boards, top end aio/fan cpu board and then med to low end , as the board at the 500 and above are design for clc and shouldn't be compared to boards that are expected to be used for aio or pure air
Hi thanks for great videos. Have you got a video about Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master motherboard. I’ve just bought one and would love to hear your opinions about it.
Thanks for your videos. Can you for future reference, when you talk about certain products, place them on your desk, so that the listener doesn't get too confused? Just in order to KISS (Keep-it-simple-sweety) ;) As a foreigner who are perhaps a lil' slower in understanding the actual words, pictures (of the actual product you're talking about) oftently helps on understanding what you're referring to :) Thanks again. Keep it up :)
Hey Tim, would u consider doing eSport games benchmarks in this method? Method: cap the fps to 144fps/240fps and getting the average fps for each game / CPU also add section to see how much apps in the background impacting that average like Geforce shadow or instant replay of AMD or OBS, Streaming the idea behind it is without capping the fps, the high fps in small rooms or in good cases like without many explosions in game would offset the average quite much so this cap avoid it and really given the right distribution of the fps while eSport gaming TYVM
Why is the Gigabyte Z490 Gaming X to be avoided when it performed better in the earlier vid 'VRM Temp Test, Sub $200 Roundup' ? Did something change? In the graph in the earlier vid it had 5.1GHz for 10900k at 81, while asus had 89 and msi 90.
Has anybody ever tried EVGA Z390/490 Dark Series Motherboards? Their layouts looks decent, but seems only very few people share some deep dive user experiences.
It's little late to the party, but what about the Gigabyte Z490M (ultra durable series). It seems to have really "modest" VRM - but there is hardly any reviews about it. What can it handle?
There are only a few z490 boards in here and all of them are asrock low end boards which start from 300usd to 550usd and an asus micro board which cost 600. It's no surprise that nobody buy any of them.
Is this supported?? Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB RGB Pro Gigabyte Z490 Vision G Intel Core i7-10700k Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Seagate BarraCuda 3.5" 2TB SATA 3 Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD NVMe M.2 Corsair hydro series H100i pro Thermaltake 750W 80 Plus Gold
I'm a little confused. The Z490/Z490M Gaming X both may use the same VRM as the Z490/Z490M UD but have beefier heatsinks/cooling right? How did the 10700K and 10900K actually fail during testing?
I was just disappointed with the ASUS Z490-p 's IO shield. Not coated, just plain peace of aliminium? Muy old H170 gaming moba from 2016 has a much nicer IO shield. Does it really cost that much to just coat it?
Sir please give me advise which Z490 motherboard is better for premium performance...aorus master or Asus rog maximus hero xii.....sir please help me.. which one I should buy..
Hey Steve, I wonder why EVGA boards are missing from your reviews. They are among the top tier manufacturers. Maybe you answered this in previous videos and I missed it.
First of all, he said there are some 50 z490 motherboards on the market, there's no way ANY channel will review that many in one upload. Second, I'm not sure about Australia where HU is based, but here in the UK EVGA motherboards are very rarely on sale, beyond an initial shipping, so availablity is an issue.
@@DavidLee-df888 No one expects him to test every board on the market so I can't see how the first part of your response is relevant to my question. Instead of reviewing 6 boards from one manufacturer and 6 from another, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go for 5 and include another popular brand.
Sweden here, didn't even knew EVGA made motherboards. Thought it was all GFX cards and PSUs. :O The manufacturers in this vid are all available though.
The A Pro is actually decent for the Z490 with respect to VRMs, I believe, but I don't know why you'd put in the lowest-end MSI Z490 in such an otherwise high-end rig. Get the Tomahawk or something similar (or better).
Im thinking MSI MPG Z490 GAMING PLUS, its about the same as A pro in price here, but I wonder if its as good vrm wise, its too new to find any information
