The Asus TUF series continues with the same force as always when it comes to reliability and longevity of plates. Today we are going to analyze the Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi variant , being the most complete having Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, USB Gen2x2 , or aluminum heatsinks for its three M.2 slots. You will see that in overclocking capacity it performs wonderfully with its 14 + 2 phase VRM, and at the management level it is as complete as the more expensive models. Shall we start the review?
Design
The TUF series could not be missing in this platform with Z590 chipset nor in the B560. More specifically, it is the model with the best features, and at the same time WiFi variant of the normal TUF Gaming so to speak. The style continues to give it a unique personality with predominant black color on an ATX board with cutouts in the SATA ports area and lower corner.
It will have two AURA Sync lighting zones on the right edge, as well as enough notoriety to illuminate chassis with a glass window. It can be extended by synchronizable strips thanks to 2 AURA Sync Gen2 compatible 5VDG headers , and another two 12VRGB headers for standard RGB strips. We wish we did not just two, but all SATA ports were integrated into the chipset oriented encapsulation 90 or relative to the plate. However, we must recognize that the traditional location will also be advantageous for chassis with lower openings and elbow-type cables.
The upper half of the board has a clear protagonist as is the extended size double heatsink system that passively cools the VRM. In this case, the upper cover of the port panel is also part of the heatsink block, thus increasing the exchange surface and giving a further point of quality to the construction and finishes of the plate. These blocks are not joined by heatpipe , although their grooves and level distribution make heat dissipation very well.
The DIMM slots do not have metal reinforcement, although the main PCIe x16 slot does. To differentiate the modules paired by Dual Channel, the connectors will be differentiated by color. As for the two full-format PCIe slots , they will have extended block tabs to improve accessibility. The integrated sound card area does not have a decorative cover, although the codec is isolated with an EMI shield so there is no interference of any kind.
This TUF certification ensures that the board will offer maximum durability and stability for our hardware. Of course , aluminum heatsinks have been added to cool the three present M.2 slots, although one of them will be common for the two lower connections. We really liked the cover that has been placed on the chipset heatsink, and on two of the SATA ports, giving a rather original touch to the board.
At the level of connections and on-board accesses, it is obviously not on par with the high-end models, and for example we do not have a Debug LED panel, internal interaction buttons or on the back panel like the Clear CMOS that would have been. a necessary introduction to the previous generation. In any case, we have EZ Flash function in BIOS for easy upgrade from USB drive.
Yes, we will have a post start panel, as well as 6 PWM / DC headers to connect fans or external RL pump, managed with the Fan Xpert 4 tool . With the help of the Asus suite of programs such as Armory Crate, MyAsus, AI Suite 3 or Turbo LAN, we can do a complete management of this board at the level of higher models. We will have implemented the Two-Way AI Noise Cancellation function in the sound part to improve the experience in broadcasts or chats while we play.
VRM and power phases
We now continue studying the power configuration of this Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi board , which will consist of 14 + 2 + 1 power phases , 14 of them will be for the Vcore and another 2 for the SoC. They will be powered by an 8-pin and a 4-pin EPS header , with solid ProCool contacts , although in this case without metal encapsulation.
The DC-DC conversion stage for Vcore and SoC will add 16 MOSFETS On Semiconductor NCP302150 , with a nominal capacity of 50A and high, low states and drivers in the same package (DrMOS). Along with them we have another SiC639 MOSFET to make up the 17 phases present. The digital control of these phases is carried out through a DIGI + ASP 1900B EPU , which will provide advanced control for the user from the BIOS.
The signal smoothing stage is completed with military certified TUF chokes and TUF capacitors that withstand up to 20% more temperature tolerance and 5 times longer service life (5000 h). In any case, the high-end plates will have elements of a higher category of course. The energy will be transported thanks to thick copper tracks distributed in the 6 layers that make up this plate.
Socket, chipset and RAM capacity
This Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi board with LGA 1200 socket will be compatible with 11th generation Intel Rocket Lake processors, 10th generation Intel Comet Lake, as well as Pentium Gold and Celeron with the same architecture and 14nm die . This socket will allow installing heatsinks that are also compatible with socket 1151 of previous generations.
The Z590 chipset is an upgrade compared to the Z490 that also repeats capacity with 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes and DMI 3.0 interface in the communication between CPU and chipset. It supports up to 14 USB 2.0 or equivalent in later generations, Thunderbolt 4, 2.5G LAN or Wi-Fi 6E natively. To these lanes will be added the 20 PCIe 4.0 that have the Rocket Lake processors, making a total of 44 and thus exceeding the capacity of the AMD Ryzen + X570.
This motherboard will support up to 128 GB of DDR4 RAM with a maximum clock rate of 5133 MHz . This will be thanks to supporting XMP 2.0 profiles and the Asus OptiMem II technology present in it. As always, the slots support Dual Channel, now adding joint CPU + RAM overclocking thanks to new features introduced by Intel’s 11th Gen processors.
Storage capacity and PCIe slots
This Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi has two PCIe slots in full format and another two in x1 format . There will be a total of 4 slots of which the manufacturer does not mention anything about MultiGPU capacity and the logo is not present on the back of the plate. The operation of these slots will be as follows:
- PCIEX16_1 will be the only slot connected to the CPU lanes, which means that it will use all 16 available in 4.0 or 3.0 mode depending on the processor installed. He does not share a bus with anyone else.
- The PCIEX16_2 slot is connected to the chipset lanes, and it will only work at x4 in 3.0 mode maximum. It also doesn’t seem to share lanes with other storage connections.
- PCIEX1_1 and 2 will be two slots connected to the chipset without sharing lanes, being able to work in x1 PCIe 3.0 mode.
For practical purposes, the capacity will be enough to install for example a dedicated GPU + Thunderbolt card + USB expansion cards, sound or 10G LAN. The lanes are used to the maximum, and without being shared, so that the user should not have any concern in the free use.
The storage configuration consists of 6 SATA III 6 Gbps ports and a total of 3 M.2 slots, two of them supporting size 22110 and one 2280. They feature high-performance passive heatsinks to meet the needs of Gen3 and Gen4 SSDs from great power. These slots operate as follows:
- 2_1 will be the slot closest to the socket in terms of layout on the board, and the one that is connected to the 4 Gen4 lanes of the Rocket Lake processors. This slot will be disabled with 10th Gen CPUs.
- 2_2 connects to the chipset, being able to work in Gen3 or SATA mode, and shares the bus with the SATA 2 port. This means that the port will only be disabled if we connect an M.2 SATA SSD in the slot.
- 2_3 is another slot connected to the chipset, although in this case it shares the bus with SATA ports 5 and 6. It is only compatible with PCIe SSD, and if it is used, both ports will be disabled.
We see that all the slots can be used without any limitation regarding the expansion slots. The SATA port limitation is also not a problem for almost any user, since it is unlikely to use all the capacity at the same time. SATA supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 from BIOS , and the full Intel Optane Memory set.
Network connectivity and sound card
We now continue to analyze the network connection capacity of this Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi . First, we will have an Intel I225-V chip, which supports 2.5 Gbps of bandwidth.
An Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 wireless network card is added to it , that is, it will not be the 6E version that is present in the top Asus boards starting with the ROG Strix Z590-A. It will therefore be the dual band version with a capacity of 2.4 Gbps on the 5 GHz frequency and 574 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz frequency.
The sound card consists of a Realtek S1200A codec , a version customized by Asus of the standard ALC1200 codec. In it we have a TUF Gaming package as EMI protection for the chip and an improved signal-to-noise ratio. Supports 108 dB SNR on stereo output and 103 dB SNR on line input , always with high-quality Japanese capacitors. As we have already discussed, it is compatible with Asus’ own AI ANC, available in Armory Crate software. And it also has a full 5 Jack and S / PDIF patch panel.
I / O ports and internal connections
The ports that we have available on the rear panel of the Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi will be the following:
- 1x PS / 2 keyboard and mouse combo
- 2x USB 2.0 (black)
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (blue)
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (green)
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C
- DisplayPort 1.4
- HDMI 2.0b
- RJ-45 LAN 2.5 Gbps
- 2x 2T2R antenna outputs
- 5x 3.5mm Jack
- S / PDIF for digital audio
At this point we believe that a PS / 2 is a mere resource to fill space on the panel, and it is useless. At least two or four extra USB 2.0 ports may well have been placed, since 7 connections seem a bit fair for a Z590 motherboard, even if it is considered mid-range. At least we do have a 20 Gbps port , and 4 interfaces above 5 Gbps.
It seems that this board has not included a Clear CMOS button on the panel, continuing the trend from previous generations to reserve these functions for more expensive boards. It is a nice touch to have two video ports and the complete audio panel, which will give us a lot of play to take advantage of the motherboard’s capabilities.
Internal connectivity is completed with the following elements:
- 6x 4-pin PWN / DC headers for fans (1 compatible with water pump)
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 connector for Type-C port
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 connectors (supports up to 2 ports)
- 2x USB 2.0 connectors (supports up to 4 ports)
- 2x 5VDG AURA Sync Gen 2 Headers
- 2x 12VRGB AURA RGB Header
- AAFP audio header
- Boot panel
- Header for COM port
- Thunderbolt expansion card header
- Jumper Clear CMOS
BIOS and extra functions
The BIOS of this TUF Gaming starts from a design identical to the rest of Asus boards, although in this case with a custom skin for this board based on the black color. Likewise, the available options will be the same, with the corresponding cuts in connectivity, overclocking and VRM issues.
It will be added tools such as fan management by Fan Xpert 4 for fan control or RL , EZ Flash BIOS update and new additions such as fast activation of Resizable BAR or integration with programs such as MyAsus or Crate. Always one of the best that Asus has on their motherboards, and it will also shine in this mid-range for its good optimization.
Final Words
TUF plates are still one of the best choices for the mid-range , both for performance and for their quality in construction and price. In this case, the good optimization of the BIOS in voltages and stability against overclocking with our 11900K, a CPU that is not too big for anything, is very remarkable .
We also have very good internal connectivity with 4 PCIe slots that do not share lanes and another 3 M.2 of which one will support Gen4 SSD if we use Rocket Lake CPU. We only miss more presence of USB ports on the rear panel , and at least a couple or 4 more would be appreciated by users with setup gamer.
This Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi appears for a price of 245 euros , which would be 15 euros more than the price with which the Z490 was launched. Thus, it is confirmed that each year the figures rise more, how far will they plan to go? There are no boards with this chipset below 200 euros, so we must consider it one of the best within the platform.
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