Over the previous six months we have checked out a diversified number of Z590 motherboards. Whereas most of those have been within the mid-range to premium class, at the moment we are having a look at a extra modest and cost-effective Z590 mannequin. The Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E sits towards the decrease finish of ASRock’s Z590 choices. It combines a diversified function set that features 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, Intel’s newest Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, three M.2 slots, all whereas adopting a singular city camouflaged PCB design. We give the Z590 Metal Legend our consideration and see if funds Z590 has its limitations or if it is cash nicely spent.
ASRock Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E Overview
The Intel Z590 chipset has over 50 motherboards for customers to pick from, and whereas the method of elimination may be performed by narrowing down the sector on options, pricing, and aesthetics, there’s nonetheless so much to take a look at. One of many questions many customers could also be asking themselves is, does spending $600 on a motherboard make a lot distinction from spending $200-250? The quick reply by way of default efficiency is not likely, however the dearer board will usually have extra premium options to make use of. The extra budget-friendly fashions usually make sure sacrifices on all of the extras.
One motherboard that’s positioned in the direction of the decrease finish of the Z590 pricing construction is the ASRock Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E ($200), with a regular Z590 Metal Legend mannequin additionally accessible with out Wi-Fi 6E for a barely decrease value ($190). One attention-grabbing aspect to the Metal Legend, which is considered one of ASRock’s newest motherboard ranges and solely debuted in 2019, is the design. ASRock has opted for an city camouflaged styled PCB, with a light-weight theme all through, together with silver and gray heatsinks and components of customizable RGB LEDs for customers to create their very own look. The query is that if to get the look there was a compromise in element high quality. That is what this evaluation desires to take a look at.
The ASRock Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E with ASRock’s Patent Pending graphics card holder
Among the most outstanding options of the Z590 Metal Legend Wi-Fi 6E are within the mannequin title; it contains Intel’s newest Wi-Fi 6E CNVi and premium Realtek 2.5 gigabit Ethernet. Different notable components of the function set embrace a budget-friendly however greater than succesful Realtek HD audio codec, and loads of growth assist within the IO. There’s room to make use of USB 3.2 G2x2 Kind-C on this board, however customers might want to use a entrance panel header, and ASRock contains two USB 3.2 G2 ports on the rear panel: one Kind-C and one Kind-A.
Taking a look at extra of what the Metal Legend for Rocket Lake has in its locker, it has two full-length PCIe slots, one working at PCIe 4.0 x16 and the opposite locked all the way down to PCIe 3.0 x4 powered by the chipset. For customers taking a look at extra networking or an upgraded PCIe sound card, ASRock supplies three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. There’s room for 3 M.2 drives for storage, with one providing assist for the quickest PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe based mostly drives, whereas the opposite two take lanes from the chipset and have assist for PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA drives. That is usually the dynamic on Z590 fashions, with cheaper Z590 ATX sized boards sacrificing a PCIe 4.0 slot to save lots of on value.
Digesting the efficiency ranges with the ASRock Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E when mixed with our Intel Core i9-11900K processor, it carried out respectably in our gaming assessments. Nevertheless, it did lag behind different Z590 fashions in a few of our heavier computational assessments. In our system testing, it did take the longest to POST into Home windows from all of the Z590 fashions we have examined to this point, however in our energy consumption testing, it confirmed itself to be one of many extra power-efficient fashions.
The ASRock Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E present process our VRM thermal testing
With reference to overclocking on the ASRock, we noticed a combined bag of outcomes. Regardless of with the ability to overclock our testbed Core i9-11900K to five.2 GHz secure, with no thermal throttling in play, we seen the board’s VDroop management to behave a bit extra erratically than we might have favored. To offer an instance, once we enter 5.1 GHz and 1.325 V to the CPU VCore within the BIOS, at full-load, the CPU core voltage would hit 1.404 V, which is an overshoot of round 5%; we all know our processor is able to 5.1 GHz with 1.30 V on the CPU VCore on a few of the dearer boards. In our VRM thermal testing, we additionally noticed that the built-in VRM temperature sensor was inaccurate, as we noticed temperatures starting from 87 to 88ºC on our pair of Okay-Kind thermocouples.
Trying on the $200 to $250 worth level within the Z590 market, there are fairly a number of fashions in competitors with the Metal Legend, together with ASRock’s personal Z590 Extreme4 WiFi 6E ($248), GIGABYTE’s Z590 Aorus Elite AX ($220, the MSI MAG Z590 Torpedo ($236), and the ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus ($240). Whereas many of the aforementioned boards embrace comparable specs and core options, the ASRock bucks the pattern within the worth level and contains Intel’s Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, which is an enormous plus for ASRock within the options versus value equation. The ASRock Z590 Metal Legend WiFi 6E instructions an honest place in a really stacked market, however it is time to see the way it stacks up by way of efficiency.
Learn on for our prolonged evaluation.