The Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X is the motherboard that could meet all your high standards on a budget.
If you are using an older processor, this is the motherboard for you if you don’t have money to burn. Of course, this is also a good alternative to overclock a Core i9 although you have to have an extra cooler for it.
The Z390 Gaming X is sold for only $150. Compare that with the MSI MPG Gaming Pro is sold for $240 for the regular price although you can cop one right now at Newegg for a special price of $190. That will save you $50 if you act now.
Besides, the price difference between the Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X and the MSI Gaming Pro is not that wide. You just add another $40 and upgrade to the MSI motherboard.
The Gigabyte Z390 Gaming SLI is perhaps one of the best motherboards out there in terms of performance. However, that one costs $240 on Amazon, so you settle for the next best thing if you have no extra money.
And that’s what the Z390 Gaming X is for.
Based on appearance alone, there’s no difference between the Gaming X and the Gaming SLI. Although upon closer look, the center slot and the metal covering are missing. Also, the length of the lower slot is changed from the x16 to x1. But that won’t be a problem at all because the bottom slot of the pricier model only features two lanes.
The middle slot of the Z390 Gaming X also has four lanes. But this could actually be an advantage because you can stuff a PCIe x 4 card in there.
This motherboard supports the 8th-Gen and the 9th Gen Intel chip. It manages to do this by using a 10+2 phase PWM design. This practically doubled the previous 5 phases.
However, if ASUS is to be believed, its X570 motherboards are vastly superior to what MSI and Gigabyte can offer. The company boasts that it’s the only one using a 6-layer PCB technology. This allows the motherboard to cool down the PCB by as much as 30 Celsius degrees. Compare that to the MSI and Gigabyte’s 4-Layer PCB tech, which generate 75.7 and 86.5 Celsius degrees, respectively. The 6-layer PCB makes it ideal for both overlocking and thermal cooling.
