ASUS TUF GAMING Z590-PLUS WiFi

The TUF series is changing! It used to be a board based on resilience, performance, and budget! Well, these days are gone!

We are now dealing with a proper premium board! In its make, its features, its power delivery, and… its pricing!

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PCB

We are dealing with a 6 layered PCB ATX motherboard. Totally expected from a PCIe 4.0 enabled motherboard. Having more PCB layers (typically only 4) adds PCIe signal isolation which will allow a stable PCIe 4.0 support.

It also will benefit VRM heat dissipation and audio quality. Obviously, a very solid foundation for a performant and durable motherboard.

LGA 1200

Our LGA1200 socket can support :

• 10 the Gen Intel CORE CPU
• 11 the Gen Intel CORE CPU

Worth noting only the incoming 11^th gen Intel CORE CPU is PCIe 4.0 enabled which has its importance since it will feed our several components with double the bandwidth the PCIe 3.0 can.

The chipset fed components will remain PCIe 3.0 only compliant in any cases.

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VRM

This is where ASUS really did well!

It has nothing to do with its predecessors, and truly is an unprecedent leap forward.
We have 17 50 AMPS CPU-centric powers stages, and 2 50 AMPS SOC power stages, for a grand total of 850 AMPS.

That’s a whooping 700 AMPS worth of juice to power our processor. Obviously more, much more than you would ever need to power even the most over-clocked Intel processor at all times.

VRM Cooling

We have two massive double-contact heat-sinks.
Probably the biggest one I have seen on TUF series.

It shows impressively wide walls which will help conducting more heat towards the radiating roof.

But I specially like the fact that the entire IO roof is in fact made of aluminum and provides an extended radiating solution to this muscled-up VRM!

Finally, I want to note the double-contact design introduced by ASUS on B550 powered motherboards.
Both chokes and power stages have a thermo-padded contact to the heat-sinks, allowing a higher heat dissipation ratio.
A simple, inexpensive, but effective solution!

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TEMPS

It results in one of the coolest VRM on the market.

After torturing my i9-10 900K for hours and of synthetic test, the VRM block never reached 55c. Needless to say, remarkable achievement for nearly 1000 Watts of heat output.

Either for heavy gamer or, content creator, a similar configuration will never experience such heavy loads as produced here. Therefore, it is safe to assume that a comparable build will probably never go beyond the 45c mark.

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RAM

The TUF GAMING Z590 PLUS WiFi can support up to 128 GB of DDR4 ram in a dual channel configuration.

It is overclockable up to a novel 5,133 GHz ( in a single DIMM configuration ) which is noticeably more than its Z490 predecessor (333 MHz more).

This clock-jump is explained by the better memory-clock support of the new Z590 chipset (jumping from 2,933 MHz to 3,233 MHz of native support).

Populating more memory slots will result in slower shared clocks :

• 1DPC 1R max speed 5133 MHZ
• 1DPC 2R max speed 4400 MHZ
• 2DPC 1R max speed 4000 MHZ
• 2DPC 2R max speed 3800 MHZ

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M.2 SSD

Our board can support up-to 3 M.2 SSD. But there is a catch!

Couple this board with a 10th Gen Intel CORE CPU, and ‘only’ two M.2 SSD connectors will be usable, at PCIe 3.0 standard, meaning up to 32 Gb/s each.

But if coupled with a 11th GEN Intel CORE CPU, your board can now support up-to 3 M.2 SSDs, 1 of which can transfer data at PCIe 4.0 bandwidth levels, meaning up to a whooping 64 Gbs.

Obviously this will produce quite a bit of heat, and ASUS the same thermal obsession it showed on this board VRM.

Both of our M.2 SSDs heat-shield are absolutely massive.
Obviously, more than enough to keep your PCIe 4.0 enable stick away from ever thermo-throttling.

A special mention for our 3rd and fourth M.2 SSDs which do share the same long heat-shield.

Now let’s talk about some real innovation. ASUS has chosen its TUF series to introduce a tool-less M.2 SSD locking system which I personally LOVE!

Simple to use, quick to install. I am absolutely excite about it, and wonder why this feature did not find itself in the more expensive ROG series.

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Chipset

Despite many early reports, the Z590 Chipset does not house any PCIe 4.0 lanes. Instead it has the same 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes as seen on its Z490 predecessor.
In addition it can redirect the 11th Gen Intel CORE CPU 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes to some of the board components ( on this board, two PCIe 16 exports and two M.2 SSD connectors).

Is it a band thing? Not necessarily.

One one hand it keeps our chipset cold enough not to require an active cooling solution as seen on the boiling 11 watts X570 chipset, and on the other, the motherboard still benefits from the PCIe 4.0 standard brought in by its CPU.

As a result, we have a cooler, more affordable and arguably more durable motherboard.

The upgraded we know of are, most noticeably,

• an upgrade DMI link which allows x8 PCI-e lane (8 GB/s) data swap between the chipset and the CPU. That is double what we have seen on the past few generations of Z powered motherboards.
  Something which definitely benefit the overall bandwidth capacity of our board.
• Thunderbolt 4.0
• More USB supports ( special note for the USB 3.2 dual channel 20 Gbs TYPE-C ).

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SATA 3.0

For more classical storage solutions, we have our usual SATA 3.0 plugs. 6 in total, with a transfer rate of 6 Gbps each. They can be configured to run into a 0,1, or 10 RAID configuration.

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PCIe Slots

The TUF GAMING Z590-PLUS WiFi has 4 PCIe expansion slots.:

• 2 16 lanes with different speeds
• 2 single Lanes PCIe

Only the closest one to your CPU can deliver up to 16 Lanes worth of bandwidth meaning, this is where you’d want your video card to be placed for optimal performances.

Our second16 slots is capped at 4 PCIe lanes, not exactly GPU friendly.

Coupled with a 10th Gen Intel CORE CPU, all of our PCIe slot will output bandwidth at a 1 GBs rate (PCIE 3.0 standard).

But if coupled with a 11th Gen. Intel CORE CPU, our first PCIe 16 slot can output PCIe 4.0 bandwidth levels meaning 2 GB/s per lane.

Worth noting that, with the current bandwidth outputs of AMD or Nvidia graphics cards, there are no performance gains between PCIe 3 or PCIe 4 standards.
It is great for future proofing (and marketing), but that’s about it .

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Back IO

First let me note the presence of an IO integrated plate which is always a good point!

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Front Panel Connectors

We have :

• 2x 2^nd gen USB front panel connectors , good for our AIO pumps, or PSU monitoring,
• 1x 5Gbs USB 3.2 (1st Gen) front panel Connector
• 1x 5Gbs USB 3.2 (2nd Gen) TYPE-C front panel Connector

Overall a well furnished board-based peripherals in par with its pricing.

Cooling connectors

We have 6 nested PWM FAN connectors, 1 of which can support a water pump (AIO or dedicated).

Definitely what you want to see on an enthusiast driven board. It can handle about any cooling solutions you will throw at it. Spanning from the classic air to the eccentric dual-loop custom water cooling apparatus.

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TROUBLESHOOTING

EZ Debugger

The EZ debugger is really the a must-have on PCIe 4.0 enabled boards. More often than not, enthusiasts can’t resist the call to find their RAM or CPU overclocking limits, and fail boots becomes a daily incidence.

The EZ debugger will give us a first-aide troubleshooting guidance one what stage of the boot your system failed.

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AURA Sync Effect

RGB wise, the TUF Z590-GAMING PLUS WiFi has 2 nested RGB strips :

Placed on both extremities of the PCB board

In addition we also have 4 RGB connectors :

• 2 classic AURA RGB Connectors
• 2 Addressable AURA RGB Connectors

All of the above are obviously fully customizable (and sync-able) though ASUS proprietary AURA software or ARMOURY Crate.

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CONCLUSION

At about 260 USD the TUF GAMING Z590-Plus Wifi is about 60 bucks more than its Z490 predecessor, and the all question is: is it worth it?

Obviously, if you are already rocking a Z490 powered motherboard, since it will support 11^th gen CPUS and PCie 4.0 standard, short answer is no,

But if that is not your case, well yes!!!

It is hard to transpire how much in love I felt with this board.
The VRM, the generous and efficient cooling components, the overall engineering quality, this has nothing to do with previous iterations of this board.

I cannot underline enough what a genius move that M.2 SSD locking system is!
No more screws to lose, a more robust design. This feature excites every cell in the reviewer that I am.
My only question is, why was this feature not adopted in much more expensive ASUS motherboards like the ROG MAXIMUS XIII Hero!

In short, the TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WiFi shows off a balance between power, premium engineering, pricing and innovation, rarely seen in any motherboard.. in a very very long time.

I’d risk myself to say, that it could be the best motherboard I have reviewed at that price range up to this date!

If you are a gamer, and enthusiast builder or even an insane overclock… well frankly talking… you would be a fool to put your money anywhere else!!! And that is not something I say about every board who goes through my desk.

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