Asrock z390 steel legend review in Spanish (full analysis)

ASRock Z390 Steel Legend is one of ASRock's new creations for the Z390 chipset and compatibility with 8th and 9th generation Intel CPUs. It supports up to 128 GB of RAM at 4266 MHz and offers dual ultra M.2 connectivity with aluminum heatsinks. As well as abundant Polychrome RGB lighting, reinforced PCie slots and an impressive design in the purest military style.

Let's see everything that this Z390 board offers us with our 9900K, so let's start immediately.

But first, we must thank ASRock for the assignment of this board to be able to do our in-depth analysis.

ASRock Z390 Steel Legend technical characteristics

Unboxing

We already had two Steel Legend versions from ASRock for the B450 chipset in both ATX and Micro-ATX sizes. And the truth is that we also asked for an evolution for this Z390 and here we have it, possibly one of the most ornate plates with ASRock design.

And as always, we will have to start with the Unboxing of this ASRock Z390 Steel Legend. A plate that is presented to us in a double wrapping, first a flexible cardboard box that serves as decoration, where we see brand and model together with a very nice and striking color vinyl print with that decoration in urban camouflage.

On the back we have information along with photographs of this motherboard, specifically its lighting, heatsinks for the M.2, ports and other technical elements such as VRM and socket.

Then we extract the first box to find the main one, made of thick, completely black cardboard with a box-type opening. Inside we have the plate wrapped in an antistatic plastic bag and in a polyethylene foam mold fixed with clips.

And just below it, we have the rest of the accessories and elements of the bundle, which consist of:

• ASRock Z390 Steel Legend motherboard Back panel plate Two SATA data cables Three screws for M.2 CD-ROM drives with drivers and software Instruction manual

Good, more or less the usual, right? In this case , the Crossfire cable or any RGB connector are not included. Without further ado, let's look at the design and specifications of the board.

Design and specifications

Undoubtedly one of the most striking sections of this board is the aesthetic, it is not that it has too many technical innovations compared to other Z390 of upper-middle range, but the aesthetic deserves a place among the best. And not only for colors, but also for those two areas cut in the SATA port panel and the top area that improve the ergonomics of the board.

The entire visible face of the PCB is screen printed in gray and white colors, thus forming a framework in urban camouflage that covers the entire area. In turn, it has been decided to incorporate a double aluminum heatsink for the M.2 and chipset, along with a large one for the main VRM that covers the entire area of ​​the port panel.

We take advantage of the rear area to see that this area also has a gray finish that protects the electricity tracks and better the appearance of the different welds in the larger grooves.

ASRock has used a high-density glass fabric for the internal structure of the PCB, which allows to better separate the different layers of circuits to avoid shorts and interference in the data channel. For the purposes of weight and touch, the truth is that it is a very rigid plate as well as light due to these materials.

Well, if we look at the area where the "Steel Legend" screenprint is placed, we see a series of elements online. This is nothing more than RGB lighting that extends practically to the bottom.

On the upper area we have already anticipated that there is also RGB lighting, which, like the rear, is compatible with ASRock Polychrome RGB technology in the chipset area. In addition to what has been seen, it is a plate with standard measurements of 305 mm high by 244 mm wide, that is, a completely normal ATX format. The only curiosity is that, due to the cut in the upper part, that screw will not be possible to place it and the corner will remain relatively unprotected.

We take advantage of these images to talk more about the VRM and the necessary power of the ASRock Z390 Steel Legend. And starting with the VRM, a total of 8 power phases have been installed that are made up of ASRock CHOKES Premium 60A Super Alloy that will allow us to obtain a more stable Vcore in case we increase the power of CPUs as powerful as our Intel Core i9-9900K. And another important element of the VRM are the capacitors, which in this case are Nichicon 12K that ensure a life of 12, 000 hours of useful life.

And this good VRM will be powered thanks to the traditional 24-pin ATX connector, along with another exclusive 8-pin EPS for processor as we already know. In addition, we see scattered throughout the area of ​​DIMM slots some extra power phases exclusively dedicated to RAM, something interesting and that demonstrates its good quality.

Another critical and always important element is the socket and DIMM slots. This board is new generation, so its LGA 1151 socket offers us compatibility with 8th and 9th generation Intel processors, both the Core family and the new Celeron and Pentium G that are coming out. Although surely no one in their right mind would place one of these by having the most powerful chipset in the range, the Intel Z390 Express with its 24 PCI LANES and capacity of up to 14 USB seats.

We already know that the north bridge is included by Intel CPUs, so a total of four DDR4 DIMM slots have been arranged without steel reinforcement, but that support a total of 128 GB of RAM memory at 4266 MHz. Of course in a Dual Channel configuration and with the activation of XMP profiles for the factory overclocking of the modules.

And in the meantime heatsink, we may be able to take a closer look at the PCI-Express slots offered by ASRock Z390 Steel Legend. And in this case we have two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, one of them being the main one, reinforced by steel plates. We must know that only the main one has the 16 Lanes for the installation of graphics cards, while the other will work at x4. Supports AMD CrossFire two-way x16 / x4 configurations .

In addition, three other PCIe x1 slots (small ones) are included for the installation of USB hubs or regular expansion cards. Of course, none of them have steel reinforcement.

Before looking at the storage capacity, it will be necessary to remove the different heatsinks from the ASRock Z390 Steel Legend board. And the truth is that ASRock has done a great job here by putting integral heatsinks on both the chipset and the two main M.2 slots.

To remove them, what we will have to do is unscrew four screws in the chipset area and two in the M.2 considered main or larger. All of them have an integrated thermal pad and previously protected with a plastic, which we will have to remove when installing the M.2 unit.

And this is how we will obtain a total capacity to connect two M.2 units on this board. Which may be under the fastest interface, PCIe x4 under NVMe protocol, offering us a maximum speed of 4000 MB / s in its four LANES, and also in SATA III configuration at 600 MB / s. The first slot (M2_1) offers us capacity for 2230/2242/2260/2280/22110 units, while the second (M2_2) will be 2230/2242/2260/2280, both compatible with Intel Optane and ASRock U.2 Kit..

We also do not forget the 6 SATA III 6 Gbps ports compatible with Intel Rapid Storage, NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug. We must always know the limitations that each manufacturer imposes on their SATA storage, and in this case there are several:

• If M2_1 is occupied by a SATA, the SATA 1 connector (normal) will be disabled If M2_2 is occupied by a SATA drive, the SATA 5 connector will be disabled AND if M2_2 is occupied by a PCIe drive, the SATA port 0 will be disabled

We leave here the diagram of elements and their numbering. This of course comes all explained in the manual.

And we have not yet talked about the sound card or the network connectivity that ASRock Z390 Steel Legend offers us, although the truth is that it is nothing out of the ordinary in this range.

We start with the network, saying that at the factory it offers an Intel I219 Giga PHY chip of 10/100/1000 Mb / s. We can also place Wi-Fi connectivity thanks to the M.2 M-Key slot compatible with Intel CNVi AC cards, for example, the 1550i. Obviously we would have to buy it separately.

Regarding the sound card, we have a Realtek ALC 1200 Audio Codec chip with good features. It offers 7.1 sound with S / PDIF connector and also includes a dedicated 110 dB SNR DAC with two individual capes for the left and right channels, and Nichicon Fine pop filter.

With the backplate placed in the port panel, let's see that we are facing external connectivity in ASRock Z390 Steel Legend:

• 2x USB 2.02x USB 3.1 Gen1 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C 1x PS / 2 mouse or keyboard 1x HDMI1x DisplayPort 1.21x RJ-455x audio connectors and micro1x optical S / PDIF Fi

The truth is that it is a very complete connectivity, we even have gaps in case we want to install the aforementioned Intel CNVi card with the two corresponding antennas. It is also true that there are not too many USB, the typical number of a mid-range board and this should not be the case.

But it is also worth listing the connectors that we have available internally on the board, since they will help us increase the number of peripherals, lighting and ventilation of the chassis.

• TPM1x connector addressable LED header2x RGB headers5x connectors for ventilation / pumpFront panel audio connectorConnector for AIC Thunderbolt2x headers for USB 2.02x headers for USB 3.1 Gen1

testing bench

We will use a second test bench configuration in which the following hardware has been chosen:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-9900K
Base plate:	ASRock Z390 Steel Legend
Memory:	16 GB G.Skill Sniper X
Heatsink	Corsair H100i Platinum SE
HDD	Adata SU750
Graphic card	Asus ROG Strix GTX 1660 Ti
Power supply	Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W

BIOS

The BIOS of the ASRock Z390 Steel Legend, is presented to us with a look consistent with the exterior design of the motherboard, although it respects practically the same structure as the latest brand name plates. An extremely simple interface, based on drop-down menus and different languages, although as always, the best translation will be that of English.

Of course it supports firmware update via ASRock EZ, and features options such as overclocking profiling and user-friendly setup. In addition to a favorites section and another specially dedicated to ASRock Polychrome RGB lighting. The truth is that manufacturers are increasingly making BIOS more complete and detailed, and above all, very easy to use in terms of advanced configuration and overclocking capacity.

Management software

ASRock also has a management software for some elements of its motherboards called A-Tuning. This software will be obtained directly from the download panel on the page where the board is presented.

Basically we find five different sections, among the most important are complete overclocking management, although in this case the assignment of the LLC profile type is missing, very important for stability. We also highlight the really complete hardware monitoring panel, showing real-time information, and the configuration of the ventilation profiles.

And we still have some more, for example, the small Restart to UEFI software, to directly access the BIOS after a PC restart. ASRock Polychrome Sync, for lighting management from Windows, and ASRock APP Shop, which is basically software that allows us to update the different drivers of the board and install applications sponsored by the brand.

Overclocking, consumption and temperatures

And the truth is that, in this sense, we expected a little more from this board, especially in overclocking due to its powerful VRM. With this 8-core, 16-wire i9-9900K CPU, we've managed to hit a stable 4.9 GHz frequency 24/7 with a voltage of 1.35 V.

At higher frequencies such as 5 GHz and in the circumstances that have arisen, we have not managed to obtain that stability, since due to the temperatures of the VRM the performance was automatically lowered.

The temperatures obtained have been an average during 12 hours of stress with the Prime95 software with the stock CPU, in overclocking at 4.9 GHz and relaxed. Similarly, we have obtained power measurements under the same circumstances, and also adding Furmark to the GTX 1660 Ti graphics card.

Temperature	Relaxed stock	Full stock	Overclocking 4.9 GHz @ 1.35 V
ASRock Z390 Steel Legend + Core i9-9900K	28 o C	63 o C	70 o C
VRM	32 o C	97.1 o C	107 o C

Consumed potence	Relaxed stock	Full stock	Overclocking 4.9 GHz @ 1.35 V
ASRock Z390 Steel Legend + Core i9-9900K + GTX 1660 Ti	38 W	276 W	301 W

In addition, we have benchmarked during the overclocking process with Cinebench R15 to see how far this CPU has been able to go.

Final words and conclusion about ASRock Z390 Steel Legend

Without a doubt the ASRock Z390 Steel Legend may be one of the most aesthetically impressive mid-high-end plates with Z390. Ideal for those users who are looking to mount a gaming PC with a decent budget and a good base CPU, since this board will allow you many years of performance without getting tired of seeing it.

Among its strengths we have a good heatsink system for M.2 drives and chipset, support for top 8th and 9th generation processors even with overclocking and a good management base behind with excellent software and BIOS. We also have support for Thunderbolt, U.2 and CNVi Wi-Fi cards.

We recommend reading the best motherboards on the market

The truth is that in performance tests we have been able to leave the 9900K stable at 4.9 GHz, which is no small feat, obtaining from it a great performance in pure processing, a symbol that the VRM is stable even under stress. Although we did not like much the temperatures of the feeding phases, so we recommend you compare them with other options on the market.

This motherboard will be officially launched at Computex 2019 at a price of __ euros, which is shaping up to be one of the most robust ASRock options in this range with Z390 and excellent features, with permission from the powerful ASRock Phanton Gaming 7, which also we have analyzed a few days ago. Is it emerging as one of your purchase options? Leave us a comment with your opinion on what you have seen in this review of the plate.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ GAMING DESIGN	- DOES NOT SUPPORT MODERATE OVERCLOCKING (AT LEAST WITH THIS CPU)
+ RGB LIGHTING AND GOOD M.2 REFRIGERATION AND CHIPSET	- GOOD REAR PANEL, BUT TWO MORE USB WOULD ROUND IT
+ COMPLETE BIOS AND SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT	- VRM HEATS ENOUGH DURING OVERCLOCKING
+ PERFORMANCE WITH HIGH-END CPU
+ SUPPORT FOR EXPANSION OF INTERNAL HARDWARE

The Professional Review team awards him the silver medal:

ASRock Z390 Steel Legend

COMPONENTS - 77%

REFRIGERATION - 70%

BIOS - 82%

EXTRAS - 81%

PRICE - 80%

78%