“Z790 Motherboard Round-Up: Testing 17 High-End Options for Intel’s Core i9 13900KS”

The requirements for motherboards are getting higher and higher. This certainly applies to Intel’s latest top model, the Core i9 13900KS, which goes towards 400W under full load. It is therefore not surprising that manufacturers have really enjoyed their Z790 motherboards. We have tested no fewer than seventeen of these.

Z790 vs. Z690 and B760

The thirteenth generation Core processors use the same socket 1700 as the twelfth generation. So you can mix and match those CPUs and the motherboards from the 600 and 700 series. Especially for the high-end chipset, however, the latest option has a significant advantage: the significantly increased bandwidth of the PCIe 4.0 lanes from the chipset. There were 12 with Z690 and there are now 20 with Z790, allowing motherboard manufacturers to provide more high-speed M.2 slots and use additional controllers (Thunderbolt, 10GbE, and so on).

In the table below I have listed all the differences between the Z790, Z690 and B760 chipsets. Compared to Z690, the increased number of PCIe 4.0 lanes from the chipset is most striking. In addition, Z790 has an additional 20Gbit/s USB port. Compared to the B760, you can of course overclock the processor with the Z790, which you can do with AMD with a B-series motherboard, and the total bandwidth between the CPU and the chipset is twice as high. The latter is not so much relevant for the amount of connections or possibilities, but determines the maximum speed if you want to use all those things at the same time.

The main differences between the Intel Z790, Z690 and B760 chipsets

Test participants

In total, we received no less than seventeen Z790 motherboards for this test. Fortunately, unlike our X670 round-up, MSI is also present again. All boards in the test use DDR5 memory. Quite logical, because you don’t buy a Z790 motherboard if the price of your system is the most important thing to you, although DDR4 versions are also available for some models.