The Biostar Racing Z490GTN Review: $200 for Comet Lake mini-ITX
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on June 5, 2020 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Biostar
- Z490
- 10th Gen Core
- Comet Lake
- Z490GTN
BIOS
Biostar's Racing firmware features two primary modes, EZ mode and Advanced. To enter the advanced mode, users can press F7 to enter the advanced mode which opens up a host of options including overclocking with Biostars Tweaker menu. The firmware itself has a nice GUI, which has a black background with white text, while the advanced menu has a primarily dark grey background.
The advanced mode has six primary menus including main which displays basic information, the advanced section which contains all of the storage, and CPU configuration options. The chipset menu has options for the boards PCIe control and integrated graphics settings, while the Tweaker menu contains all the boards overclocking settings. This includes CPU setting including CPU ratio options, base clock options, voltage options and memory tweaking settings. The Z490GTN has its own Vivid LED DJ RGB utility within the firmware which is easy to use but has limited options compared with some vendors. With the latest version of the firmware, it also has an A.I Fan utility which allows users to set custom fan curves on the boards three 4-pin fan headers.
The Biostar firmware is very user friendly and follows the boards theme. Experienced tweakers and enthusiasts won’t find much in the way to tweak, but it does contain plenty of function with the basic Vivid DJ RGB utility which is a nice addition to Biostar’s firmware. All of the basics are present and overclocking a processor with this board is a simple task. It’s intuitive, well laid out, and it has all the necessary tools required to overclock both the CPU and memory.
Software
Accompanying the Biostar Racing Z490GTN is a small set of applications, which is spearheaded by the Biostar Racing GT software. This acts as the main hub and amalgamates software such as the Vivid LED DJ RGB utility, the A.I fan function, as well as a basic hardware monitor and basic processor overclocking functions.
The most prominent piece of software is the Biostar Racing GT utility which combines multiple pieces of software including A.I Fan, Vivid LED DJ, and Biostar's in Windows overclocking utility. The OC/OV sections allow users to perform basic overclocks on the Z490GTN with options for increasing the CPU core frequency in 100 MHz increments, as well as on the fly CPU Vcore voltage adjustment. The Vivid LED DJ offers RGB customization of the integrated RGB headers, while the A.I fan area allows users to set custom fan profiles, or use the three presets which include quiet, aggressive, or full-on.
Also included in the software bundle is a basic and archaic BIOS update utility which allows the board to be updated to the latest firmware via an online update, or through manually selecting a BIOS file. For users looking to make auditory adjustments, there is Realtek's Audio Manager which is a basic and fully functioning utility which allows users to make a variety of adjustments. These include environment based presets like padded cell and bathroom, as well as audio format options and basic room correction for multi-speaker setups. It's a budget board with a budget set of software, but it's functional and more than enough to deal with.
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DanNeely - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
The only chipset on the market that needs active cooling is the AMD 570, because PCIe 4.0 is a power hog.PeachNCream - Sunday, June 7, 2020 - link
Absolutely it will be fine. The vast majority of reasonably designed motherboards need no active cooling anywhere. The few that add them do so because of PCIe 4.0 (currently only an AMD side thing) or fans are slapped onto VRMs to hide poor design decision under the guise of "overclocker friendly voltage regulator cooling enhancements" so people throw more money at supposedly higher margin parts while feeling like they are somehow obtaining greater value that justifies the expenditure. Classic marketing is still alive and well because, despite generations of exposure to it, we haven't gotten much smarter about identifying and coping with it.eastcoast_pete - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
Thanks Gavin and Ian! Fully agree - way overpriced for what it has and can do.One suggestion, especially for boards that are likely to be used in an HTPC: please include the exact HDMI version supported (with specs) as well as any information on display port and Thunderbolt
capabilities, including, of course, complete absence of such features. Thanks!
As for the current state of affairs with Intel in the HTPC space: they are lucky that AMD has not made Renoir chips available for socketed mini-desktops, or they could kiss that market goodbye.
Slash3 - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
Socketed Renoir is on the way.lmcd - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
AM4 seems pretty big for ITX based on the ASRock board I have. This board might be bad but Intel should still have an upper hand, unless Comet Lake is bigger than past socket + chipset pairings?Deicidium369 - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
has the same HSF hole spacing - so about the same size - it's only 49 additional pinslmcd - Saturday, June 6, 2020 - link
I meant the chipset.eastcoast_pete - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
Unless I overlooked it, a review of AM4 mini ITX Boards would be interesting, if just for comparison. There are even a couple of x570 boards with PCIe 4.0 for about the price of this board here available, and they include Thunderbolt and WiFi connectivity, and a much better audio. However, my own preference would be for a cheaper B450 or 550 board for about half the price; that's enough for an HTPC setup.Spunjji - Monday, June 8, 2020 - link
How would a smaller socket+chipset give them the upper hand for HTPCs when Renoir offers better CPU performance for a given TDP and markedly superior graphics?AM4 might be "big for ITX", but that's irrelevant if you can still build an ITX system around it.
Operandi - Friday, June 5, 2020 - link
Looks like a pretty weak / inefficient VRM.Speaking of which if you are going to cover the VRM section of a board you need to go into more detail than simply stating the VRM configuration. 6+2 is almost meaningless when the quality of MOSFETS and drivers is what really determines how much power a board is capable of delivering and how efficient it will be. With the specs of the components involved and the layout along with some simple math is pretty easy to ballpark what a board is capable of.