Here are the winners of the Digit Zero1 and Best Buy Awards for the Best Performing Intel Mainstream Z790 motherboards of 2022
The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 EXTREME bagged the Digit Zero1 Award 2022 in this category amidst fierce competition
The MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 clinched the Digit Best Buy Award 2022 for offering the best price-to-performance ratio
Intel maintained backwards compatibility between the recent two generations of platforms with their processors. So both, 12th Gen and 13th Gen processors are compatible with Z690 and Z790 motherboards. There are barely any improvements between the two platforms so there’s really no need for anyone to upgrade from a Z690 platform to Z790 platform. The only difference is the way PCIe lanes are segmented. The Z790 motherboards ship with 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU and 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the chipset, whereas the older Z690 had 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the chipset and 12 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU. Essentially, more fast lanes are available on Z790 motherboards compared to Z690 motherboards and that allows motherboard manufacturers to play around with a lot more storage and connectivity options. The Raptor Lake processors also have double the efficiency cores on the processors which needs a bit more power from the motherboard and that’s also been incorporated onto the Z790 designs.
Digit Zero1 Award 2022 Winner: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 EXTREME
Price: ₹98,999
An overclocker’s delight, the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 EXTREME is loaded to the brim with features that a professional overclocker would dream of. There are tonnes of options to tweak every parameter under the sun that matters in helping get the absolute most out of your processor. The price is quite high but the feature set is practically unmatched by any of the other boards that came to us. It has 10 GbE port, validation with very high speed memory kits, teamed VRM circuit, top-notch DAC for the audio, a detailed BIOS with exhaustive set of options and more. Everything about the board, from the feature set to the build quality to the vast array of connectivity options, all boast of the best that the platform has to offer and for that, it wins this year’s Zero1 Award.
1st Runner Up: GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS MASTER
Price: ₹54,999
The MASTER series of motherboards from AORUS make for one of the top-most motherboards from GIGABYTE. It boasts of a 20+1+2 power phase design for the VRM making it excellent for providing a clean and steady source of power for the most powerful processors from the Intel 13th Gen lineup. There is a tonne of aluminium shielding across the surface of the motherboard and a pretty dense set of cooling fins over the VRM circuitry. AORUS has done a great job of balancing out the connectivity options on this board and you get plenty of M.2 slots for all your storage needs. In our testing, the board was just a smidge behind the winner but that’s how motherboards usually are. The competition is intensely close and it simply comes down to how efficiently the different components speak to each other.
Digit Best Buy Award 2022 Winner: MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4
Price: ₹30,250
Opting for DDR5 is still an expensive venture. It’s not just the memory but even the motherboards that support DDR5 will spike your PC build cost by at least 6-10K. Getting a Z790 motherboard that offers most of the features that the DDR5 boards have without breaking the bank is what nets the MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 board the Best Buy Award this year. You still get PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU, the audio CODEC is top notch and there’s a 2.5 GbE port. For someone hoping to get onto the Z790 platform, this is a great board to buy.
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Mithun Mohandas
Mithun Mohandas is an Indian technology journalist with 10 years of experience covering consumer technology. He is currently employed at Digit in the capacity of a Managing Editor. Mithun has a background in Computer Engineering and was an active member of the IEEE during his college days. He has a penchant for digging deep into unravelling what makes a device tick. If there's a transistor in it, Mithun's probably going to rip it apart till he finds it. At Digit, he covers processors, graphics cards, storage media, displays and networking devices aside from anything developer related. As an avid PC gamer, he prefers RTS and FPS titles, and can be quite competitive in a race to the finish line. He only gets consoles for the exclusives. He can be seen playing Valorant, World of Tanks, HITMAN and the occasional Age of Empires or being the voice behind hundreds of Digit videos. View Full Profile
