Product Photos
The C9Z590-CGW arrived in a retail package, which is a typical flat box that looks similar to the one from the previous SUPERO motherboard series. The box contains everything we may need for installation. Inside, we can find a manual, driver’s DVD, I/O shield, cable stickers, WiFi antennas, SATA data cables, and screws for M.2 SSD.
I like the professional looks of the motherboard. It doesn’t look like a toy and doesn’t have any weird logos in every possible place. On the other hand, it also lacks RGB or ARGB connectors what is already a standard on gaming motherboards. The SUPERO logo has a white backlight and besides that, we can see a red light from the diagnostic display on the bottom of the motherboard.
Power design is about the same as in the C9Z490-PGW motherboard so it contains 12 phases, which proved to be strong enough to handle a 7GHz processor. For daily work, we can count that 5.2GHz on the i9-11900K processor will be more than possible. We can only worry about the CPU cooling as these new chips are running really hot and it’s hard to set anything above 5GHz.
The C9Z590-CGW doesn’t have any fans but it still runs cool. Looks like Supermicro/SUPERO team made good work with the design. The same situation was with the previously reviewed SUPERO motherboard which as one of not many higher series motherboards didn’t have any active cooling because it didn’t have to.
Even while the CPU is loaded to the limits, then there are no electric noises called “coil whine”. It sometimes happens on cheaper motherboards or more often on graphics cards but not on SUPERO motherboards.
The C9Z590-CGW is a well-equipped motherboard. It contains everything that higher competitive motherboards have and also some more like 10Gb/s LAN which is available only on the most expensive motherboards.
The motherboard also supports three M.2 PCIe sockets. One of them is in PCIe 4.0 x4 standard while the next two are PCIe 3.0 x4. All M.2 sockets and SATA ports give us a chance to configure RAID 0/1/5/10 what is maybe less popular in the last few years but still, a good option.
The C9Z590-CGW has two PCIe 4.0 x16 slots which are perfect for new graphics cards. I won’t hide that I wish to see a larger space between these slots as a single slot space is problematic if we wish to use two, higher-performance graphics cards. All of the new graphics cards are at least two or more slot thick. For example, the Radeon RX6800XT graphics card used for tests takes nearly three slots of space.
I’m glad to see the 10Gb/s LAN controller on the motherboard. This time it’s Marvell AQC113C chip. Most motherboards for gamers have 2.5Gb/s LAN controllers which are somehow weird standard nowadays as on the market are widely available 5Gb/s switches and routers but also 10Gb/s devices are getting more popular. Even less expensive NAS like TerraMaster reviewed a couple of weeks ago, was equipped with the 10Gb/s port.
On the motherboard, we will also find multiple USB ports, including the latest 3.2 Gen 2 20Gb/s standard, audio and COM headers, and many more. As I mentioned earlier, everyone will find something interesting.
The CZ590-CGW has a diagnostic LED display and a set of power, reset, and clear CMOS buttons on the motherboard. This is again available only on the most expensive motherboards and overclocking series so I’m happy to see it.
On the next page, we will take a look at BIOS/UEFI.
