In terms of features, the board is surprisingly good. Not only do you get Intel 2.5 Gbps LAN, but they've also included 8 USB ports on the I/O panel, half of which are USB 2.0, but still it's nice to see more than half a dozen ports on offer. The Gaming X still uses a dozen Vishay powerstages in a 12-phase configuration, but we find 60A versions, so this board should be slightly better than the UD in terms of VRM thermal performance. Test Setup

The Torpedo is a premium-looking board and it should be at this price point. Though I'm not sure how popular the blue heatsinks are going to be, it's nice seeing a motherboard with a bit of character. The blue heatsinks are huge indeed, and under them you'll find an impressive 7-phase vcore VRM. MSI has used two On Semi 60A power stages per phase meaning there are 14 for just the vcore portion of the board. With that, we expect this to be one of the best performers of the roundup. Gigabyte Z590 UD

ASRock Z590 Pro4

For recording temperatures we're using a digital thermometer with K-Type thermocouples. We'll be reporting the peak rear PCB temperature. Finally, we're not reporting Delta T over Ambient, instead we maintain a room temperature of 21 degrees and to ensure a consistent ambient temperature, a thermocouple is positioned next to the test system.

The Z590-A Pro comes equipped with an impressive VRM, too. The vcore portion features a dozen Alpha & Omega 55A power stages, these are higher rated and more efficient powerstages than what Asus used on the similarly priced Prime Z590-P, and there's two more of them. MSI has also included some rather large heatsinks, so this should be an entry-level Z590 board to be on the lookout for when we get to the thermal testing shortly. The Gigabyte Z590 UD peaked at just 74C, while the Gaming X version was only slightly better at 73C. The MSI Z590-A Pro peaked at 70C, while the Torpedo ran at just 68C. The best result came from the Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus which peaked at 67C.

ASRock Z590M Pro4

However, it's the VRM that we're most interested in and here we find a significant upgrade. Asus is still using 50A powerstages but they're On Semi NCP302150's and there's 14 of them in total, configured in pairs for a 7-phase vcore. That's a significantly greater current capacity which should drastically improve VRM thermal performance for this model. MSI Z590-A Pro Even the Asus Prime Z590-P wasn't particularly impressive hitting 78C, but at least the 11900K wasn't power limited here. Still, that almost 80C operating temperature looks quite bad next to the Gigabyte Z590 UD and MSI Z590-A Pro, both of which ran at around 60C, though they were running the 11900K 100 MHz slower. For a more apples to apples comparison, let's move on to the OC results.