ASUS TUF Gaming Z890-Pro Wi-Fi

[lexluthermiester]

Of course price is relevant. If we're not arguing price then everyone should just buy a 9950X3D and call it a day. The 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU available, and insanely expensive for a mere 8 cores with middle-of-the-charts productivity performance landing squarely in the ballpark of CPUs costing half as much.

Honestly, (and somewhat back on topic here) if productivity is your goal, the Ultra 7 265K is almost $200 cheaper than a 9800X3D and usually beats it in productivity, often by a huge margin. Claiming that the 9800X3D is anything other that mediocre for productivity is simply choosing to ignore the data. Do what you want with that $200 - buy more RAM for your workloads, buy a dedicated NVMe scratch disk, spend the money on an i9 for even more cores and productivity advantage over the 9800X3D....

There's simply no way to ignore cost unless you are so rich that money has no meaning to you.

I don't care about any of that. Wasn't arguing that point at all. You said the 9800X3D was a "gaming-only chip". That is PATENTLY false. My assertion was that for certain users with a specific use-case-scenario, it's a great value. In the context of this discussion, I don't care about the minutia of costs.

 

[Marcus L]

Followed your advice, got the 9800x 3d. Terrible mistake, gpus are huge bottlenecks so you are left with a 500$ cpu that is a slouch on every other task

Look at what he actually posted, if you have $600 get the 9800x3d/9950x if you want THE BEST GAMING/PRODUCTIVITY CPU RESPECTIVELY

Respectively being the operative word, so for the best gaming 9800x3d for the best productivity 9950x

I also find it quite unbelievable that you have not seen or read 9800x3d reviews before now or would spend that kind of money based off one comment on a forum without actually looking at reviews before making such a purchase

Your username suggests you are familiar with hardware so again this seems completely made up for whatever reason or completely and extremely naive, though I find that very hard to believe...

Either way most regulars on tpu will know that productivity wise the 9800x3d isn't as good as similarly and even lower priced CPUs due to the 8 core count, these CPUs have been out for a longish time now so all of this information has been posted by many sources all over the internet for months...

 

[JustBenching]

Look at what he actually posted, if you have $600 get the 9800x3d/9950x if you want THE BEST GAMING/PRODUCTIVITY CPU RESPECTIVELY

Maybe you should take your own advice. You should read what he actually posted. "You have 600$ for a CPU + mobo". So 600$ aint enough for a 9950x + a mobo but even if it was isn't the best productivity CPU. It's barely faster than the 285k but draws a lot more power in comparison in mixed tasks which is what youd be doing 99% of the time with a productivity CPU.

 

[Marcus L]

Maybe you should take your own advice. You should read what he actually posted. "You have 600$ for a CPU + mobo". So 600$ aint enough for a 9950x + a mobo but even if it was isn't the best productivity CPU. It's barely faster than the 285k but draws a lot more power in comparison in mixed tasks which is what youd be doing 99% of the time with a productivity CPU.

So you know all this but apparently didn't know that the 9800x3d lags behind similarly priced non-3D/increased core count CPUs in productivity, makes a ton of sense that you claim based on his one comment you went out and bought one not knowing this

 

[JustBenching]

So you know all this but apparently didn't know that the 9800x3d lags behind similarly priced non-3D/increased core count CPUs in productivity, makes a ton of sense that you claim based on his one comment you went out and bought one not knowing this

You are missing the point, probably on purpose? The point is there is quite clearly a reason not to buy a 9800x 3d with your 600$ but buy an intel platform instead.

 

[Marcus L]

You are missing the point, probably on purpose? The point is there is quite clearly a reason not to buy a 9800x 3d with your 600$ but buy an intel platform instead.

I'm not missing anything I have quoted you and chrispy's comments directly, so you didn't go out and buy one based on this comment, and now your intent was clear, buy intel not AMD, how sad..

 

[JustBenching]

I'm not missing anything I have quoted you and chrispy's comments directly, so you didn't go out and buy one based on this comment, and now your intent was clear, buy intel not AMD, how sad..

Ok man, whatever

 

[jallenlabs]

I love seeing ASUS get spanked by ASRock in many of the benches.

 

[Combatus]

@Combatus
Good review! Nicely done.

Despite the list of down sides, which to me are not serious, thinking I may have found my next board!

Thanks! V welcome!

 

[Sol_Badguy]

The lack of tool-free heatsinks apart from the primary one is a bit below par too for 2025, with the cheaper MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk Wi-Fi going further here, although it too was on the edge when it came to dealing with our PCIe Gen 5 SSD. The two boards are very similar otherwise. They both have a decent amount of power on tap from their USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C front panel headers and a lack of Type-A USB ports on the rear panel compared to some of the competition, albeit we're comparing against slightly more expensive options.

However, the MSI board does pull ahead in a few areas. It has a less arduous GPU release mechanism, extra Type-A and Type-C ports on the rear I/O panel, and it features tool-free installation across more M.2 heatsinks. The added bonus of 5 Gbps rather than 2.5 Gbps Ethernet and the fact the VRMs were kept cooler in our stress test are just cherries on top. On the flip side the ASUS board has a better EFI and much better software (once you've worked out how to install what you need). However, the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk Wi-Fi is also $30-40 cheaper, winning the value argument.

I'm going to expand on this comparison given I own the Tomahawk.
Some aspects where I consider the TUF to be better:
- non-retarded placement of the EPS connectors
- including both DisplayPort and HDMI
- having an ARGB header placed near the DIMMs (I'm not an RGB guy but having all these headers confined to an area is not ideal when it comes to cable routing/management)
- better/more accessible placement of the CMOS battery

With that said this is not necessarily a vote against the Tomahawk and in favor of the TUF as that has its own drawbacks as highlighted by the review.
It seems that mobo mfgs are incapable of achieving proper product segmentation, instead they blatantly ruin lower tier products and try to pass them off as having less features.
The EPS connectors on the Tomahawk don't represent "less features" but ruining something in bad faith.
Also the SATA ports on the TUF are not "less features" instead sacrificing utility for supposed aesthetics.
I could go on but I made my point, it's not like they will change anything based on feedback.