ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E (Intel 1200)

Over the past six months we've looked at a varied selection of Z590 motherboards. While most of these have been in the mid-range to premium category, today we are taking a look at a more modest and cost-effective Z590 model. The Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E sits toward the lower end of ASRock's Z590 offerings. It combines a varied feature set that includes 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, Intel's latest Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, three M.2 slots, all while adopting a unique urban camouflaged PCB design. We give the Z590 Steel Legend our attention and see if budget Z590 has its limitations or if it's money well spent.

The ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E is an attractive motherboard with a solid feature set. The black, gray, silver, and white theme sounds busy on paper, but comes together well with other components. The RGB LEDs are bright and have good diffusion, continuing ASRock's trend of providing great RGB implementations. Additionally, ASRock's new graphics card holder is a genuinely practical inclusion that solves the increasingly common problem of GPU sag.

After almost a decade of total market dominance, Intel has spent the past few years on the defensive. AMD's Ryzen processors continue to show improvement year over year, with the most recent Ryzen 5000 series taking the crown of best gaming processor: Intel's last bastion of superiority.