Closer Look
Biostar Z590I Valkyrie arrived in a retail package which is well described. The front is brand new, with wings suggesting the Valkyrie series. On the back, we can find key features and specifications of the motherboard. Worth noting is a 5-year warranty which is marked on the front of the box. Not many motherboard brands are offering such a long warranty.
Inside the box, there is a well-protected motherboard, SATA data cables, WiFi mounting kit, user’s manual, and driver’s DVD. It’s enough to install our new motherboard.
The motherboard offers us a unique design with a mix of gold and pink colors. I already heard quite mixed comments about it. For me, it’s maybe not the best-looking motherboard but also gives a fresh breeze on the market flooded with boring designs.
Since the motherboard is in the ITX form factor, then it’s hard to make anything really original. Everything is small and tight. For sure, we can say that even though everything is so small, the motherboard has no problems with the heat caused by the Rocket Lake-S processors. I can even say that Biostar should adjust the default MOS fan as it’s quite noisy at automatic settings. The motherboard’s monitoring says that the fan spins up to 12000RPM! Once set to silent mode or manually adjusted to 50% of its default speed, it still keeps the temperature in the safe range while we can’t really hear it.
The Z590I Valkyrie is equipped with 10-power phases, so it should handle every available CPU designed for the Z590 chipset. In fact, it works great with the i7-11700K, which boosts even higher than on previously reviewed ASRock or SuperO motherboards.
The only thing which I’m missing is the WiFi/Bluetooth controller. The motherboard gives us an option to install one in the M.2 socket. There is also a mounting kit for the M.2 WiFi card. However, we are used to seeing ITX size motherboards already equipped with a wireless controller. Some users will pick this option and just buy a $30 controller on Amazon or any other store. Some others will pick a motherboard with an already installed WiFi controller.
The Z590I Valkyrie has everything we can find on more expensive Z590 ITX motherboards, besides the WiFi controller and a Thunderbolt controller. Most users won’t ever use Thunderbolt, so it’s even better when they can save some money. The motherboard has everything else like multiple fast USB ports, DP and HDMI in the latest standards, and high-quality audio. The list is very long, so please check the specifications and features pages for more info.
On the next page, we will look at the BIOS/UEFI.
