Content creators have often been neglected by motherboard manufacturers, being overlooked by gamers and those looking for heavy workstation-based components. Well, now, that seems to have changed, with the ASUS ProArt Z490-Creator 10G – a motherboard that has been designed from the ground up with content creators in mind. But how does it help content creators? Let’s find out.



The ProArt Z490-Creator 10G is based off of the new Z490 chipset (kind of in the name, Rob), supporting Intel’s brand-new LGA 1200 socket. The LGA 1200 socket supports an extra 49 contact pins, which allows for better power delivery, and thus better performance to the new 10th-Gen Intel CPUs, and excitingly, the upcoming 11th-Gen CPUs as well. This is where my first “issue” with the motherboard is, and it’s the same issue I had when I looked at the ROG Strix Z490-E Gaming motherboard, and that’s the lack of support for legacy generation Intel CPUs – but as is the case there, this is more an issue with Intel than ASUS themselves.

The ProArt Z490-Creator 10G is equipped with four DIMM slots, supporting a maximum of 128GB DDR4 RAM, at over 4600MHz frequency, which is a plentiful amount of RAM at a decent speed. This will help ease the time of rendering projects out, as well as speed up certain tasks, and even free up CPU capacity to focus on CPU-intensive tasks.



The ProArt Z490-Creator 10G also features two NVMe drives offering creators an ultra-fast storage solution for raw files and programmes, which not only increases the speed of tasks performed, but will also enhance workflow since creators will not need to worry about long waiting times for programmes to open and perform tasks. The benefits of PCIe Gen 4.0 would definitely have been felt here, which is unfortunate that it is not supported in 10th Gen CPUs, but once it is, performance will be enhanced even further. For mass storage, there are six SATA 6Gb/s ports for SSDs and HDDs, giving creators the freedom to ditch servers and save their files locally, to further increase efficiency – for those who do use servers, though, don’t worry, I will touch on something quite special a little later on.

For mass storage, there are six SATA 6Gb/s ports for SSDs and HDDs, giving creators the freedom to ditch servers and save their files locally...

Up until now, you might have thought – “well, where is the focus on creators?”. Well, the next addition to the ProArt Z490-Creator 10G motherboard will certainly make creators happy, especially Apple fans – Thunderbolt 3. The ProArt Z490-Creator 10G includes two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the rear I/O, offering content creators up to 40Gb/s of bandwidth, and you can even daisy-chain up to six devices per port – this means you can have up to twelve compatible devices hooked up at a single time, excluding NVMe drives, SSDs, and HDDs. If you are a creator, you will know that this can make a massive difference, in both convenience, and getting your content wrapped up as soon as possible.



Remember when I spoke about that something quite special? Well, included with the ProArt Creator 10G is a Hyper 10G LAN Card which plugs into a single PCIe slot, offering an additional 10Gb/s of bandwidth. With this, content creators who currently work remotely, who constantly need to read and write off of a server, and who spend a large amount of time uploading large files, such as 4K videos, can have a dedicated portal to do that through. Essentially, what this means, is that you can work – in real-time – off a remote server, as if it were stored locally on your system.

To put it simply, the software optimizes multi-tasking so that you can get more done at the same time.

Hardware is not the only focus on creators, but on software as well. ASUS has recognized that content creators not only need powerful hardware to drive content creation, but intelligent software optimization as well. ASUS has adapted their exclusive CreationFirst software to the ProArt Z490-Creator 10G motherboard, which prioritises bandwidth to applications that will need more when active, over those that do not need as much. For example, if you are remotely rendering a video or image, and you still need to transfer files, the CreationFirst software will allocate more bandwidth to the heavy-use application, while still allocating enough to the file transfer. To put it simply, the software optimizes multi-tasking so that you can get more done at the same time. This also goes for software that you are actively working on vs. applications that are running in the background – active applications will be prioritized over background tasks to enhance your workflow.



Overclocking is a term you often hear of when it comes to gaming, but never when it comes to content creation. An overclock is simply pushing your components to the max, so it would make sense to still consider it for content creation. With AI Overclocking software found in the ProArt Z490-Creator 10G, you can get even faster conversion results, or render times, thanks to the system’s ability to read your components and predict the best possible settings and apply them automatically. Not only this, but there are also real-time adjustments as well, so as your workload increases, so does your overclock.



Overall, content creators have a single need from their systems: to create an environment that creates a seamless and enhanced experience, so bolster content creation, and allow them to focus on what matters – creating content. This is what the ProArt Z490-Craetor 10G achieves, with the inclusion of Thunderbolt 3, the Hyper 10G LAN Card, multiple storage solutions, and smart use of AI systems to optimize workflow. The lack of support for PCIe Gen 4.0 is disappointing, as this would have been the cherry on the cake, but this is more Intel fault than ASUS. Its fantastic to see ASUS focus on products specifically for content creators, and impressive to see how well they have done it.

Advertorial disclosure: This review was provided by Robert de Wit, PR Associate at ASUS ZA.