Packaging and Accessories
The packaging for the TUF Gaming Z890-Plus Wifi looks exactly the same as the TUF Gaming X870-Plus Wifi that I recently took a look at. The front has a black background and they have the TUF logo across the entire box in a grey color. The Asus branding is up in the top left corner and the full model name is printed in that TUF yellow and white. Below the name, Asus has a line of different badges and certifications to give you an idea of at least a few features. In the bottom right corner, they show off its Asus Aura sync support and then it has the Intel-mandated badges that show this works with the new Core Ultra CPUs and a badge showing this has the Z890 chipset, if that model name didn’t already let you know. Around on the back of the box, there is a little more going on, namely a full top-down picture of the board which I’m always happy to see. It's not a big deal when shopping online, but if you are shopping in person it's nice to be able to see what you are looking at. Beyond that, they touch on a few key features, namely the Thunderbolt 4 port, Wifi 7 and 2.5G NIC, and a few of their “Q” features that simplify things. It also has a fairly complete specification listing and alongside of that a line drawing showing all of the connections on the rear I/O.
When you get inside of the box the TUF Gaming Z890-Plus Wifi is sitting in a cardboard tray that has a few extra bits that keep it from moving around even when upside down. The board itself is wrapped in a static protective bag. Then up under the motherboard tray, you will find the documentation and accessories. For documentation, you get a paper talking about Asus WebStorage and a black and white manual. I hate that I have to point it out, but this manual is at least specific to the TUF Gaming Z890-Plus Wifi, a lot of companies these days save and print just one universal manual that might cover an entire line of boards. Along with those you also get a half shelf of TUF branded stickers. For accessories, you have four small baggies with M.2 accessories in them. Two have rubber bumpers for when you run different length M.2 drives. One has a standard M.2 post and screw and the last has the M.2 Q-Slide. Anything with the “Q-“ in it from Asus is focused on making things easier and this one does it by sliding to support 2242 and 2260 m.2’s without any tools. It slides on the backplate on the main M.2 slot. One of the two larger bags you get has two black SATA cables with one having a right-angled connection on one end. Then the last has a TUF Gaming removable nameplate that slides on over top of the rear I/O cover/heatsink to change the look up.
With the TUF Gaming Z890-Plus Wifi having a WiFi 7 NIC, it does of course also have a wireless antenna and if you have seen any of the Asus boards for the last few generations going back to 2022 have the same design. It is black and flips out. The base has a rubber grip and is magnetic. The only change here is the connections at the end of the cables have snap on connections which they call Q-Antenna.
