Although Z490 and Z590 boards are out to support the newer 10th Gen and 11th Gen Intel i9 CPU's, I was upgrading from a 10+ year i7 3770K system to i9 9900KF. This truly a high quality board. Even though its well suited for gaming, my main use is video editing. Board supports 3 m.2 drives (though 2 of them require you to sacrifice either a PCIe x4 slot, or on or 2 SATA connectors). This board supports up to 128 GB of RAM, and supports XMP 2.0 profiles for overclocking your memory. Speaking of overclocking, it had great support for overclocking the CPU and has many user accessible manual settings in the BIOS if one if knowledgeable enough to do that. I have most of my settings set to "Auto" since I don't really overclock, but did so just for testing. One feature I woulo dhave liked to see is an external "Clear CMOS" button. The clear CMOS connector on the board doesn't even come with a jumper (you simply momentarily short the jumpers on the Board to clear the CMOS in the event you need to (I always do after a BIOS update). I overcame that shortcoming by attaching an external small pushbutton to the back of may case and connecting it to the jumpers on the MB. The board is very stable, even at overclocked speeds. I only have a single 240mm AIO cooling radiator so I didn't go too high. But, as I said, I dont normally overclock so for me that was a moot point. I especially like the two USB 3 DAC sockets on the back of the board. These have their own dedicated power supply and allow you to fine tune voltage for connected devices that are more sensitive to voltage settings (such as VR devices, or external HDD devices). BIOS is very detailed but also has a simple UI. Only complaint is the limited amount f USB connectors for external connections (e.q. PC case, external connectors, etc.) There are 2X USB 2.0 connectors, 1x USB 3.0 (3.2 Gen1) and 1 USB type C 3.2 Gen2 connectors on the MB. However there are ample connectors on the back panel. Since installing this board into a new build a little over a month ago, I have not found any cons about this board (other than those few small items I mentioned, but those are subjective opinions). Although a bit pricey, I would highly recommend this board to someone looking to upgrade to a Z390 level build.
LaciBacsi · 2021-04-19 · via amazon
★★★★★Excellent Motherboard for gaming and doing some OC
I did my first high end PC back in August 2018 and I went with the Asus ROG E-Gaming MOBO but after 2 months I started getting Blue Screens Of Death (BSOD) due to either bad Mobo or Ram (Corsair Vengeance). It ended up being the mother board RAM slots when dual channel was active (worth mentioning that I have 4 RAM sticks, 8GB each). I returned that mobo back to Amazon and got this one instead, now almost 3 months of daily use and I have had 00 problems with it and I am very happy with it. Some people complain about the BIOS but in my opinion is not that bad. When you think about it, if you are planning to get this high end mobo you should be able to work with any BIOS. Overclocking - I have the i7 8700k with Corsair's H150PRO cooler and I am at 4.8GHz with temps in the ~68c during stress tests. During gaming my CPU sits around ~60c. I also OC my RAM from 2113MHz to 3200MHz and it runs perfectly and cool (haven't had a single BSOD). Worth mentioning that I did all this overclocking using the profiles that come pre-installed with the Mobo, it took me less that 5 minutes to OC my system. Looks - I think the MOBO looks more clean that its predecessor Gaming 7 and the RGBs are not as invasive (imo). The gray/silver/black colors are generic enough to pretty much fit any theme you have going on with your rig so I was very happy about that. One bad thing might be the MOBO's status meter/display on the bottom of the mobo since you can't turn it off, but since the display is under my 1080ti EVGA GPU and I can't barely see it I really do not mind but be aware of this. Software - Yes, I do have to agree that their software can be improved especially for the RGBs, took me a little while to set my Mobo colors the way I wanted. But if you are like me that have one same static color all the time, once you configured it you won't have to deal with it again. Overall, this is a solid high end motherboard and if you are looking to do heavy gaming (like me) and a little bit of OC then this is your motherboard. If you are an OC enthusiast then you might want to look into the Master or Extreme editions of this mobo gen.
Adrian Cruz · 2019-01-09 · via amazon
★★★★★Works Great with World of Warcraft Epic BG's
Even before hooking this up to anything, I could tell this was a huge upgrade…great quality construction and aesthetic value. The feel of the construction can be felt in the weight and how it felt solid construction. When I decided that this would be the cornerstone of my upgrade (moved from AMD to Intel)…I wanted to keep it economical I went with i5-8400 and G Skill Rapjaws (ECC, 2 x 8GB). Although it lists that it only works with non-ECC RAM, the instructions that come with it does say you can do 1 strip. I would go with Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 2400…it was suggested by crucial.com as guaranteed compatible. I got this upgrade to play WoW, I would get huge lag in large battlegrounds. I do plan on getting my ram to 64 GB and upgrading the chip later on. The i5-8400 defaults to 2.8 ghz, before I dabbled on overclocking I went to test the new system in a BG. All tests where fantastic and works better than my AMD that I had at 3.6 ghz (same video card and was using 32g ram), I used the provided wifi antenna. I was in close range of about 50 people in the BG and so no lag. This is a very nice motherboard with many options and love the layout of where all the extras plug in. The provided sata cords are lengthy enough to support a mid-tower and possibility a max tower. 4 cords are provided, with 2 of them have connectors that are L-shaped on one side…great for keeping the plug-in flat against the power port. The one thing I can provide criticism, the connection on the motherboard sata are positioned paralleled to the board and facing to front of your machine. So once the MB is installed it can be a challenge to plug in your sata cords, especially if you don’t have the ability to remove both sides of your case. Pluses of this motherboard: wi-fi (with a provided antenna), quality sata cords with a decent length (with L-shaped connections), the connection panel on the rear has it’s own panel (no open space), supports 8 and 9 gen intel chips (can go economical to pricey), fits snug in ATX case, multiple fan power connections, case connections (power, LED, etc) are quality connection), and nice aesthetic value. Criticism of this motherboard: placement of sata connection might be small challenge for novice, lack of easy bios instructions, yellow-colored illumination (if you can change, I don’t know…most of my color scheme is red), and a challenge to read small text labels for case connections (but really what else can you do, had to read manual to see which was which).
Mr. D · 2019-01-19 · via amazon
★★★★★Great board
Very solid board, my first gigabyte board, I'm partial to asus ROG boards but this one had the features I wanted inside the price point I was trying to keep. Mainly it had 3 native nvme slots, the rog boards in this range only had 2 and I needed 3 for the build I was aiming for. This board has been reviewed extensively so I don't have anything special to add, I will just say I'm very pleased with the board. Very user friendly as far as setup, I had no boot problems or install issues, read my RAM and devices and loaded my xmp no issues with 32 gigs installed off the jump. No silliness with having to only use one stick of ram to get it to boot or anything. Setting up the NVME raid was also super easy, the bios could be a little more intuitive but not too bad. I have no real cons with this board as of yet , solid product.
LB · 2020-01-07 · via amazon
★★★★★Had to update the bios to get it to work with I9-9900k
The reason I went with this motherboard is the VRM (Voltage Regulator Module). This is for the latest power supply to the CPU, which allows your CPU to run cooler. (See "VRM on youtube") They have the lead in this. So when I turned it on and the board had to reboot several times, each time going a little further. But it hung up on post code 78. Was able to get to bios after hours of rebooting. Finally got through to tech support. Monday thru Friday no week end support. (1-626-854-9338) The tech guy was calm and finally after listening said lets update the bios. I had version F3 and we flashed it with F7f, and then it worked like a charm. The BIOS look and feel was better than the F3. My I9-9900k was working great and with XMP was able to get the 3600 ram to actually run at 3600. I like it now and still have to download Fusion to get the RGB to change color. Defaulted to yellow...blah. Used the center m.2 so as not to interfere with Sata 1,2,3. The latest bios is not perfect, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure most things out. Would have given it a 5 star were it not for the grief. Update: The release plastic pins at the slot 16x for graphics card is weak and they can break as one did; But if you are thoughfull and in my case I salvaged it, be aware that to release your graphics card you will need a long handled screw driver to push it down to release your graphics card...only real way to save the release pins. Bad design...but great motherboard. One more thing, in my previous computer I had to hold the delete key down to get into the BIOS, on this board you must tap the key to get into the BIOS. And it has a backup BIOS chip, and although you can not update it, it will allow you to restore the old BIOS, and then just update the BIOS and you back. It is a good thing. Also, be careful when upgrading motherboard with memory or other, you need to unplug the cord...because they use voltage on USB etc., and you can screw up stuff if you do not. I also noticed that my GTX 1080 SLI works better now and it does run 10 C cooler, which is really cool with better fps. And if you liked this review you will click the thumbs button. Update 01-29-20 Motherboard is great. I have been updating bios now as it is easy with Q-bios. It is easy. I am running now on bios F10b. Build update: CORSAIR CRYSTAL 570X RGB Mid-Tower Case, 3 RGB Fans, Tempered Glass - White (CC-9011110-WW) Intel Core i9-9900K Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 5.0 GHz Turbo Unlocked LGA1151 300 Series 95W G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS Ultra (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/3xM.2 Thermal Guard/Onboard AC Wi-Fi/RGB Fusion/Motherboard) Noctua NH-D15 - Premium CPU Cooler with 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans (Brown) addlink S70 1TB SSD NVMe PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 Solid State Drive with Read 3400 MB/s/Write 3000 MB/s gtx 1080 Classified x 2 (SLI) Update added: Bluetooth Headphones, Wireless Earbuds Ul-8 Pro Lightweight & Fast Sports Earphones IPX7 Waterproof HD Stereo To see if the bluetooth worked on motherboard And it did.
