Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master: Excessive in a good way

00:00 Start
00:15 Board details
02:56 Rear I/O
03:39 Heatsinks
04:45 VRMs & Displayport/HDMI talk
06:53 PCB
07:21 Test System for review
07:48 BIOS
10:25 Test results
14:37 VRM testing
16:54 Leo’s closing thoughts

Pros:
Epic VRMs with first class heatsinks
Clean design with single PCIe 5.0 graphics slot
Superb support for M.2 storage, USB, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Huge number of PWM fan headers

Cons:
The two Type-C connectors on the rear I/O look identical
We want dual LAN
HDMI would be more useful on the I/O panel than DisplayPort

Test System:
Processor: Intel Core i9-12900K (16 cores/24 threads)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master BIOS F7c
Memory: 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5200
Graphics card: Palit RTX 3080 Gaming Pro 10GB
Power supply: Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
SSD: 500GB Sabrent Rocket 4.0 M.2 NVMe
OS: Windows 11

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#gigabyte #Z690 #aorusmaster

[KitGuruTech]

Z690 in your shopping cart for 2022? which one? let us know.

[tradcatpat]

Love the review(s), very helpful. Thanks Leo & team! I just got this board installed last night (Feb. 8). It initially wouldn't boot. No matter, I'd read online that it had a weak initial BIOS (not at all uncommon), used QFlash to flash to BIOS F7c. Then it was stuck in a cycle bouncing between Post codes 28 and 54 before rebooting and cycling back to the same point interminably. Shut down, cleared BIOS by shorting the two pins. Nope. Well then, post code 2x range seemed to be memory initiation issue. Pulled both sticks of Adata 4800, re-seated them. No good. Moved two sticks to A2/B2. No good. Re-seated one stick to A1, removed the other stick. Finally it booted. Progress. Shut down, seated 2nd stick of RAM in B1, said a prayer, rebooted. Yay, now it booted and showed all 32Gb of RAM.

After that hour long adventure, it has been rock solid and got through an hour of Prime95 without issue. It's a gorgeous board, photos don't do it justice. The onboard sound is top notch. The only enduring quirk I've found is that XMP is unavailable on my RAM, even though the BIOS clearly set the timings to the correct XMP profile, so it seems to be reading XMP just fine. Anyway, very glad I got it, having a ton of fun so far.

[wilteduk]

I've an older Z390 Aorus Master and highly rate it. I'll be getting another Aorus Master when the time comes.

[quoththekraven]

Just got this exact build today. Wild. First PC ever and I'm pretty pumped.

[ashleybunker]

I have this motherboard for few weeks. Had to update the BIOS for RAM but was easy with q-flash

[thorstenh.]

A fantastic video. This is exactly what I was looking for. And then the comparison to the MSI. These are exactly the two boards I had in mind. Super. Thank you very much!

[Cloneufc]

I just bought one! I have not bought another motherboard since 2012, I was due for an upgrade.

[Justin_]

I know its older, but would love to get your take on the MSI MEG B550 UNIFY-X.

[trbrg]

Just picked one of these up for $235USD open-box (in perfect condition with all accessories). Can't wait to Q-Flash this and put in a Raptor Lake -and since it should support the 14th-gen as well, I'm very pleased with all I've gotten for the price.

[paolocoletti]

1.59_Regarding lane sharing, I believe actually:
The RHS x4 PCIe 4.0 M.2 socket shares with the bottom stacked pair of SATA ports
The LHS x4 PCIe 3.0 M.2 socket shares with the top x4 PCIe 3.0 card slot
Thank you for an amazing review btw even 1 year on, finally sold me on the GIG Master in early 2023 🙂
Literally the ONLY thing on my wish list I could have wanted extra was a remote GPU release as per the ASUS Q release alas you cant have everything

[lummoxicide]

That was very interesting results with removing the VRM shroud, who would have thought

[mrlmaokun]

Bit weird since most other Gigabyte Z690 boards have both a DP and HDMI - including the ITX board.

[frijin]

If the second cpu 8-pin supplements extra power to the pci-e, it's pretty useful.

[am]

Excellent review, I have this motherboard 🥰💯👏

[TheBarnaclesHunter]

I bought this one last year but I still haven’t ended building my rig yet lol

[anthonywebb]

Excellent review, really enjoyed it. As for sarcasm, Steve from GN still has a great deal more to learn from the master of understated sarcasm. The most brutal form of this style of wit.

[luckyknot]

I just would like to add a bit annoying con is there are no thunderbolt ports and i'll need to get a pci card for it.

[kpv]

Downright excellent review of the motherboard.
I liked your comparison with the MSI. Do you have one with the Asus Z 690e. Those would be two excellent motherboards in that same price range. I would welcome your opinion on those.

[sabishiihito]

Gotta do manual settings if you want 7K on your Hynix-based DDR5!

[kuvyoghmoobamelica]

This is an AORUS motherboard, we need to see what it looks like in the case.