Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master Review: Excessive, in a good way

Leo Waldock February 3, 2022 Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard, Reviews

Rating: 8.5.

We reviewed the Intel Core i9-12900K some while back and now it is time to take a detailed look at a suitable Z690 chipset motherboard. We are reviewing the Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master which has a monumental VRM that employs 19x 105A phases for the Vcore and also supports a huge number of USB ports.

Timestamps:

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

Key features

Supports 12th Gen Intel Series Processors
Dual Channel Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR5, 4 DIMMs
Direct 19+1+2 Phases VRM Design with 105A Power Stage and Tantalum Polymer Capacitors
DDR5 Xtreme Memory Design with SMD DIMM and Shielded Memory Routing
Advanced Thermal Solution with NanoCarbon Fins-Array III Heatsink, Direct-Touch Heatpipe II and NanoCarbon Baseplate
Intel WiFi 6E 802.11ax 2T2R and BT5 with Aorus Antenna
Audio Solution with ESS Sabre ES9118 125dB on Rear Audio
Aquantia 10GbE LAN
5 x Ultra-Fast NVMe PCIe 4.0/3.0 x4 M.2 with Thermal Guards
RGB Fusion 2.0 with Multi-Zone Addressable LED Light Show Design, Supports Addressable LED & RGB LED Strips
Smart Fan 6 Features Multiple Temperature Sensors, Hybrid Fan Headers with Fan Stop and Noise Detection
Q-Flash Plus Update BIOS without installing the CPU, Memory and Graphics Card