Gigabyte Aorus Z690 Master is an Intel-based DDR5 Gaming motherboard that delivers excellent performance at a reasonable price range.
Intel has already introduced its all-new DDR5 technology-based 12th Gen Alder Lake Processor for a Z690 chipset motherboard in the PC Gaming market. These motherboards also support the latest Gen PCIe express 5.0 technology and supports the latest Intel Core-i9 12900K CPU. The combination of the Intel 12th Gen Processor and a Z690 motherboard promises to deliver great stability and performance even when running at overclocked speeds.
So to check out what a Z690 motherboard is capable of, we have picked up a Gigabyte motherboard based on the latest Z690 Chipset. This Gigabyte motherboard is manufactured with the latest DDR5 platform-based and it supports the latest Gen PCIe express 5.0. It delivers excellent performance and comes within a very reasonable price tag.
Now further any delay, let’s review the all-new Gigabyte Aorus Z690 Master motherboard.
Aorus Z690 DDR5 motherboard – Price and Availability
The Gigabyte Aorus Master comes with a price tag of $469. It is available with both offline and online retailers worldwide. But the price might slightly differ from one region to another.
Gigabyte Aorus Z690 Master – Specs
Here are some of the eye-catching specs of the Aorus Z690 Master motherboard.
- Wider E-ATX motherboard, 12×10.2 inches
- Supports the latest Intel Alder Lake 12th Gen Processors
- 19+1+2 digital phase power along with 105A Power Stage
- DDR5 RAM support
- PCIe Express Gen5 and a Gen4 additional backward compatibility support
- Five M.2 NVMe slot
- One Single 16xGPU PCIe Gen 5 support, other 4.0 Gen
- A total of 11 USB ports, 10 on the backside, includes a Type C Gen 2 for the front as well
- Latest and Fastest Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity
- Marvell AQtion AQC113C 10GbE LAN chip
- ESS Sabre Hi-Fi 9118 Audio DAC
- RGB Fusion option with two 3 pin and two 4 pin connector options
- Dedicated Q Flash button on the rear side
- Up to 10 fan connectivity options along with Water cooling headers
- 6 SATA ports, speed up to 6GB/s
Gigabyte DDR5 Gaming Motherboard Review – Unique Features
These are some of the unique features of this Gigabyte Aorus Z690 DDR5 Motherboard.
The Positive Side
- 10GBe networking, this feature comes on a much more expensive motherboard.
- 5 slots for M.2 components with premium heatsinks featuring a workstation level module.
- Dedicated power stages and VRAM to control the latest and the most powerful Core-i9 12900K
The Average Side
- Standard Wi-Fi 6E Module
The Poor Side
- Only DDR5 support, no backward compatibility for DDR4
- Supports only LGA 1700 chipset, which means LGA 1200 chipset supported coolers are not to be supported anymore.
- You only get a 16X PCIe Gen 5 for the top slot and multi GPU Support is not an option. Four other Gen3 slots deliver good performance for the PCIe Sound cards but are not good enough for a GPU that uses an NVLink.
Gigabyte Aorus Master Z690 Review – Design
Gigabyte has manufactured its Z690 DDR5 motherboard with an attractive design. It comes with special heat sink armor plates for the M.2 and VRM components. Also, it has some beautiful RGB lighting features along with superior build quality.
It has another variant which is called “Xtreme”. Although it is very hard to spot the difference between the normal and Xtreme editions. There are only some differences in RGB lighting in particular two areas which also can be customized via Gigabyte’s RGB fusion software.
Aorus Z690 Master Review – Performance and BIOS
The new Gigabyte’s Aorus Z690 motherboard has build-up in a superior way that it can handle the most powerful version of the Intel’s Alder Lake Processor Core-i9 12900K Processor. The company has managed to design its power architecture in a 19+1+2 way with a smooth overclocking experience without any issues. Because at the time of overclocking, the dedicated Heatsinks will never, let the temperature cross the safe thermal limits.
In the BIOS section, Gigabyte has improved a lot ever since. The Gigabyte Z690 BIOS in 2022 is extremely easy to navigate what exactly you want. Now you can adjust the setting in your way and the BIOS is very much stable. The XMP profiles give excellent performance with DDR5 memory modules, but it particularly struggles when all the 4 RAM sticks are inserted. Maybe it’s an issue that will be resolved by Aorus soon by a bios update. Other than that we didn’t find any issues when using the Motherboard for both gaming and content creation workloads and it never failed on any of our high demanding workload tasks.
Gigabyte Aorus Z690 Master Review – Verdict
From our analysis, the Aorus Z690 Master DDR5 motherboard is great with its great features in this suitable price range. At the price tag of $469, Gigabyte is offering you Wi Fi 6E, 10GbE networking module, five M.2 slots along with superior quality heat sinks, Customizable RGB Lighting with an attractive design. Although, the PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5 components are still new so it might take a little bit of time until we see a fully optimized DDR5 platform and PCIe Gen 5 support on motherboards.
Pros
- Superb build quality
- Fully featured DDR5 motherboard within the affordable price tag
- Superior level of Cooling
- It has the capability of handling the Intel’s most powerful version of Core-i9 CPU’s 12900KS module
- Excellent performance for both Gaming and Workstation type workloads
Cons
- Only DDR5 memory support, no backward compatibility
- LGA 1700 Socket is required a separate bracket for most of the CPU coolers
- E-ATX motherboard supported cabinets are costly
- 4 slots of RAM limit the performance of PCIe.
That’s all folks!
Alapan, Editor at Xombied and Techuda, is a biomechanical Engineer education-wise. But he wanted to go ahead with his life and pursue his career as both Gaming and Tech Reviewer. He is occasionally invited to host, plan and execute Gaming events with multiple brands. Apart from gaming, he loves playing guitar and singing along to the music.