Introduction, Specs, and Pricing
In anticipation of Z590 coming later this 12 months, we’re wrapping up our protection of Z490 with two boards from GIGABYTE. On the bench right now, the Z490 AORUS Grasp is the primary and a board that lives just below the highest tier AORUS Xtreme in GIGABYTE’s gaming lineup.
Coming into the Z490 platform final 12 months, An enormous focus for distributors was to wash up VRM energy designs to deal with the brand new LGA1200 product stack as this technology can be the primary to see HyperThreading from the Core i3-10100 to the Core i9-10900K. GIGABYTE has finished this and extra with an excessive VRM design, which we are going to contact on under, together with superior thermal options with true fin stacks.
Specs and Advertising and marketing
VIEW GALLERY – 48 IMAGES
We kick off motherboard specs beginning with the Intel LGA1200 socket. This platform is appropriate with a complete vary of processors from tenth Gen Core i3 to Core i9. This board’s energy design is totally overkill, even for the fanatic overclocker, providing a doubled seven-phase design for the Vcore with Intersil ISL99390 levels at 90A every. SOC is powered by a single Vishay SIC651 50A stage and Intersil ISL69269 PWM controller behind all of it.
3x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots deal with enlargement, the highest slot being the one full x16 electrically. Storage begins with 6x SATAIII ports that give approach to the Extremely m.2 storage configuration that features three slots, all beneath the motherboard warmth sink.
The Intel i225 handles LAN duties on this motherboard, with AX200 dealing with Wi-Fi. Audio design is without doubt one of the greatest we’ve got seen ALC1220 with ESS Sabre in your DAC wants.
Pricing
The Z490 AORUS Grasp carries an MSRP of $399.99 with a three-year guarantee. Present pricing could be discovered under.
GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS Grasp
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Packaging, Equipment, and Overview
Packaging and Equipment
The Z490 AORUS Grasp is upfront about its intent, with a big AORUS emblem masking the entrance of the field, LGA1200, and compatibility to the correct.
The field’s again is kind of busy, with full specification on the left and {hardware} overviews to the correct.
Unboxing, we’ve got SATA cables and RGB extensions together with the consumer guide to spherical out the accent pack.
AORUS Z490 Overview
The AORUS Grasp is one heavy board, with all of this further weight coming from the quantity of armor on the board back and front, as seen above. That mentioned, we’ve got a implausible aesthetic that any gamer ought to really get pleasure from.
Taking a better look, we’ve got three x16 PCIe slots, the highest one x16 electrical, the second x8, and the third x4. All three are totally shielded options that every home an m.2 slot in between. Alongside the underside, one can find entrance panel audio, RGB connections, together with USB 2.0 headers for equipment akin to AIO Watercoolers.
Wrapping across the nook, you’ll have your six SATA connections adopted by two Thunderbolt 3 headers.
Additional up the identical aspect, we’ve got USB 3.2 headers adopted by the 24-pin energy connection and Debug LED.
Throughout the highest, one can find two extra RGB headers to the left, fan headers within the center, and 8pin energy to the correct.
Rear I/O begins with CMOS and QFLash on the prime, Wi-Fi, and USB 2.0 ports. HDMI begins the following line with USB 3.2 Gen 1 adopted by 4 Gen 2 ports in pink. Audio on the backside with all gold plated connections.
PCB and Circuit Evaluation
Energy design contains 14x ISL99390 energy levels, one SIC651A far-right, and the PWM controller simply above; ISL69269.
Further ICs embrace the Intel i225-V seen above in its B2 stepping SLNJY.
Chipset sits alone for probably the most half with solely the Tremendous I/O from ITE under.
The audio design contains the ALC1220 seen above, with high-quality capacitors and the ESS IC that may be seen on the backside of the picture.
As talked about in opening remarks, the warmth sink bundle for this board is legit. A real warmth pipe design with fin stacks covers the VRM space, whereas an aluminum plate covers the chipset and m.2 slots.
UEFI, Software program and Check System
UEFI
I have to admit it has been a superb period of time since I final went by way of a GIGABYTE BIOS. That mentioned, the AORUS Grasp has a properly laid out menu system with straightforward mode giving an total have a look at CPU, Reminiscence, and storage standing, and the superior menus provide all the things out of your primary settings to overclocking within the tweaker menu.
Software program and Overclocking
EasyTune has been the software program of alternative for a few years at GIGABYTE, and the AORUS Grasp isn’t any totally different. From the principle menu seen above, you’ll be able to have good enhance auto-tune your system or select from the obtainable profiles.
Transferring to the superior menu provides you the flexibility to fine-tune bclk frequency together with voltages and energy limits.
Reminiscence overclocking is dealt with throughout the superior DDR menu; from right here, you’ll be able to select frequency or XMP profiles to the left and regulate timings to the correct.
Finer tuning is offered by way of the superior energy menu with loadline calibration and PWM change charges.
Check System
Sabrent has been a implausible vendor to work with over the past 12 months, they usually proceed to assist AMD and Intel motherboard testing with their Rocket4 Plus constructed on the Phison E18 platform.
WPrime, Cinebench and AIDA64
WPrime, CPUz, Cinebench, and AIDA64
WPrime
WPrime is a number one multi-threaded benchmark. In our setup, we are going to manually set the variety of cores for the CPU beneath check. The ROG Maximus Excessive 12 is our baseline motherboard for all charts Z490.
The AORUS ended up being our quickest motherboard up to now, with WPrime reaching 2.28 seconds within the 32M workload. 1024M confirmed it just a few seconds behind the pack at 61.78
Cinebench
Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been closely relied upon by each Intel and AMD to showcase their latest platforms throughout unveils. The benchmark has two exams, a single-core workload that can make the most of one thread or 1T. There’s additionally a multi-threaded check that makes use of all threads or nT of a examined CPU
AORUS Grasp provided us 539 single thread and 6443 nT, almost equivalent to the remainder of the charted motherboards.
RealBench
Realbench makes use of each video and picture workloads to benchmark your CPU. In these workloads, the AORUS was among the many quickest in Encoding and Heavy Multitasking and center of the pack for Picture Modifying.
Unigine and UL Benchmarks
PCMark 10
PCMark is a benchmark from UL and exams numerous workload sorts to symbolize typical workloads for a PC. Every part from video conferencing, picture import, and modifying, together with 3D rendering, are examined.
If we have a look at the general rating for the usual benchmark in PCMark10, the AORUS Grasp is true consistent with all platforms examined, scoring 7508.
Now we have a second chart above breaking down every workload rating.
Unigine Superposition
Superposition from Unigine is a DX12 primarily based benchmark. We check with the 720p LOW preset as this removes all however probably the most primary GPU loading, with all the FPS coming from the CPU.
On this situation, the AORUS Grasp produced 260 FPS.
3DMark Timespy
3DMark Timespy, AORUS was barely above common for graphics efficiency, in any other case on par in CPU.
3DMark Firestrike
Firestrike has a bit extra element, with the benchmark providing a number of levels. Total the AORUS was excellent at 22592. Graphics was the best in our charts at 25944 with Physics/CPU at 27460.
Shadown of the Tomb Raider
Operating by way of Tomb Raider, we discover a median FPS of 100 at 4K, 165 at 1440p, and 190 at 1080p with our RTX 3080.
System I/O Benchmarks
Storage with CrystalDiskMark
Storage exams are all dealt with by our Sabrent Rocket4 Plus NVMe 4.0 SSD for inner testing and our WD_BLACK P50 for exterior testing.
USB-C on the AORUS Grasp touched 1069 MB/s learn and 960 MB/s write.
Our Rocket4 Plus picked up 3567 MB/s reads and 270 MB/s write on the AORUS Grasp, shifting to inner storage testing.
Random efficiency 4KQ1 touches 78 MB/s reads and 168 MB/s write.
Networking with iPerf
Testing the two.5Gbe wired connection, we’ve got 2130Mbps. Optionally we picked up a full 949Mbps testing the adapter at gigabit speeds.
Wi-fi testing confirmed equal efficiency to previous motherboards; 1425Mbps with the AX200.
Energy Consumption, Thermals, and Ultimate Ideas
Energy Consumption
System energy consumption for the AORUS Grasp idled at 114 watts. Beneath CPU load in Cinebench, we recorded 438 watts, and final, gaming confirmed 403 watts in Tomb Raider.
Thermals
CPU temps have been consistent with previous motherboards. The AORUS Grasp idled at 25c with the complete load throughout testing displaying a peak of 63c.
Ultimate Ideas
GIGABYTE has finished an incredible job interesting to players with edgy motherboard design and very good construct high quality. On prime of that, the AORUS Grasp provides what is probably going one of the best energy design I’ve seen on a Z490 platform with fourteen 90A energy levels.
One of many greatest options typically missed, or the place corners are extra typically reduce, even on high-end gaming motherboards, is rear I/O connectivity and most frequently USB ports. Avid gamers want USB, and most do not need to hassle with hub and docks to increase this connectivity. AORUS Grasp delivers on this division with 10 USB ports on the rear I/O alone, one other two by way of inner 2.0, and three extra by way of 3.2 inner headers. Add to this that GIGABYTE is the primary I’ve seen to supply twin Thunderbolt 3 headers, which makes this board a straight-up beast for connectivity choices!
What We Like
VRM Design: Over 1300A of pure VRM energy in your CPU!
Connectivity: 15 USB Ports, 3x m.2 and 4x Thunderbolt 3 in the event you so select makes this board a king of connectivity.
What Might Be Higher
LAN: Will not lie, I’d have favored to see one thing higher than the Intel i225-V on this motherboard.
Worth: All these options come at a worth.
