GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme Motherboard Review: Flagship Z790 With Impressive VRM Thermals
by Gavin Bonshor on September 5, 2023 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme is a premium flagship E-ATX motherboard, which sits at the top of GIGABYTE's LGA1700 motherboard stack. GIGABYTE's Aorus brand typically caters to gamers and enthusiasts, but the Z790 Xtreme leans more towards the enthusiast scale in terms of features. Some of these features include one full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots that can operate at x4/x1.
As expected on a premium motherboard, GIGABYTE includes a large array of PCIe M.2 storage capabilities, including one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot, three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and one PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA M.2 slot. For conventional drives, four SATA ports support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. In the top right-hand corner of the board are four memory slots capable of supporting up to DDR5-8000 (1DPC) and a total combined capacity of up to 192 GB.
Cooling support consists of ten 4-pin headers, one designated for a CPU fan, one for a water pump, four hybrid chassis and water pump 4-pin headers, and four for chassis fans.
| GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme Motherboard | |||
| Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
| Product Page | Link | ||
| Price (MSRP/Amazon) | $799 (MSRP) | ||
| Size | E-ATX | ||
| CPU Interface | LGA1700 | ||
| Chipset | Intel Z790 | ||
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR5 Supporting 192 GB Dual-Channel Up to DDR5-8000 OC (1R+1DPC) |
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| Video Outputs | 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (Type-C) | ||
| Network Connectivity | 1 x Marvell AQtion AQC107 10 GbE 1 x Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE Killer AX1690 Wi-Fi 6E |
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| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC4082 ESS ES9280AC DAC 2 x ESS ES9080 Chips |
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| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 (x16 or x8) | ||
| PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 |
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| Onboard SATA | Four, RAID 0/1/5/10 | ||
| Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 5.0 x4 3 x PCIe 4.0 x4 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA |
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| Onboard U.2 | N/A | ||
| Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) | 2 x Type-C | ||
| USB 3.2 (20 Gbps) | 1 x USB Type-C (Front panel) | ||
| USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) | 10 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) | ||
| USB 3.2 (5 Gbps) | 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) | ||
| USB 2.0 | 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) | ||
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin Motherboard 2 x 8-pin CPU |
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| Fan Headers | 1 x 4-pin CPU 1 x 4-pin Water pump 4 x 4-pin Chassis/Water pump 4 x 4-pin Chassis |
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| IO Panel | 2 x Antenna Ports (Killer) 2 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C 10 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-A 1 x RJ45 (Marvell) 1 x RJ45 (Intel) 2 x 3.5 mm Audio jacks (ESS) 1 x S/PDIF Optical output (ESS) |
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Focusing on connectivity, the Z790 Aorus Xtreme has various inputs and outputs on the rear panel. This includes two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, which double up as DisplayPorts, and ten USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports. Users can utilize a further USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C port, four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports through internal headers around the motherboard's edges. Also featured on the rear panel are two 3.5 mm audio jacks and an S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtel ALC4082 HD audio codec and three ESS Sabre DAC chips.
The GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme also has a premium networking array, which is spearheaded by a Marvell AQtion AQC107 10 GbE controller, with a second RJ45 port powered by an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller. The board also has wireless capabilities through a Killer AX1690 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, which supports BT 5.3 devices.
Test Bed
With some of the nuances with Intel's Raptor Lake processors, including the use of P and E-cores, our policy is to see if the system gives an automatic option to increase the power limits of the processor. If it does, we select the liquid cooling option. If it does not, we do not change the defaults.
| Test Setup | |||
| Processor | Intel Core i9-13900K, 125 W, $589 8P + 16E Cores, 24 Threads 3.0 GHz (5.8 GHz P-Core Turbo) |
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| Motherboard | GIGABYTE Z790 Aorus Xtreme (BIOS F4) | ||
| Cooling | EKWB EK-AIO Elite 360 D-RGB 360mm | ||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX850 80Plus Platinum 850 W | ||
| Memory | Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000 CL30 (2 x 16 GB) | ||
| Video Card | AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, 31.0.12019 | ||
| Hard Drive | SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB PCIe 4.0 | ||
| Case | Open Benchtable OBT V2 | ||
| Operating System | Windows 11 22H2 | ||
We must also thank the following:
| Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Noctua Coolers |
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22 Comments
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meacupla - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
My initial thought on the E-ATX design of this mobo.They put enough thought to recess the bulky 90 degree 24pin power connector on a really long mobo. However, they left the USB-C internal header a regular 0 degree, and gave it a trench in the plastic?
Oh Gigabyte, don't ever change.
DanNeely - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
Obviously the USB-C header was a last minute addition.shabby - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
Lol @ the price, glws gigabyte 😂TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
$800. Christ.I remember when you could get asrock taichi x470 boards with 10g ethernet for $349, and I thought that was pricy.
Threska - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
So only the upper class will be buying these? Middle class barely exists, and the poor..., oh well.Tom Sunday - Sunday, September 10, 2023 - link
I would love to own a Z790 Aorus Xtreme, but my limits just gotten pushed again when I tanked-up twenty dollars worth of gas—about 2 and a half gallons—at the Chevron gas station on Cesar Chavez Ave at the intersection of Alameda Street in downtown Los Angeles. I am just a poor PC enthusiast Bro and there are now thousands like me trying to making over the daily rounds. Thus my hardware for the past several years has always been bought at the weekend local computer shows and over the folding tables. Mostly new if even possible but several (3-4) generational ago parts for my hobbled together EATX case. No sales tax and cash remains king for the real good deals! We are living in challenging times. Moving to Montana is now in my dreams.meacupla - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
No one is forcing you to buy this mobo.Taichi x470 Ultimate didn't have PCIe 5.0, DDR5 or 2xTB4 on top of 10gbe
Aspernari - Saturday, September 9, 2023 - link
A 10G Ethernet adapter is probably one of the lowest-cost components on this board. You can get a 4 port 10GbE NIC for under $100 retail.Gillll - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
nowadays, your Thermal inspection should have an SSD gen 5 thermal inspection as well. as those newest SSD are quite hot. add to the fact that most M.2 PCIE5 connectors are above the GPU and below to the CPU, this is a recipe for disaster, as you can't use a better SSD HS, rather only the one provided by the motherboard manufacture, i mean you can but it probably limit your GPU or CPU HS size.blingon - Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - link
Reads like AI generated marketing copy fed with a starting term of "premium".