The GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master Mobo Review: 10GbE Rounds Out A Premium Board
by Gavin Bonshor on February 25, 2022 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master is a premium E-ATX motherboard that sits just below the flagship Aorus Xtreme and Xtreme WaterForce models. The Aorus series stretches across its mid-range, premium, and flagship models, and in the case of the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master, it is designed to offer a solid feature set by using most of what Alder Lake and the Z690 chipset has to offer. This includes one full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, as well as two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating both at x4.
For storage, GIGABYTE includes five M.2 slots in total, three supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 drives, one with support for PCIe 4.0 x4 and SATA drives, and one with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 drives. In terms of SATA, there are six SATA ports with support for Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Focusing on memory support, the Z690 Aorus Master has four slots capable of supporting DDR5-6400 memory with a maximum capacity of 128 GB.
Cooling options are impressive, with room for a combined total of ten 4-pin cooling devices. This includes two dedicated to CPU fans, four doubling up as chassis or water pump headers, and four for chassis fans.
| GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master Motherboard | |||
| Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
| Product Page | Link | ||
| Price | $470 | ||
| Size | E-ATX | ||
| CPU Interface | LGA1700 | ||
| Chipset | Intel Z690 | ||
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR5 Supporting 128 GB Dual-Channel Up to DDR5-6400 |
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| Video Outputs | 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 | ||
| Network Connectivity | 1 x Marvell AQtion AQC113 10 GbE Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E |
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| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220-VB ESS Sabre ES9118 |
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| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 | ||
| PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 2 x PCIe 3.0 (x4/x4) | ||
| Onboard SATA | Six, RAID 0/1/5/10 (Z590) | ||
| Onboard M.2 | 3 x PCIe 4.0 x4 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 |
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| Onboard U.2 | N/A | ||
| Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) | N/A | ||
| USB 3.2 (20 Gbps) | 1 x USB Type-C (Rear panel) 1 x USB Type-C (One header) |
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| USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) | 5 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 1 x USB Type-C (Rear panel) |
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| USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) | 4 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) |
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| 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 | 2 x 4-pin CPU 4 x 4-pin Chassis 4 x 4-pin Chassis/Water pump |
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| IO Panel | 2 x Antenna Ports (Intel) 1 x USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C 1 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-C 5 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-A 4 x USB 3.2 G1 Type-A 1 x RJ45 (Marvell) 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 Output 5 x 3.5 mm Audio jacks (Realtek) 1 x S/PDIF Optical output (Realtek) 1 x Clear CMOS button 1 x Q-Flash BIOS Flashback button |
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There is plenty of connectivity on the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master, including one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports on the rear panel. In terms of front panel USB support, there's one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C header (one port), two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A headers (four ports), and two USB 2.0 headers (four ports).
GIGABYTE is using a premium networking array including one Marvell AQtion AQC113 10 GbE controller and an Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi. Onboard audio is also premium with a single Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec that powers five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. This is also assisted by an ESS Sabre ES9118 DAC.
Test Bed
With some of the nuances with Intel's Alder Lake processors including the new 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 i9-12900K, 125 W, $589 8P + 8E Cores, 24 Threads 3.2 GHz (5.2 GHz P-Core Turbo) |
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| Motherboard | GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master (BIOS F1) | ||
| Cooling | ASUS ROG Ryujin II 360mm AIO | ||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX850 80Plus Platinum 850 W | ||
| Memory | Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-4800 CL 14-14-14-34 2T (2 x 16 GB) | ||
| Video Card | MSI GTX 1080 (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
| Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
| Case | Corsair Crystal 680X | ||
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit: Build 21H2 | ||
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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35 Comments
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thestryker - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
I wish this had dual LAN and used the 2.5gb Intel chip as the secondary. I'm sure the Marvell 10gb is likely fine I just prefer having the safety blanket of Intel as an option on all my PCs. Otherwise it seems like a winner so long as you're willing to drop that kind of money on a motherboard.This doesn't seem like a bad price for all of the stuff they've jammed in there, but it does highlight what I've noticed about DDR5 Z690 boards. It seems like they go from barebones to premium without much in between. On the DDR4 side there certainly seems to be a lot more in the middle ground which may simply be because nobody really put out high end DDR4 boards. Hopefully when RPL lands this won't be an issue for the corresponding new motherboards.
zepi - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
Intel 2.5Gb chip has been super buggy and many people have problems with it. There are multiple revisions of it and even third re-release still had bugs.Jp7188 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
I love big heatsinks, but this board takes it a little far. That m.2 sink is so tall and close to the vid card that the backplate on my card wouldn't fit. I had to cut down the m.2 sink to make it work, which is still preferable to no sink at all.Also, the VRM sinks are too tall to allow some cpu HSFs to fit. The notctua u12s clears the RAM but not the sink at the back of the board.
Jp7188 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
One other gripe, I can't get a trident z5 6400 kit to work above 6000. I checked gskill's qvl and sure enough this board is one of the few missing from the list. The board is listed on the qvl for gskill's slower versions of the z5.timecop1818 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
imagine overclocking in 2022Silver5urfer - Saturday, February 26, 2022 - link
Why what's the problem ? Like you want to spend on a K series processor and an XMP kit and a top of the line Z series chipset for X series for AMD but want to run in on Stock OOTB clocks ? That's gigantic waste of money. Because you would be better if you do not want to tinker with a H series board and a locked SKU, save money.As for OCing itself, it's a great thing. Since people can get fun out of their tweaking the HW that they own make it personal. And get maximum possible performance out of it. Like people are not just dumb Apple iclowns who just obey what Apple says, Goolag is pretty much same now. PC is the last refuge for owning something and making it purely personal. If you have an issue probably you should stick with Apple products or something like a Surface or some BGA trash.
PeachNCream - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
It seems like that is a lot of additional cost to personalize something in order to fill what is mainly an emotional want inside of the space of recreational computer usage. So a want within a want in a world full of needs - it may be an unwise choice to do so.Silver5urfer - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
PC is not just a gaming machine. If anyone thinks so they should discard their overpriced PC and get a Console for $500. It's not a recreational computer usage either. A PC - Personal Computer acronym says it all. It became more and more customizable for x86 until the junk BGA laptops came into the picture taking away the customization and DIY factor.timecop1818 - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
I wouldn't buy a "XMP kit" in the first place unless it was somehow cheaper than plain Samsung dram on a green pcb from the likes of crucial or Samsung itself. i don't need disgusting rgb crap or giant fins on heatsink for what is essentially running memory ICs designed for 1.35V (or whatever) at much higher voltages just because "you can". of course, it will fucking heat up. normal dram operation doesn't need heatsinks.Jp7188 - Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - link
DDR5 is still in its infancy. It needs high voltage and heatspeaders to approach the latency of DDR4. The non-XMP 4800 CL40 is a joke, so it's high V and heatspeaders for the time being.