Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master Review: Expansion and M.2 Aplenty

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By Thomas Soderstrom
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Benchmark Results and Final Analysis

Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 2070 Gaming OC 8G and AMD’s Ryzen 7 3700X update the hardware configuration of our most-recent X470 test system, while a newly configured test suite brings all the compatibility benefits of Microsoft’s latest Win10 patches.

3DMark and PCMark

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As motherboards jockey for leadership across most of our 3DMark and PCMark tests, the result that stand out most is the X570 Aorus Master’s 4% deficit in the Application Start Up test of PCMark Essentials.  We’ll see if it can make up some of that loss in the performance balance though other suites.

3D Games

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The MEG X570 Ace gets the highest score at Ashes’ lower test settings, but the X570 Aorus Master beats all competitor’s by a slightly greater margin at the game’s higher settings. F1 2017 is a dead heat.

Mixed Apps

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7.Zip shows a slight lead for the X570 Aorus Master in both reading and writing, but theX570 Taichi beats it in both Cinebench and Handbrake.

Power, Heat and Efficiency

The X570 Aorus Master crushes the X570 Taichi in power consumption, though it places third against the X570 Ace and its X470 predecessor. The reason for the difference is that it uses less voltage under loads this heavy, and runs up to 200 MHz slower.

The lower voltage allows both the board and voltage regulator to produce less heat, but the X570 Aorus Master still finishes second to the X570 Ace.

The X570 Taichi’s full-load power draw is so high that it skews the rest of the chart into positive efficiency numbers, though the X570 Aorus Master is the least positive of these.

Final Thoughts

The X570 Aorus Master costs $60 more than the X570 Taichi, and the onboard 2.5GbE controller for the second Ethernet port appears at a glance to be the only extra hardware.  A closer look reveals an extra switche to disable dual-BIOS mode, but hardcore overclockers would rather not have the board’s active selection process in the specs sheet.  We also get more cables, but can even those be added to the second Ethernet port to justify the extra $60?

For many buyers, the X570 Aorus Master achieves its greatest victory is in its combination of M.2 and PCIe slots that are all active at the same time, as opposed to the X570 Taichi sharing lanes between its third long PCIe slot and its third M.2 slot. Aorus Master buyers looking at that specific benefit will also note that filling the third M.2 slot knocks its SATA port count to four, but most enthusiasts prioritizing fast storage won't need more than four SATA ports.

Overall, the X570 Aorus Master appears to be a more-desirable board than some competitors, that also costs more. The combination of interface availability, added USB3 Gen2, and added 2GbE controller are arguably worth slightly more than the difference in price. But those features of course will of course only worth it to you if you're going to make use of them.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
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5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • nitrium
    Now I might be wrong, but wouldn't it more useful to review more mainstream (i.e. affordable) motherboards that actually sell a lot of units? I'd like to see comparisons, pros and cons, unique features, etc, of motherboards in the mainstream X570 segment. For example, surely the Aorus Elite X570 is going to sell a lot more units than this thing... and thus would more than likely garner a lot more interest for a review than these expensive niche products?
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    ^Yes, please. Every ridiculous MSI Godlike motherboard and its ilk gets reviewed but most of the boards people actually want to buy are lacking.

    Might not be entirely TH's fault though. They may be mostly reviewing whatever companies choose to send them, in which case maybe the manufacturers tend to sample their high end halo products.

    Edit: Ah, I thought the Master was the top tier Gigabyte X570 board but that's the Extreme. So at least this board isn't something from a completely ridiculous price category. Still agree that the Elite would be a more popular board to review though.
    Reply
  • Sn3akr
    Where i live taxes and crap bumps up the price to 560 $ us converted.. At that price I've long lost interest, It's sad, but enthusiast parts have just gotten insanely expensive over the last decade, with prices rising far more than the average income., but it's not as insane as the phones market still.
    Reply
  • Shinnok789
    "While we generally recommend having a pair of USB 2.0 ports on the I/O panel to interface a keyboard and mouse without eating heavily into chipset I/O resources, we’ve no clue what you'd do with the other two here. "
    Well i have the mouse, keyboard, Xbox One controller Wi-fi adapter and an micro USB cable for DS4 controller charging (when needed).
    I found them quite useful, since i can spear the USB3 ports, not required for these devices :)
    Reply
  • Cableaddict
    Over a year later, and this is still one of the very few viable x570 options if you need Thundebolt.
    -But what an incredibly stupid build. Even without using a TB3 card, this board only offers 18 of the 24 available cpu-direct PCIe lanes. That's insane. If you want to put a TB3 card into cpu-direct lanes (a very good idea) then you lose ANOTHER six cpu-direct lanes. And yet, this might STILL be the best TB3 option available. It's sickening.
    Reply