Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master Review: A Pricey Performer
Benchmark Results & Final Analysis
We enable CPU-default power saving modes and disable manufacturer-applied overclocks prior to our basic performance and power tests, and use our memory in default mode, because enabling XMP has also enabled manufacturer-applied CPU overclocks on some boards. As used on both the 9900K and 2700X, our current memory kit defaults to DDR4-2400.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Synthetic tests are a great way to narrow down the cause for any real-world stumbles, but the only stumble we saw in 3DMark came in our second 3DMark score. And it affected only the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 with the Core i9-9900K installed. Since the issue pertains to graphics but wasn’t repeated in other tests, we’ll see if there is any impact on games before calling it a testing anomaly.
- image001
- image002
- image003
- image004
- image005
- image006
- image007
- image008
- image009
- image010
Intel will surely love the Core i9-9900K’s lead in Sandra Arithmetic, but probably won’t talk about how its new flagship fell behind the less-expensive 2700X in Cryptography. But this is a motherboard evaluation, and we should note that the Z390 Aorus Master ran neck-and-neck with the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 in these tests. The hiccup we saw with the Z370/9900K combo in a single 3DMark test repeats in Cinebench, but not in Compubench.
3D Games
- image011
- image012
- image013
- image014
The Z390 Aorus Master and Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 are virtually tied throughout our four games, though the new CPU’s lead in F1 2015 was a little larger than we anticipated.
Timed Applications
- image015
- image016
- image017
Gigabyte’s Z390 and Z370 boards are also tied through most of our timed tests, though the Z370 model again has a small stumble in just one of the eleven tests: Adobe After Effects.
Power, Heat, & Efficiency
Our Core i9-9900K appears to be a true power hog at full AVX load, drawing 50 percent more energy of the Core i7-8700K, even though it has only 33 percent more cores. Unfortunately, prolonged testing of the new processor on the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 required the addition of a voltage regulator fan. So if you're going to plonk down the cash for Intel's latest flagship and actually use those extra cores and threads for things like video editing or other time-consuming computing tasks, you should probably also consider a board built from the ground-up to handle eight-core CPUs. As we're about to see, that's doubly true if you also want to overclock.
- image018
- image019
- image020
- image021
Perhaps the biggest reason why our Core i9-9900K drew so much power at full load is that it ran at 4.7 GHz, rather than the 4.3 GHz of the Core i7-8700K. Heat is the reason Intel Turbo Boost ratios scale down as the number of loaded cores is increased, and getting those few hundred MHz requires the processors to run at higher voltage. Designed to support those extra watts, the Z390 Aorus Master is slightly more-efficient at supporting the new eight-core processor than its six-core-optimized predecessor.
Overclocking
The Z390 Aorus Master’s Core i9-9900K overclock becomes more impressive after seeing that the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 couldn’t overclock that processor at all. Thermal throttling prevented it from reaching any higher-than-stock fixed frequency. The older Core i7-8700K reached only 4.78GHz at similar settings (though other tests showed its peak at 4,848 MHz), which is most interesting because it has fewer cores to pile-in the heat. Kudos to Intel’s return to soldered-on heat spreaders?
- image022
- image023
The only reason most of us overclock is to gain performance, though we’ve seen there are of course competitors who care more about frequency records than performance. Some motherboard manufacturers have formerly applied terrible timings to overclocked DRAM to break records, but Gigabyte’s performance (on both the older Z370 and the new Z390 boards) scales nicely to its data rate.
Final Thoughts
It’s been a year since Gigabyte’s legacy Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 won our Editor Approved award. Today only the tougher-to-acquire Editor’s Choice award remains. For the Z390 Aorus Gaming Master, graduating to that award level would require more features or a lower price. Unfortunately, it has similar features as its Z370 counterpart and a higher price. Yet that doesn’t consider its higher-capacity voltage regulator and more robust cooler configuration.
- image024
- image025
If you’re buying anything less than the Core i9-9900K, the older Z370 board looks like a better value. But if you’re buying the Core i9-9900K, the older board isn't exactly up to the task--particularly if you’re overclocking or running super-heavy workloads. And since the Z390 Aorus Master only achieves the same rating for the Core i9-9900K that its predecessor did for the Core i7-8700K, it doesn't move the performance goalposts significantly forward. But, if paired with a new Core i9 chip, we’d still consider buying one simply for its features, regardless of price.
The other issue with issue with calling the Z390 Aorus Master a superior board for the Core i9-9900K is that we haven’t tested other high-end boards with this brand-new CPU. Gigabyte's offering still deserves a favorable score, and should be added to the high-end buyer’s list for further consideration.
Gigabyte’s Z390 Aorus Gaming Master has the features and CPU overclocking to warrant being on a high-end buyer’s Core i9-companion short list. But we’ll need to see more competing products before we can make specific recommendations.
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master
MORE: Best Motherboards
MORE: How To Choose A Motherboard
MORE: All Motherboard Content
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z390-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10#support-dl-driver
But I'd just assume...no.
Yes, with two NVMe drives you'd have four remaining SATA ports.
Thank you so much for the fast reply and the answer to my question; this is my first time piecing together a PC and building it myself. I'm really excited to see how well this thing runs, http:// compared to my current PC.
Luckily my wife just finished building her PC and knows exactly what she's doing so she will be undoubtedly "helping", haha. Anything on there you feel like needs to be different?
dude, after paying my bills it would take me close to four months to buy that card, but it looks like a perfectly workable machine to me.
As for the bottom M.2 and bottom PCIe slot, you realize that the bottom slot was only x4 max right? Many people put an x4 storage card in these slots. But you're going to put a M.2 card in the bottom M.2 slot instead. It's more of an either/or option, either you get four lanes for that storage on the bottom PCIe slot, or you get four lanes for storage from the bottom M.2 slot. By chipset limitation, the other option would be to not have one of those two interfaces.
In the table it says "M.2-1 takes pts 4-5, SATA M.2-2 pt 1" from this I understand that if m.2-1 slot used, it will disable SATA4 and SATA5 and if used m.2-2 it will disable SATA1?
And M.2-3 will use 2 lanes from the bottom PCIe x16 slot, effectively making it x8 x8 x2 configuration if all 3 PCIe slots are used
Also, what the hell does sign ^ means?:
(2) PCIe 3.0 x4^ / SATA*, (1) PCIe 3.0 x4
(*Excludes ports 1, ^4-5)
Asterisk "*" = see note below
"^" = ?
There are a limitted number of superscript characters on a keyboard, and I'm not using custom superscript that could get erased in editing, so I use those instead. When its says SATA*, you look below it and it says *Excludes port 1, that means an SATA M.2 drive will exclude SATA port one.
So slide up to my previous response. That third "missing SATA port" is only missing if you use an SATA M.2 drive in the second M.2 slot.
Now you're going to ask me what an SATA M.2 drive is, and I'll just say the magic word "legacy", and all will become clear
My point here is, Gigabyte is known to make motherboards flashy and full of features, the features that you can't use all at once. It's like a car with steering wheel on driver's side and pedals on passenger's side.
Conversely, the top M.2 slot is using a two-pathway physical switch, along with the chipset's SATA/PCIe conversion via the chipset's flexible HSIO, so it's always going to exclude two SATA ports regardless of whether the M.2 device is PCIe or SATA.
Is this possible? Looking forward to your opinions.
Cheers.
Mike
Well, you could step up to X299 if Z390 doesn't have enough connections.
Gigabyte lists the Z390 Aorus Master as Optane-ready.According to its spec sheet, if you don't mind the bottom PCIe slot getting kicked down to x2 mode, you should be OK.
I would love to hear your and others viewpoint on this.
Cheers.
Mike
I don't have a horse in the race between AMD and Intel. I know that AMD gives you more computing power per dollar but Intel usually wins game benchmarks...and that's about it. I just test the boards
As for X299, yeh, the smaller processors for Z390 kill what's available for X299 in value.