Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Grasp

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Gigabyte’s Aorus Grasp motherboards have historically impressed me. They’re very a lot high-end choices, however aren’t priced anyplace close to the highest tier Extremes and Godlikes of the Asus and MSIs of the motherboard world. You continue to get quite a lot of options in your cash, however whenever you leap over $500, diminishing returns actually units in.

Quite a bit was written in regards to the leap in motherboard pricing this era, although as a second era LGA 1700 platform, Z790 wasn’t as badly affected because the all new AMD X670/E boards have been again after they launched. The Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Grasp at $499 / £524 / AU$1,029 is way from what you’d name an inexpensive board, however in comparison with a few of the boards costing properly over that value it is a formidable competitor.

The Z790 Aorus Grasp seems to be an evolution of the Z690 Grasp with a number of aesthetic tweaks, redesigned heatsinks, and assist for as much as DDR5-8000 reminiscence. The Z690 Grasp turned a wonderful board after it acquired some welcome BIOS updates, and it means the Z790 model might wrestle to justify its increased value over the now discounted Z690 model.

The Z790 Aorus Grasp is an prolonged ATX motherboard, so some consideration must be taken to make sure it matches in your case. It’s much less of an element than it as soon as was, thanks in no small half to the gigantism of contemporary graphics playing cards just like the RTX 4090 (opens in new tab). Gigabyte has gone for black and grey theme with only a contact of RGB atop the I/O protect. The look is one which blends type and performance properly.

A tour across the board reveals some attention-grabbing issues. The PCIe slot structure is clearly constructed with triple and quad slot GPUs in thoughts. The first slot shares its PCIe 5.0 lanes with the first M.2 slot. 

The Aorus Grasp is one in every of a rising variety of boards which have a PCIe launch change or latch. Because the common PCIe latch may be troublesome to entry with GPUs which have a backplate, this function is a godsend, even when just for the few that change GPUs lots (like us reviewers!).

The Z790 Aorus Grasp is one more Gigabyte providing with a properly engineered cooling meeting. Whereas different producers have tended in the direction of blocky steel warmth sinks that lack floor space, Gigabyte continues to make use of old-fashioned conventional finned heatsinks. Our easy check with an infinite energy 13900K resulted in a peak VRM temperature of simply 57 levels. Excellent!

The opposite heatsink worthy of focus is the large main M.2 heatsink. With PCIe 5.0 drives anticipated to generate quite a lot of warmth, this sort of cooling means may be very welcome. However do not take it with no consideration. Heatsinks can and do soak up warmth from adjoining graphics playing cards so you may nonetheless want to make sure you have good case airflow.

The board will settle for as much as 5 M.2 drives. Aside from the first slot, they assist as much as PCIe 4.0. There are simply 4 SATA ports. They’re changing into much less and fewer essential however nonetheless, six could be good at this stage, if not eight.

Different attention-grabbing options embrace a so-called Multi-key button which may be programmed by the person to toggle the RGB on or off, boot to BIOS or enter a BIOS secure mode with out shedding your settings.

Regardless of not being awash with blazing RGB, the Z790 Aorus Grasp consists of two ARGB headers and two RGB headers. Plus, there are at least ten fan and pump headers, a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 entrance panel header and energy and reset buttons. Not unhealthy in any respect.

The VRM of the board is an actual spotlight, as you’d count on from a board that’s anticipated to energy overclocked 13900K’s. A 20+1+2 section VRM with 105A phases will fortunately present juice for ln2 overclockers. Other than the out and out overclocking boards just like the Aorus Tachyon or Asus Apex, it’s going to be laborious to search out one thing that beats the VRM of the Z790 Aorus Grasp.

If you need a lot of USB ports, the Grasp might be the board for you. There are 14 on the again panel alone. These embrace two 3.2 Gen 2×2 Sort-C and a Gen 1 Sort-C. Becoming a member of these are seven Gen 2 and 4 Gen 1 ports. That is a robust complement, however be aware that you do not get Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4. They definitely would have been welcome however in equity to Gigabyte, they’re one of many few options that makers use to justify the price of the halo tier motherboards. USB 4 will finally be as ubiquitous as USB 3.0 is at present. After all it is perhaps known as USB 4.7 Gen 4×4 or another ridiculous identify, however I digress.

The Grasp consists of 10G Lan and Killer Wi-Fi 6E. We like to see 10G and hope it trickles right down to cheaper boards sooner or later. The board consists of ALC1220-VB audio which appears like final gen, although it’s a robust implementation with Gigabyte’s dependable alternative of parts, together with an ESS ES9118 DAC.

System Efficiency

Gaming Efficiency

As I say in most motherboard critiques, utilizing benchmarks to judge a motherboard is not all that related except there’s some actual underlying difficulty that stands out. A p.c or two right here or there or margin of error variations do not imply a lot in the true world.

The Z790 platform is mature, and with energy and turbo settings as shut as its doable to set between boards, the outcomes are usually shut. Nonetheless , the Aorus Grasp carried out properly, notably below multithreaded masses. Add to {that a} very cool and powerful VRM and also you get the sensation it is a board that will not have an issue being thrashed with heavy masses. It is no slouch at gaming both.

The BIOS of the Z790 Aorus Grasp is solely miles forward of my first impressions previous to the twelfth Gen launch when DDR5-6000 struggled to run. I reviewed a set of G.Talent DDR5-7200 (opens in new tab) on the Z790 Aorus Grasp and it ran flawlessly. Actually I used to be capable of boot at 7600MHz with only a bump of reminiscence voltage and loosening CAS latency by one step, however past that required unhealthy quantities of IMC voltage. I choose my CPUs to remain alive for a bit longer thanks!

When you’re planning to overclock a Okay-series CPU, you may want one of the best cooling you may get your fingers on. With a VRM of this spec and cooling to match, your CPU cooling will hit its restrict properly earlier than the board breaks a sweat.

The Z790 Aorus Grasp is a extremely aggressive and premium Z790 choice at a superb value. Its underlying design is excellent certainly. The VRM and cooling are high shelf, its simple DDR5-7000 assist is a spotlight and the inclusion of 10G LAN plus a great deal of USB ports is welcome.

The VRM and cooling are high shelf, its simple DDR5-7000 assist is a spotlight and the inclusion of 10G LAN plus a great deal of USB ports is welcome.

When you’re after USB 4 or Thunderbolt you may must look elsewhere and the usage of a final gen ALC1220 raises an eyebrow. Whereas the core spec continues to be good, the formidable Z690 Aorus Grasp continues to be in the marketplace. It may be discovered for considerably cheaper and other than the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and assist for quick reminiscence, they’re fairly related.

Notably, the Z790 Aorus Grasp is a few $130 cheaper than the Asus Z790 Hero, and cheaper once more than the MSI Z790 Ace nevertheless it’s about the identical as ASRock’s Z790 Taichi. All are robust choices and which one you select might come right down to what options attraction to you essentially the most. That 10G LAN of the Aorus Grasp would be the clincher for a lot of, whereas others will not use LAN in any respect, preferring a bit little bit of future proofing with USB 4.

However in the long run, the Z790 Aorus Grasp is a robust board and except you want a selected function that’s unique to flagship boards, it doesn’t disappoint.