Looking for mobo suggestions

lDreaml

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 2, 2016
Messages
75
Looking for suggestions on a good mobo. I'm being told that the GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS Master is the way to go but I've had my eye on the Asus Rog lineup for years now. What do you guys think? The build I'm working on getting:

ram - 32GB G.Skill DDR4 TridentZ RGB 3200Mhz
ssd - Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series - 2Tb PCIe NVMe
psu - EVGA Supernova 850 G5
cpu - i9-10900k
gpu - undecided
 
I have used both brands, but have stuck with Gigabyte boards exclusively the past 15 years or so with no issues. My vote goes to the Aorus.
 
My go to has always been ASUS. I like their UEFI interface. I don't like their RMA customer service though. I have had the same number of ASUS and Gigabyte boards (2 each) went bad on me. Have you thought about EVGA boards though?
 
I have had great success with EVGA customer service. I have had the EVGA Dark (x79 and z390) series and they are quite good, although the UEFI is not as good as ASUS, but on par with everyone else. The Z490 Dark is quite expensive and has only 2 memory slots, so I don't know if it will work for you (besides it is for major OC as well). If not, the FTW is just as good, and you save about $200 in the process.
 
I have had great success with EVGA
The price is a bit above my budget. Really like the overall look of the maximus though, but that price.. Do they both support 10th generation intel cpus and pcie 4.0? And beyond that am I really missing out on anything in terms of quality or features with the gb aorus master?
 
PCIe 4.0 is not supported on the 10th gen. There is no words from Intel whether the next gen will support it, or if they will go straight to PCIe 5. What is your current setup? You may want to hold off on upgrading if you want PCIe 4. The EVGA z490 FTW is in the same price range as the Aorus Master.
 
My current setup is 11+ years old. Still using 1st gen i7. Looking to future proof. Perhaps Im a bit oblivious but I cant seem to find the ftw version. Any chance you could link me a source. And I guess again what would make the EVGA specifically better in this case? (I had thought I posted this but just noticed I hadn't.. Damn it)
 
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That much I know but beyond the customer service and ease of over clocking, would I be missing out on anything? Tbh the money to build a pc isn't so readily available for me so I doubt I will be overclocking much if at all to maintain longevity of the parts. Though I might dabble a bit in it. Are the GB mobos known for being troublesome for oc'ing?
 
Just got done with this upgrade myself

I went with the $750 Asus extreme mainly due to better OC thermals and "probably" longer CPU life (watch vid #2)
I have owned Asus II Extreme, VI Extreme and now XII extreme none have ever failed me. Asus II Extreme is still running today in my sons PC.

two really good vids to watch if you have not already

Compare Different z490 MoBo's


Compare Different z490 MoBo thermals
 
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I went with the Aorus myself - haven't booted yet (finishing cable runs, I did a custom loop) but I like the board layout so far.
 
Awesome, just got finished watching that on it. The only thing confusing me atm is the ram "daisy chain" stuff. If I were to go with it I wouldn't know where I'd place the 2 sticks or how 2x 16gb would be affected.
 
Awesome, just got finished watching that on it. The only thing confusing me atm is the ram "daisy chain" stuff. If I were to go with it I wouldn't know where I'd place the 2 sticks or how 2x 16gb would be affected.

2x isn't affected, and the board and manual both tell you :) It's hard to see on the video, but it has markings to say "these two first".
 
Thanks you guys.
Compare Different z490 MoBo thermals

This has completely thrown my planning out of wack. The difference between those boards base thermals is insanity. To the point that I am now almost all in on the asus rog maximus xii hero as the extreme at $1000+ is a bit, well, extreme.. However the only thing that is keeping me from going all in on this is the fact that none of the Asus boards support pcie 4.0. If for whatever reason it is supported some time in the near future with the i9-10900k then I'd be out of luck with the asus. I mean I guess it is not really needed as current nvme speeds are insane, but yeah.. Really wishing I hadn't ordered the gb aorus liquid cooler 360 yesterday.
 
PCIE support would require a new processor; can't be added in software.
 
They say the next version on Intel CPU's will support PCIE 4 but I'm not gona bet on it.

Am also unsure if Asus Z490 boards have the built in PCIE 4 support like the others Z490 have
Asus may have it built in like the others, but Asus is not saying about it... keep in mind Its the i9 that does not support PCIE 4

Yes NVME works with intel boards just not at PCIE 4 speed's
I also thought about the Hero, but I needed the 2 extra Sata ports, thought for the $ I could have got the Hero and more memory

Newegg has the Hero in stock for 400
 
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Yeah definitely looking like I'll be going with the Hero given the idle temps of the cpu on the aorus. That and the ease of use in the Asus ui make it all the more alluring. Kind of the wrong board to ask but have any suggestions on liquid cpu coolers?
 
Yeah definitely looking like I'll be going with the Hero given the idle temps of the cpu on the aorus. That and the ease of use in the Asus ui make it all the more alluring. Kind of the wrong board to ask but have any suggestions on liquid cpu coolers?
Just set clocks/voltages manually. That should fix any Z490 board playing games.
 
PCIe 4.0 is not supported on the 10th gen. There is no words from Intel whether the next gen will support it, or if they will go straight to PCIe 5. What is your current setup? You may want to hold off on upgrading if you want PCIe 4. The EVGA z490 FTW is in the same price range as the Aorus Master.
It was already confirmed 11th gen is supposed to support 4.0 and I believe it was gigabyte that confirmed their z490 was going to be compatible (which means at least that chipset is compatible). It's starting to show up in engineering samples, so I can't imagine (unless it's broken) that it won't come out.
https://www.techpowerup.com/270435/...ket-lake-s-es-shown-running-pcie-4-0-nvme-ssd
 
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Just set clocks/voltages manually. That should fix any Z490 board playing games.
I'm not tech savvy enough to attempt that. I wish I were because the aorus board, aesthetically looks much more appealing.

Much appreciated

So this means the aorus master will support the new cpus...? Building a pc was a lot simpler 10 years ago.
 
Thanks you guys.

This has completely thrown my planning out of wack. The difference between those boards base thermals is insanity. To the point that I am now almost all in on the asus rog maximus xii hero as the extreme at $1000+ is a bit, well, extreme.. However the only thing that is keeping me from going all in on this is the fact that none of the Asus boards support pcie 4.0. If for whatever reason it is supported some time in the near future with the i9-10900k then I'd be out of luck with the asus. I mean I guess it is not really needed as current nvme speeds are insane, but yeah.. Really wishing I hadn't ordered the gb aorus liquid cooler 360 yesterday.
Now I can see how someone {username withheld} claimed that the i9-9900K beats anything AMD in Premiere Pro performance, and even went so far as to call those who oppose his opinion "AMD fanboys:" Unlike AMD, Intel actually lets its motherboard manufacturer partners run amok when it comes to voltages and default auto multipliers even though Intel itself has its own guidelines as to how its CPUs are supposed to run. His opinion was based on those Z390 motherboards that permanently lock the i9-9900K to 4.7 GHz on all cores when it really was not supposed to do so much, if at all. In fact, had Intel really forced the mobo makers to comply, then that i9-9900K would have slowed down its sustainable all-core clock speed after a short time operating at max to only about 4.0 GHz. That would have completely wiped out all of its performance advantage over the Ryzen 7 3800X (both on default stock Auto settings), and might have even made the 9900K slower than even a 3700X. In fact, its stock performance would have been so much lower than the published benchmarks revealed that one would absolutely have to permanently force-enable its iGPU (with a discrete GPU installed, of course), and therefore QuickSync, just to edge out the 3800X in Premiere Pro. He absolutely trusted motherboard makers who are total cheaters in the Intel board game.

By the way, with both the 300- and the 400-series Intel chipsets, Asus came the closest (of the four major motherboard brands) to what Intel says the default behavior of its CPUs was supposed to be, although it too cheated a bit.

In other words, that particular user is a complete Intel fanboy. Whereas I see only those things that were really supposed to happen in the first place (and I am CPU-brand-agnostic when I stated this).
 
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EVGA Z490 Dark is the best board on the platform but its not released yet. Also to clear it up. EVGA Dark boards are some of the best quality boards. However it stops there. The rest of the lineup is not at all close to being the same and is designed and engineered by a different team.

Gigabytes bios is still trash.

so id probably pickup a Z490 Meg Ace as of right now.
 
Gigabytes bios is still trash.
I agree with that. That Gigabyte BIOS interface is very frustrating to use with a mouse. It is recalcitrant with mouse clicks, and totally unresponsive to drags. However, it adopted UEFI very reluctantly: The company really wanted to stick with a legacy, text-only based Award BIOS indefinitely (if not permanently), and was only forced to switch to UEFI when the rest of the motherboard companies had already been using it for a couple of years (Gigabyte's official adoption of UEFI only came during the Ivy Bridge/Z77 chipset era, and even today, its adoption felt begrudging at best).
 
So this means the aorus master will support the new cpus...? Building a pc was a lot simpler 10 years ago.
I can't make any promises of how well it works as I haven't seen it run the hardware, but yes.
According to gigabyte pcie 4.0 will be supported an that board with Intel 11th gen CPUs.
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/Z490-AORUS-MASTER-rev-1x#kf

Ps. Yes, all z490's should work.with 11th gen but will require a bios update to do so. 12th gen will likely be a new board.
 
So what I've gathered is the Evga Dark is king. The Aorus may be able to utilize next gen intel chips, but lacks the UI usability and baseline volt stuff of Asus. Asus also is top-notch as far as UI goes according to you guys. Meanwhile the Z490 Meg Ace is also a top pick. I know I am overcomplicating things and most features are well beyond my routine usage, so paying extra would be useless for me, but taking a step back and seeing all these minute differences really makes my head spin. Not really sure what to go with anymore. lol
 
So what I've gathered is the Evga Dark is king. The Aorus may be able to utilize next gen intel chips, but lacks the UI usability and baseline volt stuff of Asus. Asus also is top-notch as far as UI goes according to you guys. Meanwhile the Z490 Meg Ace is also a top pick. I know I am overcomplicating things and most features are well beyond my routine usage, so paying extra would be useless for me, but taking a step back and seeing all these minute differences really makes my head spin. Not really sure what to go with anymore. lol
Its better if you tell us what you need in a board and a budget and we can supply some options for you.
 
Now I can see how someone {username withheld} claimed that the i9-9900K beats anything AMD in Premiere Pro performance, and even went so far as to call those who oppose his opinion "AMD fanboys:" Unlike AMD, Intel actually lets its motherboard manufacturer partners run amok when it comes to voltages and default auto multipliers even though Intel itself has its own guidelines as to how its CPUs are supposed to run. His opinion was based on those Z390 motherboards that permanently lock the i9-9900K to 4.7 GHz on all cores when it really was not supposed to do so much, if at all. <snip>

I am not the user in question, nor am I an intel fanboy (I've had a fair bit of AMD in the past). I like intel because you can tweak the heck out of their offering any way that you want. I have. I'm a tinkerer.

I have used OpenCL on the igpu on the 9900k, and vs my overclocked chip, it is faster than the cpu in OpenCL apps. This was a big surprise to me.
 
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I apologize for the late response. I suppose just future proofing. That if it's at the cost of insane voltage settings by default, stuff I am not comfortable messing with, then I can't justify one over the other.
 
I am not the user in question, nor am I an intel fanboy (I've had a fair bit of AMD in the past). I like intel because you can tweak the heck out of their offering any way that you want. I have. I'm a tinkerer.

I have used OpenCL on the igpu on the 9900k, and vs my overclocked chip, it is faster than the cpu in OpenCL apps. This was a big surprise to me.
I targeted that post of mine to someone else. I am also targeting those motherboards and motherboard manufacturers that make their installed CPUs run at maximum all-core Turbo clocks and relatively insane core voltages full-time by default, even at the motherboard's so-called "stock" settings. And as I saw in that video, some users actually complained that their Intel systems were unstable at even their "stock" settings.
 
the EVGA dark board will be comming out in a couple weeks. its an INSTABUY for me. no questions asked

i have a z490 APEX and a z490 gigabyte aorus ITX, i really like the ASUS board. but if i werent hard into overclocking ddr4, i would say that the gigabyte boards were totally fine for regular use cases. i didnt really have anything bad to say about the gigabyte it did a good job overclocking the cores. and a good enough job with memory.
figure out what features are important to you and get what meets your needs. the evga FTW board actually checks alot of boxes. for me having a U.2 port is important, and theres not many options out there for that.
if you care about future PCIE4 support do your homework because its not on all the brands.
 
Are you doing a custom loop OP? And/or going for large OC? If not you do not need these top end (500-1k) boards. They will have tons of features you will not use. If you're just going with air cooling and auto-everything settings just buy a solid mid or mid-high tier board.

Edit: I see the asus extreme comes with a ROG keychain, that alone is probably worth $100.
 
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