GIGABYTE Z370 Aorus Ultra Gaming Motherboard Review @ [H]

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GIGABYTE Z370 Aorus Ultra Gaming Motherboard Review

Intel’s launched yet another chipset, so for better or worse that means new motherboards for Intel’s mainstream market. We look at GIGABYTE’s Z370 Aorus Ultra Gaming to see if it’s worthy of a Coffee Lake CPU. And now that you can actually find the 8700K in stock, it is worth talking about.
 
How does one do quad SLI on this with at most 40 PICe lanes (CPU+Chipset) and still have the rest of the peripherals work? Not that quad SLI is a thing, really. I just thought that was an odd feature to tout.
 
How does one do quad SLI on this with at most 40 PICe lanes (CPU+Chipset) and still have the rest of the peripherals work? Not that quad SLI is a thing, really. I just thought that was an odd feature to tout.
I would not suggest Quad SLI on any motherboard in the world. So let's move on from that conversation. Thanks.
 
Some of the pictures say x299.

Sorry, I'm talking about the subsystem page. I haven't read the entire thing, but I believe that should say z370.
 
Some of the pictures say x299.

Sorry, I'm talking about the subsystem page. I haven't read the entire thing, but I believe that should say z370.
Thanks. Fixed. You may have to clear your browser cache.
 
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How does one do quad SLI on this with at most 40 PICe lanes (CPU+Chipset) and still have the rest of the peripherals work? Not that quad SLI is a thing, really. I just thought that was an odd feature to tout.

I think you are confusing Quad-SLI with 4-Way SLI. The former uses dual-GPU's on a single graphics card allowing for the use of 4x GPUs via only two PCI-Express x16 slots. This is absolutely possible with any SLI capable motherboard with at least an 8x8 or 16x8, or 16x16 PCIe lane configuration. 4-Way SLI is not supported on this model.
 
I think you are confusing Quad-SLI with 4-Way SLI. The former uses dual-GPU's on a single graphics card allowing for the use of 4x GPUs via only two PCI-Express x16 slots. This is absolutely possible with any SLI capable motherboard with at least an 8x8 or 16x8, or 16x16 PCIe lane configuration. 4-Way SLI is not supported on this model.
And still not suggested in any way for an efficient build....
 
I'd be interested if you ever get a definitive (or extremely probably) reason why Z370 was necessary from any of your sources.
 
Thank you good sir.

Overall it looks to be a solid motherboard and review. Maybe I'll recommend it to a friend of mine. I already own my motherboard for this generation (MSI x299 sli plus).
Dude, at the $120 price it is a crazy value. Needs a bit of custom airflow, but it would run my delidded 8600K at 5.3GHz/3600MHz for days on full Prime95 load. It would do it without the airflow on the MOSFET heatsink, but I would not suggest doing that on a daily driver.
 
I have tried to convince people of the fact that you don't need to spend $300+ for a motherboard that OCs really well. That marketing works wonders though. Nice review though. Did the mosfet heatsinks get anywhere near that high temp in the non-synthetic (gaming) benchmarks?

I don't recall the specifics on this board for that, but in general they don't. More expensive motherboards do usually have much better MOSFET cooling. I still think your chances for greater longevity in bleeding edge overclocked systems is higher than it is on budget boards. That said, mileage varies and luck of the draw and other factors come into play making that hard to prove conclusively.
 
I don't recall the specifics on this board for that, but in general they don't. More expensive motherboards do usually have much better MOSFET cooling. I still think your chances for greater longevity in bleeding edge overclocked systems is higher than it is on budget boards. That said, mileage varies and luck of the draw and other factors come into play making that hard to prove conclusively.

Agreed. But most don't run extremely high OCs like you did in this review. Now it seems lots of manufacturers have throttles in if you hit too high temps on mosfets and I thought most were around the temperature (~150C) you were hitting so I was surprised that didn't limit you.
 
I have tried to convince people of the fact that you don't need to spend $300+ for a motherboard that OCs really well. That marketing works wonders though. Nice review though. Did the mosfet heatsinks get anywhere near that high temp in the non-synthetic (gaming) benchmarks?
No. 120s iirc.
 
Hi Kyle, great review and pretty much spot on....If I could ask a small favour? As I have this motherboard paired to a i5-8600K could you let me know the base settings you used to get to a 5GHz overclock....I think you settled on a 1.308vcore but any help on the exact settings used would be awesome.
Not a problem! All the settings used for the various overclocks are outlined in this article. Super simple to OC on this board.

Overclocking the Intel 8600K - Delidded on Air and Water
 
Great article! I'm building a new PC and just ordered this on Saturday and it sounds like a made a good choice. I do have a GTX 1080 so I'm concerned about it not POSTing. Should updating the BIOS be my first priority after installing Windows?
 
Great article! I'm building a new PC and just ordered this on Saturday and it sounds like a made a good choice. I do have a GTX 1080 so I'm concerned about it not POSTing. Should updating the BIOS be my first priority after installing Windows?
Getting the most recent UEFI on any motherboard that comes through my hands is always first priority.
 
That board for $120 has to be one of the best in terms of value that I've ever seen.
And a good overclocker too - almost feels like there's some Abit in its family lineage...

Perf and value like this is why Gigabyte has become my personal favorite MB.
 
Hi Kyle, thanks for the heads up on the overclockinga article...I have got the 8600K now running stable at 4.9GHz which I am more than happy with on the Ultra Gaming..Did get to 5GHz but did not want to live with a vcore pushing 1.368....Currently on 49GHz at 1.265v...Thanks...Personally for the price and my use case which is predominantly gaming and light office with a little you tube video editing thrown in...its perfect.
 
Multiple sites report the Ultra Gaming 1.0 (not the 2.0) having higher VRM temps due to the VRM heatsink contact pressure.

I am unsure if this has been addressed but if HardOCP decides to review the 2.0 version I think there ought to be a comparison in x265 workloads.
 
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