The GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master Mobo Review: 10GbE Rounds Out A Premium Board
by Gavin Bonshor on February 25, 2022 9:00 AM ESTBoard Features
The GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master is a premium E-ATX motherboard that sits just below the flagship Aorus Xtreme and Xtreme WaterForce models. The Aorus series stretches across its mid-range, premium, and flagship models, and in the case of the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master, it is designed to offer a solid feature set by using most of what Alder Lake and the Z690 chipset has to offer. This includes one full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, as well as two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating both at x4.
For storage, GIGABYTE includes five M.2 slots in total, three supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 drives, one with support for PCIe 4.0 x4 and SATA drives, and one with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 drives. In terms of SATA, there are six SATA ports with support for Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Focusing on memory support, the Z690 Aorus Master has four slots capable of supporting DDR5-6400 memory with a maximum capacity of 128 GB.
Cooling options are impressive, with room for a combined total of ten 4-pin cooling devices. This includes two dedicated to CPU fans, four doubling up as chassis or water pump headers, and four for chassis fans.
| GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master Motherboard | |||
| Warranty Period | 3 Years | ||
| Product Page | Link | ||
| Price | $470 | ||
| Size | E-ATX | ||
| CPU Interface | LGA1700 | ||
| Chipset | Intel Z690 | ||
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR5 Supporting 128 GB Dual-Channel Up to DDR5-6400 |
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| Video Outputs | 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 | ||
| Network Connectivity | 1 x Marvell AQtion AQC113 10 GbE Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E |
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| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220-VB ESS Sabre ES9118 |
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| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 | ||
| PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH) | 2 x PCIe 3.0 (x4/x4) | ||
| Onboard SATA | Six, RAID 0/1/5/10 (Z590) | ||
| Onboard M.2 | 3 x PCIe 4.0 x4 1 x PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 |
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| Onboard U.2 | N/A | ||
| Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) | N/A | ||
| USB 3.2 (20 Gbps) | 1 x USB Type-C (Rear panel) 1 x USB Type-C (One header) |
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| USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) | 5 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 1 x USB Type-C (Rear panel) |
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| USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) | 4 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) |
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| USB 2.0 | 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers) | ||
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin Motherboard 2 x 8-pin CPU |
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| Fan Headers | 2 x 4-pin CPU 4 x 4-pin Chassis 4 x 4-pin Chassis/Water pump |
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| IO Panel | 2 x Antenna Ports (Intel) 1 x USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C 1 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-C 5 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-A 4 x USB 3.2 G1 Type-A 1 x RJ45 (Marvell) 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 Output 5 x 3.5 mm Audio jacks (Realtek) 1 x S/PDIF Optical output (Realtek) 1 x Clear CMOS button 1 x Q-Flash BIOS Flashback button |
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There is plenty of connectivity on the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master, including one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports on the rear panel. In terms of front panel USB support, there's one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C header (one port), two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A headers (four ports), and two USB 2.0 headers (four ports).
GIGABYTE is using a premium networking array including one Marvell AQtion AQC113 10 GbE controller and an Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi. Onboard audio is also premium with a single Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec that powers five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. This is also assisted by an ESS Sabre ES9118 DAC.
Test Bed
With some of the nuances with Intel's Alder Lake processors including the new P and E-cores, our policy is to see if the system gives an automatic option to increase the power limits of the processor. If it does, we select the liquid cooling option. If it does not, we do not change the defaults.
| Test Setup | |||
| Processor | Intel Core i9-12900K, 125 W, $589 8P + 8E Cores, 24 Threads 3.2 GHz (5.2 GHz P-Core Turbo) |
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| Motherboard | GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master (BIOS F1) | ||
| Cooling | ASUS ROG Ryujin II 360mm AIO | ||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX850 80Plus Platinum 850 W | ||
| Memory | Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-4800 CL 14-14-14-34 2T (2 x 16 GB) | ||
| Video Card | MSI GTX 1080 (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
| Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
| Case | Corsair Crystal 680X | ||
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit: Build 21H2 | ||
We must also thank the following:
| Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Noctua Coolers |
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35 Comments
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Silver5urfer - Saturday, February 26, 2022 - link
You should have gone with MSI Unify X or ASUS APEX series for DRAM performance. Tachyon was not good for Z590 not sure how it is for Z690.meacupla - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
Were you able to get memory to overclock beyond its stock 4800?The board's spec does say it supports up to 6400.
Because I have doubts that this board can really do 6400, when it has 4 slots.
Jp7188 - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
It would be great if Anandtech would do a piece comparing memory overclocks on the various boards. I was super excited to get my hands on a 6400 CL32 kit only to find it wouldn't work at full speed in the Aorus Master while it apparently does in other boards from ASUS and MSI. Fast mem with tight timings appears to be a significant differentiator for this generation of motherboards.Infy2 - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
Testing 2022 hardware with graphics card from 2016, time to upgrade I think? A powerful CPU like Adler Lake with such an obsolete graphics card will hardly show meaningful differences in gaming performance.shabby - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
Insert AnandTech gpu review joke here...DanNeely - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
The only way you're going to see any differences from CPU performance is to turn the graphics settings down to the point where the GPU isn't fully loaded and the CPU itself becomes the bottleneck. At that point any vaguely half decent card will work.Tom Sunday - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
Yes the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master is pricey to say the least. I like to think being an enthusiast myself, but at the same time not convinced that l will be able to really taking proper advantage of all the Z690 Aorus Master offered premium features. It’s almost March/April now knocking on our door and I wonder with Intel breaking-out in the second half of 2022 their next-gen 13th Gen Core Raptor Lake, is it actually time to hold off building or even thinking now about an all new premium ($$$$) system? Intel proffers in featuring double-digit performance increases and greater core and thread counts. Moreover a more matured Alder Lake tech! Motherboard vendors in turn already doing a similar marketing dance of much improved MB-tech over their fall 2021 or early 2022 premium products. The old story prevails! “When to hold and when to fold with ones dollars?TLindgren - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
Yeah, it's expensive but the real problem this motherboard have is that Gigabyte has a cheaper motherboard that is arguably better in many ways, the Z690 Aero D! The Master does have better integrated Audio though - the Aero D's ALC4080 is just as good as the Master's ALC1220 but they skimped on audio connectors so the Aero D is only 2.0, not 7.1.Differences:
* Aero D offers both x16/x0 or x8/x8 PCIe 5.0 vs the Masters x16 PCIe 5.0 plus PCIe 4.0 4x!. Both have a third x16 running in x4 PCI 3.0.
* Both have the same 10Gbps network chip, Aero D adds a 2.5Gbps to that.
* Aero D adds dual Thunderbolt (replaces the "plain" USB-C connectors)
* Aero D had DP+HDMI for the iGPU, Master has just DP - these outputs are useful for debugging and adding more screens while still rendering on the dGPU. With TB the Aero D has potentially four extra screens while Master has one!
* Audio is a clear win for the Master - the audio codec on the Aero D should be comparable to the one used on the Master, but it doesn't have ports in the back for more than 2.0 audio!
* Master has 5 M.2 compared to Aero D's 4.
* Master has 9 USB Type-A compared to Aero D's 6.
* Master has... "voltage measurement points". Swoon (not!).
I consider the extras the Aero D has to be far more consequential than the extras the Master has, *except* Audio.
The four PCIe 5.0 switches in the Aero D should cost Gigabyte more than the improved Audio on the Master and that ignores that Aero D also have 2xThunderbolt and a second LAN controller.
So, exactly why does the Master cost $499?
The answer is of course that retail pricing is controlled by what they think they can take for it, not what it costs to make, as long as they're not loosing money of course.
DanNeely - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
With garbage 2.0 audio out the Areo D belongs in the $20 or less liquidation junkbin if not the dumpster out back.nevcairiel - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
I haven't used analog audio connectors in years. Headphones run a USB DAC, desktop speakers are just stereo, and actual movie watching uses HDMI to a receiver.Gladly safe a whole bunch of money if audio is the only meaningful difference I don't care about. Not that I'm going to buy anything Gigabyte anyway..