Aorus Z390 I Pro WIFI (Socket 1151/Z390/DDR4/S-ATA 600/Mini-ITX)

I use Linux, specifically Ubuntu, as my only operating system. I recently built a new i9 9900K workstation and chose the Designare Z390 for the motherboard. I couldn't be happier with it! First of all, everything (I care about) on the motherboard works with Ubuntu 18.04.2 and 18.10 which are the current LTS and interim releases at the time of writing. WiFi, both Ethernet ports, Bluetooth, Thunderbolt, Audio and the rest all work. No messing about required, and what we expect from modern Linux these days. What you are not able to do is configure the RGB on the motherboard, those tools do not exist for Linux (yet). Thankfully, I am not a fan of RGB and deliberately chose a motherboard that didn't light up like a Christmas tree ;-) The default lighting for the Designare Z390 is a subtle blue glow. About as tasteful as it gets. I am a developer and routinely build large applications inside virtual machines and containers. So I/O and CPU performance are important to me. I love that both M.2 NVME slots are connected to CPU PCIe lanes and the GPU still has 16 CPU connected PCIe lanes available. This configuration does reduce the usable SATA ports on the motherboard to 3 from 6 however. I appreciate the inclusion of decent heat shields for both the M.2 slots. The Designare Z390 does offer some overclocking features in the BIOS but not everything that something like the Z390 Aorus Master offers. That said, I have managed to achieve a permanent all core CPU overclock of 5.1Ghz thanks to the excellent VRMs (power delivery) on this motherboard. I have Thunderbolt enclosures, so being able to use those with this motherboard is also great. I've currently got 64GB RAM (16GB DDR43200 x4) installed. The XMP profile was correctly picked up, after selecting it in the BIOS, and I even have the memory on a permanent DDR4 3600 overclock, I couldn't go higher than that though. Since buying the motherboard in January a BIOS update has been released that adds support for 32GB DIMMS, meaning it is now possible to support 128GB RAM on this motherboard. The Designare Z390 is at the heart of an all-round performance workstation which meets my demands as a developer, content creator and sometime gamer.

I upgraded my Asus Prime to this motherboard to run a mild overclocking (all cores boost speed on a 9700K). The VRMs in this board are known to be brilliant. If you plan on any overclock, VRMs are very important to guarantee the right power supply to the CPU. If you don't need to overclock then there isn't much difference between boards really. Some evident differences you may find when not overclocking between this and a chap basic board: - USB-C. This board has USB-C on the back and the specific connector internally as well for external connectors - Fan headers. The board has 4 system fan headers, all independent. Cheaper board might have less - RGB. It isn't obvious, but the lights on the board are all RGB. There is a software for the board that allows you to control the effects. All the lights will behave the same way (same colour, same effect, no separation allowed). - Instead of a separate I/O shield, the I/O panel is integrated and nicer - The m.2 sockets have a heat dissipator for the SSDs Note that these boards have 1x 4pin plus 1x 8pin connectors for the CPU power, so if you want to take sull advantage of the power supply in case of overclocking with these boards you need a power supplier with the 2 lines for the CPU (usually found on the more powerful/more expensive PSUs). I upgraded from an Asus Prime basic board to this. Managed before to get 4.8GHz all cores on my 9700K, couldn't get more. Got now 4.9GHz all cores on the same CPU. Potentially can get better increasing the voltage a bit more, but happy overall. Note: it is "easy" to install for someone that knows what to do. Do not install this if you are not sure of what you are doing. Get help from an expert if you want to learn how to do it, be guided or get it assembled by them. If you get things wrong YOU WILL damage your components

Excellent board and preforming better than expected. We all no that doing a new build can sometimes be a little tedious, making sure everything is stable and preforming as expected etc. This bored went in and has had no issues from day one. In this I have a 9900kf and noticed that I was getting 100% CPU on one thread when idling. Spent a few days monitoring and didn't notice anything significant but then I realised I could do with with checking for bios updates. Updated and never have any issues with CPU usage anymore. It performs really well, I've managed to install an m.2 as boot and still have six SSDs via the board, all lanes available. I then have a pci expansion running at full speed for three more and a BDRW. I have my old GTX 1080ti evga FTW3 running at full bandwidth and 64gb 3200 vipers. It runs like a beaut! I haven't had anything significant happen and the only events I'm recording in viewer with errors, are time outs with my superhub when it goes down. Everything has been simple and efficient since day one of the new build which was in January. Really pleased with his bored. Bios is simple to use and switching to xmp profile 1 has given me the higher speed for my ram. Haven't had to change timings as it's recognised straight away. The board itself is well made and solid. The PCI slots have reinforced trim to hold heavier cards.

Having built a fair few PC's in my time, they seem to get easier as the years progress. My latest one was a breeze, partly due to the ease of connecting this motherboard. The connectors are fairly well laid out around the board, so it's easy to get things looking neat. There's a nice header for the case connectors (which I found after I'd installed everything). Memory is 2 x CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB PRO 32GB which works great. The multi-colour rippling LED colouring is nice (if you're into that sort of thing) but can't be replicated once you use the RGB Fusion software. You can only cycle through colours, not have lots on the same chip at the same time. I installed a 1TB M.2 drive which works great. Be sure to read the manual to see what support it has, as two M.2 chips are only supported in certain circumstances. It does boot up rather quick though! I'm also using all 6 SATA ports without issue. BIOS seems fine to me. You set it up, play with it a bit then leave it. Fan control is pretty good, as most turn off when it's ticking over. My i9 is running at 21C and it's only when you push it extra fans start up. Depending on your setup this is where any fan noise may spring in, but you can set it to not turn them off and keep them ticking over, which is nice. It's a solid motherboard and coming from a military electronics background, appears to be well made. Lots of pretty lights if that's your thing.

I do like the motherboard I did a lot of research when I was looking to buy and this board stood out because it was happy supplying the extra power that the power hungry i9 requires with easy due too good design, it only fell too 4 stars because of the onboard sound the optical link will not work on windows 10 so if you want to use the optical link you will need a separate card

I bought this board for an i9-9900k (Specs below if you care) and I'm very happy with it. The board is well designed with plenty of fan controllers which are insanely useful if you have a large fan cooled case as I do. In fact the fan controllers keep the case so cool that unless I am gaming the CPU fan doesn't turn, at all making the PC remarkably quiet. It has full RGB lighting and will control external RGB strips if you can be bothered to set it up, which I didn't beyond the basic of making it the same colour as my case lights. It will take two M.2 NVMe drives as well as three other drives due to the combination of channels. I'm running 2 m.2 drives, plus an ssd, storage hdd and a CD-Rom drive because, unlike my pc, I am too cheap to upgrade my car stereo :D A couple of things before you build/buy: 1: If you put an i9 in here, or any processor with an aftermarket cooler (I used the Dark Rock 4) you will absolutely NEED low clearance RAM, I put Corsair Vengeance in it and whilst it clears the cooler with a couple mm space, any higher profile stick would have been a problem. This most likely won't be a problem if you're water cooling but do check. 2: The BIOS on the board I received was not updated for the i9-9900k, which basically meant it wouldn't post until I flashed the BIOS with the latest from the website using a USB drive. This was actually ridiculously easy but if you have any doubts or haven't a clue what I am writing about you should probably seek the aid of a professional. I've owned it for a month now (August 2019). It's built into a system with and i9-9900kk, 32GB DDR4 and a BE QUIET Dark Rock 4, running off two M.2 NVME SSD's and with a GTX 1080ti into an ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q with two 24inch 1080p side screens. I use this for work and play, it's not just a toy and it was a solid investment. I tend to upgrade every 4 years, and I always agonise over the hardware as I always pass it on to family members when I am done with it and I expect not to have to upgrade until 4-5 years have passed. I alternate this with my GFX card which I upgrade every 2-3 years. I am more than happy with the longevity inherent in this build. Conclusion: This is a solid motherboard and does everything I want smoothly and will also support in game RGB which I will likely never use.. Credentials: Professional games reviewer and journalist, former game dev.

awesome board and really like the layout of the fan headers and the amount available - makes working with the board very easy. the bios is very detailed and easy to work with. all the lights can be easily controlled from the software. packaged with some additional connectors including strip lighting and an adaptor for your case buttons which is supposed to make attaching the pins into your board easier, but its pretty useless so i didn't bother with it. the wifi/bluetooth is also very fast and the antenna has a decent length but you don't actually need it, works fine without. i think the sound quality is not as good as expected from the board (coming from a creative xfi), the bass and clarity is not what i hoped for. gigabyte website is loaded with software and drivers. some of the screws are a bit fiddly as they are surrounded by the aorus cooler and lights, but otherwise a great product. if you want to use this to charge things like phones when the computer is off, make sure you install the software to let you do this.

Bought this to replace a faulty MSI Carbon Z370 board I bought for my new PC. I've never been a fan of gigabyte, more due to the fact I never really paid much attention to them and thought they were a cheapo version of brands like ASUS and the like. However, after researching boards again to replace the MSI one, I found a lot of superclockers recommending Gigabyte because they use quality components, they are consistently manufacturered (you win the mobo lotto more often than not) and are well priced. So I took the hit and bought it; you can tell it's a quality bit if kit, the header locations/fan ports etc are all well laid out, it was very easy to put together. All in all a perfect performance board for a decent gaming rig! Gigabyte have a new fan.