Overpriced and Disappointing! The $1300 AORUS Z790 Xtreme X

"Overpriced and Disappointing" could be a name of last few years in PC industry.

At $1,300, that plastic cable cover shouldn't be plastic. At $1,300 you can afford to have that thing made from metal.

I think Gigabyte made this board just to make their Tachyon and Master look like good deals!!!!

I was expecting the "7-degree difference" to be tested by simply taping over the holes (because I assumed it's compared to not having them there), but if even pulling the air forcibly results in only 2 degrees... Yeah.

For a board that price, I'd expect PCIe switches for dual x16 slots or a full uncut x16 slot with multiple PCIe 5 M.2 slots.

I have made a review of an Z790 Elite X and made extended ram overlocking tests, and making a review of a Pro X and I could only get to 7600 Mhz manual overlock with 2x16 GB, the entire X lineup (including Xtreme and Master) is identical in terms of memory performance. They are better than previous non X boards in terms of memory, but only 400-600 mhz better. Do not expect anything more than 7200-7400 xmp, maybe 7600 xmp if you have 2x24 gb. Marketed 8266 - manual overlock with 2x24 with best cpu memory controller possible. People need to stop buying these stupid fast 7800+ memory kits and expect them to work. You need and APEX or Tachyon for those.

Love how technical he is then calls the air duct an air thing lol legend

Imagine how much simpler life would be without a glass side panel on your case.

The fact these boards are more expensive than HEDT boards used to be is insane

Buying a motherboard for the price of a cheap car and still getting that Norton bullshit is a spit in the face

Ill be honest. I was foolish for buying an ROG Crosshair X670E Hero for $700. However, it had the connectivity that I really wanted. With that being said, that was an insane price to pay for a motherboard. $1300 is unfathomable. I mean, WTF?!

Competely agree on the disappointment with Gigabyte software. It takes away massively from the "perfection enjoyment" of my primary build (an X570, not this board, but still). Thank you, as always for your honesty and not talking down to your audience. Cheers

The board has to be using the iGPU to mirror the dGPU in order for Thunderbolt to actually work which means a simple DP-ALT to DP adapter should work if you want to use the iGPU for an actual display.

huge respect to you for calling Bullshit when you see it. You have earned a lot of trust over the years because you say it as it is. Appreciate all you do for us mere mortals.

Even Sheik is exhausted by the review outcome

Thanks for your honest reviews! I wish these BIG companies would not lie as much to the consumers as they do now!

It's a $1300 board, I'd expect a proper fully coloured manual

I miss the days of a Motherboard costing £250/£300 being high end and now you don't even get all the features at that price point which is just sad

Couple of notes, 1. You have display output via the USB-C / TB4 ports for onboard/iGPU video 2.a. Most of the USB-A ports are using a Realtek USB HUB 2.b. Most of the internal USB 3.x ports are on hubs, likely also Realtek... 3.a. The 2.5GB eth port is Intel 226v (good) 3.b. The 10GB port is AQC107 multi-gig capable (meh Gen3 PCI-E, the newer AQC113CS supports Gen4, but these chipsets sometimes have disconnect issues unless you disable a lot of features) 4.a. Only 1 M.2 slot supports SATA, they all support x2, or x4 lane PCI-E 4.b. Only 1 M.2 slot appears to be dedicated 4 lane and not shared, (the one mentioned in the video below the top PCI-E slot) 4.c. All other M.2 slots (excluding the Gen5 above top PCI-E and Gen4 dedicated immediately below top PCI-E slot) share the total bandwidth of the Z790 chipset, which includes the 2.5GB nic, 10GB NIC, Thunderbolt ports, WiFi, lower PCI-E x16(x4 lane), etc. This is essentially 8 lanes of PCI-E Gen 4 bandwidth (x8 DMI 4.0) 5. The TB4 ports effectively share PCI-E lanes with some of the Gen 4 M.2 slots(lowest 3) and the lower PCI-E x16 slot (x4 lane slot), lan/wifi,etc. see below Gigabyte does not define what is switched with what other than the top PCI-E slot in their manual. Z790 should have as many as 28 lanes available (20x Gen4, 8x Gen3) The lowest 3x M.2 slots running off the z790 chipset are all using x4 Lanes of Gen4 (x12 of 20 available lanes from the z790) The Gigabyte manual lists only the devices hanging off the Gen3 bus, with a total of 12x lanes potentially used of x8 available, wifi (x1 lane), 2.5Gb LAN (x1 lane), 10Gb lan (x2 lanes), TB4 controller (x4 lanes) and the lower PCI-E slot (x4 lanes) So if you want to use TB4, you might have to leave the lower PCI-E slot vacant? bad lane mappings on gigabytes part (some of these devices could have hung off the Gen4 lanes instead of Gen3 lanes This board seems WAY overpriced for some possible issues it brings with USB hubs and possibly misguided PCI-E lane utilization

The CR23 unstable is probably caused by the very low CPU core voltage on this motherboard. My ROG APEX ENCORE with the i9-14900K consumes nearly 400W when running CR23 by default, and with adaptive mode at -0.055V and LLC 4, it consumes 380W. When I undervolt to -0.1V, I encounter the same error as you did in this video.