Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX Review | PCMag

The Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX is a midrange motherboard built around Intel's Z790 chipset. Priced at $254.99 in Gigabyte's online shop, the ATX-sized board offers plenty of features including four M.2 sockets (albeit topping out at PCIe 4.0 instead of 5.0 speeds); six SATA ports; 2.5Gbps Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6E networking; a budget audio solution; and power delivery ready for the latest and greatest 12th and 13th Gen Intel CPUs. You can find Z790 motherboards for a little more or less, but the Aorus Elite AX compares favorably with all of them.

The Aorus Elite AX is built on a six-layer PCB with a matte black finish. Large heatpipe-connected heatsinks cover the VRMs, while the M.2 sockets and chipset have their own. The heatsinks sport a brushed aluminum finish with stenciled patterns and Aorus branding. Some RGB lighting is hidden beneath the chipset heatsink, giving a bright, saturated glow inside your chassis. Overall, I like Gigabyte's style.

Supporting Intel's most power-hungry processors is a 19-phase power setup (16 phases for Vcore) using 70A SPS MOSFETs. The 1,120A available for the processor can easily handle the flagship Core i9-13900K chip we used, even if you want to overclock.

On the memory side, Intel's new Z790 and B760 platforms support both DDR4 and DDR5, which gives you an option to save a few dollars with the former. Assuming you want nothing but the best, the Aorus Elite AX supports DDR5 at speeds up to 7,600MHz, which is average for this class. Your mileage may vary as reaching the highest speeds depends on the quality of the CPU's memory controller and the memory kit used. Stick with the QVL list and you should be OK.

As in other motherboard tests, our DDR5-5600 and DDR5-6000 kits were perfectly stable after setting the XMP profile. We also tried our DDR5-7200 kit, which worked by simply enabling XMP. If you want to overclock your memory, there are plenty of options and memory timings.

At the upper left of the motherboard, we see the two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) that power the CPU. Nearby are the large heatsinks tasked with cooling the VRMs below, topped with Aorus branding and some cut-outs to increase surface area. We found the heatsinks did an excellent job keeping the MOSFETs and other power bits within specification.

To the right of the socket area are four unreinforced DRAM slots that latch the memory down on both sides. Above that are the first two of six 4-pin fan/pump headers. Each supports DC and PWM-controlled devices and outputs 2A/24W. With plenty of headers putting out plenty of power, users shouldn't have any problems running their system cooling including custom water loops or pumps.

To the right, we find two of the board's four RGB headers (the others are found along the bottom edge). There are two 3-pin ARGB and two 4-pin RGB headers, with one of each type in each location. Control over the attached lighting is handled through the RGB Fusion section of the Gigabyte Control Center software.

Working our way down the board's edge, we spy the 24-pin ATX connector that powers the board, a 19-pin front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) header, and a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Type-C header. Also worth mentioning are four debug LEDs here to help troubleshoot POST issues.

The bottom half of the board, on the left side, houses the audio section where the Realtek ALC897 codec hides below the Faraday cage (it has Amp Up! branding) along with several audio capacitors. This board doesn’t come with fancy amplifiers or DACs, or even the latest and greatest codec, but most buyers will find this solution adequate for their needs.

In the middle are three full-length PCI Express slots for graphics and expansion. Past the chipset on the right side are Thunderbolt headers and six 6Gbps SATA3 ports. Along the bottom edge of the board, in addition to the second set of RGB and ARGB headers, are front-panel audio and two USB 2.0 headers. The Q-Flash button for resetting the BIOS is next to four fan headers. Last is the front-panel header to connect your power and reset buttons.

The primary (top) graphics slot uses reinforcement to prevent shearing from heavy cards and protects against EMI. The slot connects through the processor and runs up to PCIe 5.0 x16. The other two full-length slots connect through the chip and run at PCIe 4.0 x4 (middle) and PCIe 3.0 x4 (bottom).

Mixed in among the PCIe slots are M.2 sockets. The top one with the largest heatsink connects through the CPU, supporting up to 110mm devices and supporting PCIe 4.0 x4. The other three M.2 locations also support modules up to 110mm long, but they connect through the chipset while also peaking at PCIe 4.0 x4 (64Gbps) speeds; one is dual-compatible with SATA M.2 drives. Along with the six native SATA ports, the M.2 sockets support RAID 0, 1, 15, and 10 modes for additional speed or redundancy. Due to how the devices attach, there's no lane sharing, and you can run all storage devices concurrently.

The rear uses a preinstalled backplate with a black or dark gray background with white port labels. We counted 10 USB ports, including a 20Gbps Type-C port; two red 10Gbps ports; three blue 5Gbps ports; and four black USB 2.0 ports. The DisplayPort and HDMI video outputs sit in the middle, flanked by the 2.5Gbps Ethernet port and Wi-Fi antennas. Last, the audio stack consists of two 1/8-inch plugs for microphone and line out with an SPDIF output.

Like most BIOSes, Gigabyte's Z790 Aorus Elite AX firmware starts in Easy Mode. Here you'll find a lot of info about the system, including the CPU, RAM, storage, and cooling. Several large buttons on the right give access to other features ranging from Advanced Mode to Smart Fan 6 and Q-Flash functionality. In all, the black-and-orange-themed BIOS is easy to read and logical to navigate, though I wish it used Page Up and Page Down so I didn't have to scroll through extended options.

The advanced portion of the BIOS offers a standard configuration with major headings across the top, including customizable Favorites, Tweaker, Settings, and System Info. You'll find all the advanced functionality in this much more comprehensive mode.

The Tweaker section contains all the options to overclock your system. Here you can adjust voltages, RAM speeds and timings, and overclocking options for the CPU.

Inside the Settings section are several subheadings where you can adjust platform power, configure I/O ports, and see voltages, temps, and other data in PC Health. Here you'll find options to enable or disable audio and integrated graphics, enable Resizable BAR, and configure USB, NVMe, SATA, audio, and network hardware.

The UEFI is logically laid out and easy to get around. The Z790 version, like its X670 counterpart, has a full array of tweaks including processor and RAM overclocking. Unlike on other BIOSes, you can't play with the RGB lighting from here but must use a Windows utility. Overall, the BIOS provides all the options you need, and our version (F7b) was stable in our time with the board.

Speaking of software, Gigabyte's Windows-based Control Center provides monitoring of and control over RGB lighting, fans, and performance/overclocking. It's a lightweight app that matches the black and orange Aorus theme and polls the system on startup for software and driver updates or downloads as needed (with your approval). The screenshot below shows the landing page and all the hardware it can control on our test system.

For motherboards, Control Center lets you fine-tune RGBs, fan control, and performance. The RGB Fusion software includes eight LED effects including static, pulse, flash, cycle, and wave, with options to change the brightness and speed of each effect.

The fan control module has three canned options (silent, normal, and full speed), plus the ability to adjust manually and make custom curves. The software detected all our test system's fans, PWM and DC alike, and controlled them without issue.

Using the software to overclock the processor and memory is straightforward. There are drop-downs to select the CPU multiplier (for Performance and Efficiency cores; BCLK is not available) as well as memory speed (but not timings) and voltage.

The Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX does a good job of pairing the enthusiast chipset with a moderate budget, giving you a well-equipped motherboard without abusing your bank account. In addition to a conservative but premium appearance (with RGBs!), it provides a slew of USB ports, sufficient storage options including four M.2 sockets (with no PCIe 5.0 but support for M.2 SATA modules), a basic but viable audio solution, and VRMs ready for Intel's 12th and 13th Gen CPUs. It has everything you'd expect to find at its price point.

You can find three competitive motherboards priced within $10 of the Gigabyte (the ASRock Z790 Steel Legend, MSI Pro Z790-A WIFI, and Asus Prime Z790-P Wi-Fi), with some differences in fine details but basically similar specifications and features. The ASRock is the only option if you need a PCI Express 5.0-capable M.2 socket. The MSI has the newest audio codec, but "only" Wi-Fi 6 instead of 6E. It's a toss-up among them, but the Z790 Aorus Elite AX definitely deserves a spot on your short list.

[Editor's Note June 23, 2023: We corrected the identity of the audio codec on this board in a handful of places and in the spec list. The correct codec is the Realtek ALC897.]

The Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX motherboard performed well in our testing and looked good doing it, adding some RGB bling to our test bench. If your new system doesn't require a PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 socket, it's a great option in the midrange Intel LGA1700 market.

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From my first PC in the mid-1980s (a Tandy TR-86) to today’s productivity, gaming, and LED-laden monster in use now, I’ve always been interested in electronics and computers. My gaming days started with early consoles (think Intellivision, Atari 2600/5200) and eventually moved on to PC as my controller skills diminished and age crept up. I got back into PCs when AMD was the fastest CPU around (read, before the Intel Core days), and from there, it’s history. Overclocking, sub-ambient/extreme and competitive overclocking: If it had to do with benchmarking, I wanted to be a part of it.

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