GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS ULTRA (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/3xM.2 Thermal Guard/Onboard AC Wi-Fi/RGB Fusion/Gaming Motherboard)

Although Z490 and Z590 boards are out to support the newer 10th Gen and 11th Gen Intel i9 CPU's, I was upgrading from a 10+ year i7 3770K system to i9 9900KF. This truly a high quality board. Even though its well suited for gaming, my main use is video editing. Board supports 3 m.2 drives (though 2 of them require you to sacrifice either a PCIe x4 slot, or on or 2 SATA connectors). This board supports up to 128 GB of RAM, and supports XMP 2.0 profiles for overclocking your memory. Speaking of overclocking, it had great support for overclocking the CPU and has many user accessible manual settings in the BIOS if one if knowledgeable enough to do that. I have most of my settings set to "Auto" since I don't really overclock, but did so just for testing. One feature I woulo dhave liked to see is an external "Clear CMOS" button. The clear CMOS connector on the board doesn't even come with a jumper (you simply momentarily short the jumpers on the Board to clear the CMOS in the event you need to (I always do after a BIOS update). I overcame that shortcoming by attaching an external small pushbutton to the back of may case and connecting it to the jumpers on the MB. The board is very stable, even at overclocked speeds. I only have a single 240mm AIO cooling radiator so I didn't go too high. But, as I said, I dont normally overclock so for me that was a moot point. I especially like the two USB 3 DAC sockets on the back of the board. These have their own dedicated power supply and allow you to fine tune voltage for connected devices that are more sensitive to voltage settings (such as VR devices, or external HDD devices). BIOS is very detailed but also has a simple UI. Only complaint is the limited amount f USB connectors for external connections (e.q. PC case, external connectors, etc.) There are 2X USB 2.0 connectors, 1x USB 3.0 (3.2 Gen1) and 1 USB type C 3.2 Gen2 connectors on the MB. However there are ample connectors on the back panel.Since installing this board into a new build a little over a month ago, I have not found any cons about this board (other than those few small items I mentioned, but those are subjective opinions). Although a bit pricey, I would highly recommend this board to someone looking to upgrade to a Z390 level build.

I did my first high end PC back in August 2018 and I went with the Asus ROG E-Gaming MOBO but after 2 months I started getting Blue Screens Of Death (BSOD) due to either bad Mobo or Ram (Corsair Vengeance). It ended up being the mother board RAM slots when dual channel was active (worth mentioning that I have 4 RAM sticks, 8GB each). I returned that mobo back to Amazon and got this one instead, now almost 3 months of daily use and I have had 00 problems with it and I am very happy with it.Some people complain about the BIOS but in my opinion is not that bad. When you think about it, if you are planning to get this high end mobo you should be able to work with any BIOS.Overclocking - I have the i7 8700k with Corsair's H150PRO cooler and I am at 4.8GHz with temps in the ~68c during stress tests. During gaming my CPU sits around ~60c. I also OC my RAM from 2113MHz to 3200MHz and it runs perfectly and cool (haven't had a single BSOD). Worth mentioning that I did all this overclocking using the profiles that come pre-installed with the Mobo, it took me less that 5 minutes to OC my system.Looks - I think the MOBO looks more clean that its predecessor Gaming 7 and the RGBs are not as invasive (imo). The gray/silver/black colors are generic enough to pretty much fit any theme you have going on with your rig so I was very happy about that. One bad thing might be the MOBO's status meter/display on the bottom of the mobo since you can't turn it off, but since the display is under my 1080ti EVGA GPU and I can't barely see it I really do not mind but be aware of this.Software - Yes, I do have to agree that their software can be improved especially for the RGBs, took me a little while to set my Mobo colors the way I wanted. But if you are like me that have one same static color all the time, once you configured it you won't have to deal with it again.Overall, this is a solid high end motherboard and if you are looking to do heavy gaming (like me) and a little bit of OC then this is your motherboard. If you are an OC enthusiast then you might want to look into the Master or Extreme editions of this mobo gen.