GIGABYTE Z390 DESIGNARE Gigabyte (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/2xM.2/Thunderbolt 3/Onboard AC Wifi/12+1 Phases Digital Vrm/Motherboard)

Bought this board for my second computer build. I put an 8700k Intel CPU in it. It is great for content creation. Speed, ease of use, and durability is great. If you want stability and reliable booting then Gigabyte motherboards are the way to go.

It's truly wonderful to have a motherboard product in the marketplace that doesn't reference GAMING. Don't get me wrong, I love(d) gaming... probably a little too much. Trying to get some distance between those days and my current semi-adult mentality. This is a small deal in the grand scheme, but for me, it was a big part of the buying decision.It also seems like an Aorus Extreme, minus a feature or two, with slightly less overclock-ability. My OC'ing days are behind me, so no worries there.THINGS I LIKE (or imagine I will like)- I'm excited to try the Thunderbolt capability so I can cut down on cables running from my case.- The wifi is stellar so far. One cool thing to note is that the antenna is totally not needed if you're in the same room with your wireless router.- DAC-specific USB, which will soon be tested with my DAC!- Some lights, but classy and understated- Fired right up, 1st try, no issuesTHINGS I DON'T LIKE- I wish it had right angle power connectors, but until case manufacturers and MoBo companies standardize their connector/cutout locations, it's a bit of a gamble for a company to offer that (EVGA z390 Dark for instance). I would love not having to wrench on power cables to get them to turn the corner and play nice, but c'est la vie- using an M2 slot disables 1-2 of the SATA ports. Not a big deal for almost anyone. I use zero SATA ports anyway- Not sure what the goop is inside the M2 shields. It was not explained in the manual. Thermal paste of some sort?- I hear the displayport is INPUT-ONLY. No big deal- I hear the DAC port can cause issues with certain dacs and that disabling USB power suspension didn't necessarily solve said issues (I'll update this review if that's the case for me)All of the cons listed above are either speculative or minor in the grand scheme. If a MoBo fires up flawlessly on the first try, that's half the battle. The other half will arrive 5-10 years down the road when we see how well it's holding up. No one will be buying these by then, so all I can do is work it hard for the next 6 months and chime back in if anything breaks. So far so good.

At first, I was skeptical due to the lack of reviews and a big price tag. But I wasn't disappointed! I used this mobo in my first ever personal build, after building about 10-12 other PCs to sell or for other people. I built a Win10/macOS 10.14.5 Hackintosh, following a guide on Tonymacx86 using this exact board. Trying to keep most of the components the same and wanting to provide a solid foundation for my CPU and GPU, I went with this.Pros:-Helps keep my i9-9900k cool-Lots of I/O ports and USBs-A good number of fan headers, only needed one y-splitter to make my cooler a push & pull (because why not)-Two M.2 drives with gorgeous covers-Onboard Wi-Fi (even though I use another card for AirDrop, BT, and WiFi for MacOS)-Very visually appealing, awesome silver/black/blue tri-tone color scheme.-Little-to-no GPU sag with Vega 56 PulseCons:I can't really think of a reasonable con for this board, but if I had to pick one: the Wi-Fi M.2 card on the board is an ugly green card with a big white QR code sticker, which annoyingly interrupts the whole color scheme. It would've been smart for Gigabyte to at least put a black sticker over it, but then again I can too. It's really no big deal, as it can be fixed with a sharpie, tape, sticker, etc.Conclusion:I'll admit, a few months ago I was drooling over mainstream brands. (like MSI and ASUS, which are undoubtedly great brands) But Gigabyte produces some high-quality products and this motherboard has officially won me over as an advocate... This isn't cheap silicon junk that heats up like a microwave. It's high quality, suited for whatever workload you through at it. If Gigabyte makes the rest of their products like this motherboard, then you won't be disappointed with anything you buy from them. I'm already looking at their 2080 Super GPU...Build: i9-9900K, Vega 56 8GB Pulse, Z390 Designare, G.Skill 3000 MHz 32GB, 250GB 970 Evo Plus & 1TB 860 Evo​

I've had this board for 3 years with multiple hours DAILY use and it's been a dream. Every port I've needed, every option that I've needed, it just works. And it stays working. Without fail. Best electronic purchase of my life. Cannot oversell how good this board is and it's dependability is second to none.Buy with confidence if you're here just scoping reviews after seeing this board in a marketplace used.