GIGABYTE Z390 M Gaming (Intel LGA1151/Z390/Micro ATX/M.2/Realtek ALC892/Intel GbE LAN/HDMI/Gaming Motherboard)

The media could not be loaded. I am writing this from a someone who enjoys PC building and overclocking. I put this in my phanteks 314etg case which fits perfectly. I currently have a 9700K on this board and it runs perfectly. The 8+4-pin cpu power supply does come in handy when it comes to cpu overclocking. I was able to get my 9700K all the way up to 5.3 on all cores below 1.45v. (Yes I won the silicon lottery on this chip) HOWEVER, the vrm does get pretty hot. With any core voltage greater than 1.30v, you are gonna get to 95C to 110C on Vrm within 5mins running heavy AVX loads (prime95 and FPU test on AIDA64). Currently I have mine running at 5.0g with 1.275v with no AVX off-set. The vrm can maintain a reasonable (<95C) temperature for 15mins during prime95. (Which is something you will never experience during normal daily usage). With all that being said. The motherboard is pretty impressive given its price point.In terms of other features, gigabytes BIOS can be a pain in the ass sometimes as you have to type some options in order to access them because drop down lists doesn’t work. The motherboard have rgb ports but it’s a 12v 4pin so you stuck with ambient light on that one. Given the very limited options of MATX MBs out there, this is one of the good options IMO. You won’t be disappointed unless you plan on overclocking a 9900K on this, which is possible given the 8+4pin cpu power supply. And I assume if you put some small Noctua fans on top of the Vrm radiators, it should keep the vrm under a normal temperature. Or just go for a water block that covers the vrm as well, but I doubt anyone will get this MB if they are going with full custom water cooling.Overall, this is a fantastic board if you are new to PC building and it is a interesting board if you are into overclocking, there are a lot of things you can do with this MB given it’s 8+4pin cpu power supply.

This is a GREAT motherboard, especially for the price! It has plenty of fan headers and the overall build quality is great! The VRM's seem to stay cool, and I haven't had any issues yet. My only complaint is the software and how difficult it is to use and vague Gigabyte is with it. This motherboard has two LED's build in. One red backlight behind the MB, and one RGB LED in the rear IO area. Along with this, there is the LED strip header on the motherboard. I spent over 2 days trying to install "RGB Fusion" to control these lights with no luck. Finally I realized you need this very discrete application for the Gigabyte App center call "Ambient Light" to control the LED's. It has basic functionalities, but that isn't an issue for me because I just wanted the lights to all be white. For such a big company like Gigabyte, I expected a software that wasn't as half-baked as the "Gigabyte App Center" hub they made. Other than that though, this motherboard is a steal for the price, and I'd recommend to anyone building a Micro ATX build!My setup:-Intel i7 8700k-2x8gb Trident Z DDR4 RGB 3200 MHz -Gigabyte z390 Gaming M (Micro atx) motherboard-Corsair h100i Pro AIO (paired with SP120 fans for better static pressure)-Gigabyte gtx 1060 6gb-EVGA G2 750W power supply-lots of hard drives and 1 ssd

I previously owned an Asus Z390-E which always gave me problems with either memory comparability or bios updating, It was also $200 plus. It gave me no out of the box experience and I had to reseat the cpu 4 times just to get it to boot correctly, not a well thought out product, it looked cool though. This Gigabyte one worked right out of the box and it was a returned item. I hate the bios but it can be figured out. The Asus bios is easy to use if you can get your cpu and mobo running correctly. Score one for Gigabyte, I’ll be stucking with either Asrock or Gigabyte for now on. I gave Asus 5 solid years. But looks aren’t what really matters to me, performance is what matters. 10 +2 VRM’s on a mini ATX? Simply awesome

I am no expert but I have done a decent amount of overclocking. I was running an ASRock Z370M Pro4 and even though all of my temps looked good in HWInfo, I would get ring thermal throttling after long periods of video encoding. This board has eliminated the thermal throttling and seems to have better power delivery and build quality. The ASRock had no heat sinks and this board has pretty decent ones. I will agree with some comments about the bios being bit cumbersome. Also my patriot 3733MHz memory is running at 3333MHz with XMP Profile active and if I try to force it to 3733 it fails. I haven't tried to tighten up the timing yet, but maybe this will be possible since the board is slowing down my memory speed.. I am running a 9700k @ 4.9GHz ring/uncore 4.6GHz and all seems well. I no long need a fan blowing on my board while encoding.