Gigabyte's Aorus Master motherboards have traditionally impressed me. They are very high-end products, but not priced like the Asus and MSI top-class Extremes and Godlikes of the motherboard world. Still, you get a lot of features for the money, but once you get above $500, the pickings start to dwindle.

Much has been written about this generation's motherboard price spikes, but the second-generation LGA 1700 platform, the Z790, has not been affected as significantly as the just-released AMD X670/E board. the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master priced at $499/£524/1,029 AUS, is far from what one would call an affordable board, but it is a formidable competitor compared to some boards that are well above that price.

The Z790 Aorus Master appears to be an evolution of the Z690 Master with some aesthetic tweaks, a redesigned heatsink, and support for up to DDR5-8000 memory. the Z690 Master is an excellent board after receiving some welcome BIOS updates and means that the Z790 version may have a hard time justifying a higher price than the currently discounted Z690 version.

Since the Z790 Aorus Master is an extended ATX motherboard, one must make sure it will fit in a case. This is partly thanks to the enormity of modern graphics cards like the RTX 4090 (opens in new tab); Gigabyte has gone with a black and gray theme with a touch of RGB on the I/O shield. This look is a nice blend of form and function.

A look around the board reveals a few interesting things: the PCIe slot layout is clearly built with triple- and quad-slot GPUs in mind. The primary slot shares PCIe 5.0 lanes with the primary M.2 slot.

The Aorus Master is one of a growing number of boards with PCIe release switches or latches. This feature is a godsend for those who swap GPUs frequently (like us reviewers), as regular PCIe latches can be difficult to access on GPUs with backplates.

The Z790 Aorus Master is another Gigabyte offering with a well-designed cooling assembly. While other manufacturers tend to use blocky metal heat sinks with little surface area, Gigabyte continues to use the old-school traditional finned heat sink. In a brief test using 13900K with unlimited power, the peak VRM temperature was only 57 degrees Celsius. Outstanding.

Another notable heatsink is the massive primary M.2 heatsink; PCIe 5.0 drives are expected to generate a lot of heat, so such cooling performance is much appreciated. But don't take it for granted. Heat sinks can absorb heat from adjacent graphics cards, so case airflow must be provided.

The board supports up to five M.2 drives. Outside of the primary slot, it supports up to PCIe 4.0; there are only four SATA ports; although SATA ports are becoming less important, it is still better to have six, if not eight, at this level.

Other interesting features include so-called multi-key buttons, which can be user-programmed to toggle RGB on and off, boot to BIOS, and enter BIOS safe mode without losing any settings. [The Z790 Aorus Master features two ARGB headers and two RGB headers. Additionally, there are over 10 fan and pump headers, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 front panel headers, power and reset buttons. Not bad.

The VRMs on this board are a real highlight, as you would expect from a board expected to power an overclocked 13900K. 20+1+2 phase VRMs with 105A stages will happily power ln2 overclockers. aorus Aside from complete overclocking boards like the Tachyon and Asus Apex, it would be hard to find anything to beat the VRM on the Z790 Aorus Master.

If you want a lot of USB ports, the Master is the board for you. There are 14 on the back panel alone. These include two 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C and one Gen 1 Type-C. In addition to these, there are seven Gen 2 ports and four Gen 1 ports. This is a strong complement, but note that there is no Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 on board. These are certainly welcome additions, but to be fair to Gigabyte, they are one of the few features that manufacturers use to justify the cost of a hello-tier motherboard; USB 4 will eventually become as ubiquitous as USB 3.0 is today. Of course, that could be USB 4.7 Gen 4x4 or some other ridiculous name, but I digress.

The Master has 10G Lan and Killer Wi-Fi 6E. We love seeing 10G and hope to see it on less expensive boards in the future. The board has ALC1220-VB audio, but is a strong implementation thanks to Gigabyte's selection of reliable components, including the ESS ES9118 DAC.

System Performance

Gaming Performance

As we say in most motherboard reviews, using benchmarks to evaluate motherboards is not very useful unless there are outstanding fundamental issues.1, 2 percent error or margin of error doesn't mean much in the real world.

The Z790 platform is mature, and by keeping power and turbo settings as close as possible between boards, results were generally close. Still, the Aorus Master performed well, especially under multi-threaded loads. Additionally, with its very cool and powerful VRM, the board feels comfortable under high loads. Also, the gaming performance is impeccable.

The Z790 Aorus Master's BIOS is miles ahead of the first impressions we had before the 12th generation was released, when it struggled to run DDR5-6000. a set of G.Skill DDR5-7200 (opens in new tab) on the Z790 Aorus Master We reviewed it and it worked flawlessly. In fact, I was able to boot at 7600 MHz by simply increasing the memory voltage and loosening the CAS latency by one step. I prefer my CPU to stay alive a little longer.

If you plan to overclock a K-series CPU, you need the best cooling you can get. With a VRM of these specs and the cooling to match, your CPU cooling will reach its limits before the board even breaks a sweat.

The Z790 Aorus Master is a competitively priced premium Z790 option. Its basic design is truly outstanding; VRM and cooling are top-of-the-line, DDR5-7000 support with ease is a highlight, and the 10G LAN and abundant USB ports are a welcome addition.

If you want USB 4 or Thunderbolt, you'll have to look elsewhere, and the use of the previous generation ALC1220 is frowned upon. The core specs are still good, but the powerful Z690 Aorus Master is still on the market; aside from PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots and fast memory support, they are very similar.

In particular, the Z790 Aorus Master is about $130 cheaper than the Asus Z790 Hero and again cheaper than the MSI Z790 Ace, but nearly identical to ASRock's Z790 Taichi. Both are strong choices, and which one you choose may depend on which features you find most appealing; the Aorus Master's 10G LAN is a deciding factor for many, while others prefer not to use LAN at all and prepare for the future with a little USB 4