Gigabyte AMD AM4 X570 AORUS XTREME D4 E-ATX Motherboard

Gigabyte Aorus AMD x570 PRO Motherboard (rev. 1.2 received)Very pleased with this MB. Overall performance is exceptional. Rock solid since day one with no issues.Not the cheapest out there but X570 Chipset featuring latest technology and features for a mid-range price with Gigabyte build quality. In this review I hope I can help answer some of the questions I’ve come across in making the decision to buy this board and the components to pair with it.All temps mentioned in this review based on HWINFO v6.34-4300 in a room currently heated to 24C.Paired with a Ryzen 3900x, which sits at around 34C, or less, at idle. I have updated the BIOS a couple of times – do wait until a newer version has been around for a while.I’m not interested in any LED lighting effects and it’s a non-windowed case anyway so I can’t speak of its quality or effect.In answer to various queries I have seen: 2 x M2 slots come with screws and heat sinks. I use Samsung 970 EVO NVMe in both and temperatures have been around 45C or less at idle, I believe this model drive is rated to 70C.Really impressed with the high quality on-board sound chip. I have fitted a Soundblaster Z card, unlike previous Motherboard’s the enhanced sound quality achieved with this 3rd. party card has been relatively minor.I’ve also used 3rd. party NIC’s in the past but I’m impressed with the on-board Intel Network adaptor throughput and latency. In my experience on-board NIC’s are one of the few, rare, failure points that you tend to see on a MB – we will see.Together with an ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 (fitted at the front of the chassis with an additional 2 fans fitted to the radiator) and extracting air, (rear case fan reversed to suck air in) and a Fractal Define S case (which is a revelation in size, quality, cable layout and AIO cooler support particularly as it cost < £50).Temperatures, at idle, apart from the Chipset (45C) & Display Card (52C), currently a GTX 1060, are on a par with my old overclocked i5 though I’ve not yet done any stress testing.All fans at default settings currently and very quiet but some tinkering may have to be done as in increased fan speeds and correspondingly higher volume.Had to reverse the position of the CPU block and hence the relatively minor chipset fan that comes with this AIO cooler due to location and pipes layout. I may invest in a discrete additional chipset cooler in the future.I don’t think you can go far wrong with the quality and performance of either a Gigabyte or Asus board and this model is no exception. Well designed, well made, easy installation, looks great and Highly Recommended. That’s a conclusion based on 30 years+ IT support experience. Thank You and I hope you find this review useful. Good luck with the build!

Purchased: 14 August 2019 for £189.38. From seller: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.Pros: Good efficient VRM, Q-flash (which turned out to be pretty helpful for using a R5 2600), good price, due to less unnecessary features for most users.Cons: Single BIOS, No Debug LEDs or Postcode. - (not really an issue for most users).Buildzoid says"this VRM is great" and "at heavy overclocks on the 12 core or the 16 core this VRM will handle that just fine with the heatsink that it comes with"I don't want to quote or mention loads of things that I myself am not exceedingly knowledgeable in, so I will just recommend that you go and watch Buildzoid's Motherboard Analysis, should you want to overclock or just want in-depth info about the motherboard etc.If you're just going to run stock CPU etc, then you don't even need to think about VRM. As long as you don't care about debugging LEDs or Postcode, it's a good motherboard. It should be one of the best price vs performance options.It doesn't support 1st Gen Ryzen, so keep that in mind, upgrade your CPU before your motherboard as I believe Gen 3 Ryzen is supported on some b350 and x370 motherboards (just make sure to check your current one is supported), so that may be a better option for you first, if you can't upgrade both at the same time.Helpful to glance at, product spec info:Memory: 4 x DDR4 DIMM sockets supporting up to 128 GB (32 GB single DIMM capacity).Lan: Intel Gigabit LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) - Max speed I can get for Fibre in my area is 76MB (0.6Gbit), so not an issue until I can get 125MB+ DL speed.USB: Ports on the back panel: 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (red) & x4 USB2.0/1.1Available through the internal USB header: 1 x USB Type-C port with USB 3.2 Gen 2 support, 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, (Chipset+2 USB 2.0 Hubs:) 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports.Storage: 2 x M.2 connector / 6 SATA (I'm not 100% sure, but I think if you utilise the m.2 slots, some SATA is disabled (i.e. 2 x M.2 = Sata 5 & 6 being disabled), please correct me if this is wrong).Will update with pictures etc when I have time. And will update if I experience any issues.Update:I'm using a Ryzen 2600, couldn't use BIOS at first, mouse not working, registering multiple and incorrect key presses etc. Used Q-Flash Plus and updated BIOS to version "F3" which then worked. I then updated to version "F4j". RAM was running at 2133MHz, activating XMP, RAM then worked at specified speed of 3000MHz and Cl 16 etc, haven't had any issues so it seems stable, haven't tried overclocking CPU, GPU or RAM yet. Will update if I have issues with overclocking.Currently using Ubuntu 18.04. other than having to update BIOS had no issues, Linux compatible games worked without any effort (though had some issues with Mad Max, but I believe that is because the game doesn't support Vega GPUs, rather than an issue with Ubuntu), Valve's Proton seems to work quite well on the games I've tried so far, DOOM so far works perfectly without any fiddling and other games, such as Kingdom Come Deliverance work with a little fiddling and manually downloading proton updates.AORUS ELITE BIOS updates:"F3" (First Release AGESA 1.0.0.3 for Matisse / Pinnacle / Picasso CPU support) - if you're using Ryzen 2000 series (Pinnacle Ridge), you'll probably need to flash the BIOS to this version for it to work like I needed to."F4g" (Update AGESA 1.0.0.3AB, Add Three Profiles for PCH Fan (Silent/ Balance/ Performance mode),"F4j" (Update AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABB, Improve Destiny 2 gaming compatibility, Improve XMP DDR compatibility) - I updated the BIOS to this version before I tried activating XMP, so you may need to update to this version if XMP doesn't work for your RAM.Go to the Gigabyte website, go to Motherboard > X570 AORUS ELITE, then navigate from there.For how to use Q-Flash Plus, scroll down to AORUS Ultra Durable and follow the instructionsFor BIOS go to Support > Downloads > BIOSSystem: CPU - Ryzen 2600, GPU - Vega 56 Pulse, RAM - G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3000MHz C16 8GB x 2 (16GB), PSU - 650W Seasonic PRIME Ultra, SSD - Samsung 860 500GB, HDD - WD Black 2TB and of course, X570 AORUS ELITE