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

Even before hooking this up to anything, I could tell this was a huge upgrade…great quality construction and aesthetic value. The feel of the construction can be felt in the weight and how it felt solid construction. When I decided that this would be the cornerstone of my upgrade (moved from AMD to Intel)…I wanted to keep it economical I went with i5-8400 and G Skill Rapjaws (ECC, 2 x 8GB). Although it lists that it only works with non-ECC RAM, the instructions that come with it does say you can do 1 strip. I would go with Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 2400…it was suggested by crucial.com as guaranteed compatible.I got this upgrade to play WoW, I would get huge lag in large battlegrounds. I do plan on getting my ram to 64 GB and upgrading the chip later on. The i5-8400 defaults to 2.8 ghz, before I dabbled on overclocking I went to test the new system in a BG. All tests where fantastic and works better than my AMD that I had at 3.6 ghz (same video card and was using 32g ram), I used the provided wifi antenna. I was in close range of about 50 people in the BG and so no lag. This is a very nice motherboard with many options and love the layout of where all the extras plug in.The provided sata cords are lengthy enough to support a mid-tower and possibility a max tower. 4 cords are provided, with 2 of them have connectors that are L-shaped on one side…great for keeping the plug-in flat against the power port. The one thing I can provide criticism, the connection on the motherboard sata are positioned paralleled to the board and facing to front of your machine. So once the MB is installed it can be a challenge to plug in your sata cords, especially if you don’t have the ability to remove both sides of your case.Pluses of this motherboard: wi-fi (with a provided antenna), quality sata cords with a decent length (with L-shaped connections), the connection panel on the rear has it’s own panel (no open space), supports 8 and 9 gen intel chips (can go economical to pricey), fits snug in ATX case, multiple fan power connections, case connections (power, LED, etc) are quality connection), and nice aesthetic value.Criticism of this motherboard: placement of sata connection might be small challenge for novice, lack of easy bios instructions, yellow-colored illumination (if you can change, I don’t know…most of my color scheme is red), and a challenge to read small text labels for case connections (but really what else can you do, had to read manual to see which was which).

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.