Today we review the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX, a complete mainstream motherboard for gaming use. After the test of a Z790 Aorus Tachyon that we are looking forward to on our shelves, we move on to the test of the most interesting Z790 motherboard from a price/performance point of view. Let’s see if this one manages to stand out or if it stays in the line of motherboards of its range.
Priced at around $259.99, this Z790 Aorus Elite offers a complete solution for those who want a high-performance gamer PC at a lower cost or to try overclocking.
[nextpage title=”The Biostar Z690A Valkyrie:”]
The bundle:
A little tour through the bundle of this Z790 Aorus Elite AX to see if its bundle is well supplied. Without surprise, we find something quite standard, SATA cables, manual, CD and Wi-Fi antenna. A bundle in adequacy with its price.
Architecture:
Just like Z690 chipset, Z790 version officially supports PCIe 5.0 offering higher storage performance than on previous generation. However, at the moment, no component is yet compatible with this standard. The other big change is the support of DDR5 allowing to reach higher data rates but also higher memory capacity.
The different heat sinks :
The dimensions of the board are 305 mm x 244 mm, which corresponds to the ATX format. The dominant colors on the PCB are black and gray. We will find some RGB lighting on the chipset.
On the cooling side, we have for the VRM a huge aluminum heatsink covering the IO. For the socket, we have two radiators, one of which is quite massive for the first M.2 slot.
Four m.2 SSD slots:
We start with the M.2 slot connected to the CPU in 4.0 which comes to be placed above the first PCIe slot. The latter is cooled by a passive radiator. Then we have three M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots between the PCIe slots, one of which supports SATA.
Technically, there are three PCIe 4.0 x4 slots and one PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA. You shouldn’t be short of storage slots. The SATA is more restricted with four slots.
We also note the arrival of the M.2 EZ-Latch Plus and PCIe EZ-Latch systems. The M.2 EZ-Latch Plus allows to mount SSDs in M.2 format without tools. The PCIe EZ-Latch allows for easier removal of graphics cards.
The socket and PCIe:
The space around the socket is quite airy except for the top part of the socket. This can cause incompatibilities with some coolers that could hit the capacitors. The VRM heat sinks are spaced far enough from the socket to allow for cooling systems.
This Z790 Aorus ELite AX supports dual channel DDR5 memory kits up to 7600 Mt/s (OC) and for a maximum amount of 128 GB. There is one PCIe X16 5.0 slot and two PCIe X16 4.0 slots operating in x4. The last two X16 slots are wired in X4 on the Z790 chipset.
To power all this little world, the board has a 24 pin connector and 8+8 pins next to the power stages.
[nextpage title=”The PCB and connectors:”]
Tools for clocking:
Let’s start with the elements inserted on the PCB which can be interesting tools for overclockers. They are quite varied on this motherboard considering its price.
- The Multi-Key button: once set in the Bios, allows either to restart the configuration, or to access directly to the Bios or to start in safe mode
- The Clear CMOS button : allows to erase the configuration of the Bios
- The Q-flash plus button : allows to flash the Bios without compatible CPU or RAM.
- Status LED : depending on their color, they allow you to identify a problem or to know the voltage level of the component (CPU – DRAM – VGA – BOOT).
PCB:
This Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX is quite simple at the PCB level, we are here on a well designed and well made motherboard but without more.
The power supply stage is based on a power supply whose part in charge of the CPU consists of 16 phases (in parallel 8+8).
The controller used would be an ONsemi NCP01530R capable of managing all phases. The 16 mosfets are all Onsemi FDMF5062 of 70A. What to have plenty of room for overclocking. Then we have a phase for the VCCGT (IGP) Onsemi NCP302455 of 55A. Finally, we have two Onsemi NCP303160 phases of 60A for the VCCAUX (PCIe and IMC).
Connectors:
The rear panel has the following elements. First of all, the USB 2.0 ports in the number of 4 to connect keyboard, mouse and other peripherals. We also have two USB 3.2 Gen 2 and three USB 3.2 Gen 1 in Type-A format and finally a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C port. On the networking side, we have a 2.5GbE Ethernet port on a Realtek chip and Wi-Fi 6E on an Intel AX211 chip. The audio part has two jacks for microphone and line out as well as an SPDIF out on a Realtek ALC897 chip.
[nextpage title=”The BIOS”]
The BIOS :
This Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX’s BIOS could not be more complete. It uses the same elements of the last Gigabyte Bios that we saw on the Z790 Aorus Tachyon. The little extra here is the addition of the Biscuit score like on the XOC motherboards of the brand.
For overclocking, we find everything we need, namely the LLC and CPU tensions but also a memory overclocking page just as complete as on the XOC boards. However, there will be no XOC options in the memory sub-menu for cold bug etc.
We also see the Gigabyte Perfdrive appearing which allows the i9 13900K to reach 6Ghz for single thread tasks.
Finally, don’t forget to activate the XMP of your memory kit! Of course you have the opportunity to modify the timings and subtimings manually. Don’t hesitate to ask for advice on our forum and discord if you encounter any problems when setting up your Bios.
We will come back to the overclocking section later in this article to show you the settings we used.
[nextpage title=”The test configuration:”]
Here is the configuration that will be used for the test:
- Motherboard : Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX (Bios F3K)
- Processor : INTEL CORE I5 13600KF
- Memory : 2x16gb Corsair vengeance 6200C36 / 2x16gb G.skill Trident Z5 6800C34
- Graphics Card : NVIDIA RTX 3080 Founder Edition
- Cooling system : Watercool Heatkiller IV basic + MO-RA3 420
- SSD : PNY CS900 120 gb
- Power supply : Be Quiet ! Dark Power Pro 12 1200W
- Operating system : Windows 10 64 bits (version 22H2)
- Screen : Millenium MD34 PRO-2
[nextpage title=”CPU overclocking:”]
Our CPU overclocking part will focus on the performance of the i5-13600KF. It is important to underline that this Z790 Aorus Elite AX is not intended for advanced overclocking. But we’ll see that it’s doing pretty well despite the fact that it’s not in the best conditions for this exercise.
Protocol:
Before starting, it is necessary to have one or more reference scores with our i5-13600KF at stock frequencies, that is to say, without having made any modification except having activated the XMP profile in the case of an Intel processor. Concerning the test voltages, we decided to put the voltage in fixed mode.
It is also very important to have a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet at hand, which will allow you to note all the tests you are going to perform as well as the results or failures.
Reference scores and effective frequencies :
Let’s start by noting the result under Cinebench R23, taking care to note also the voltage (vcore), the max temperature during the bench, the power consumption as well as of course, the score obtained. During the benchmark, the HWinfo window is open which has a slight negative impact on the score.
We take advantage of this first test to have a look at the effective frequencies, voltages and temperatures. As we can see on the Benchmate window, the effective frequency is very close to the maximum frequency. This shows a good functioning of the CPU on this motherboard with respected frequencies and a score in adequacy with the chip. Temperatures and voltages are also very good with a voltage under load of 1.13V recorded on HWinfo and a temperature of 58°C.
Load-Line Calibration :
Before starting with the overclocking of this I5 13600KF, we need to set the LLC. In the case of this motherboard, we set it to turbo mode. This mode allows to have a good stability of the voltage with a contained Vdroop.
Profiles within the Bios with Gigabyte Perfdrive and CPU Upgrade:
Just like on the Z790 Aorus Tachyon, within our Bios there are 3 additional profiles to the default one. These are included in the new Gigabyte perfdrive menu and are called Optimization, Instant 6GHz, Spec Enhance and E-core Disable.
We’ll skip the Instant 6GHz profile, which pushes the two best P-Cores to 6GHz, as it is only compatible with the I9 13900K. The Optimization mode is the basic mode, by switching to the Spec Enhance mode we can lift the limits of the Bios with a single click. And finally, we have the E-core Disable mode which, as its name suggests, allows you to disable the Ecore.
To finish with the CPU optimization options, we still have the CPU upgrade, which allows the automatic overclocking of the CPU with the Max performance profile that will automatically overclock the CPU to 5.2 Ghz. And, the gaming profile that will disable the Ecore.
Overclocking under watercooling :
To start, I leave the Bios on auto by just setting the RAM to XMP i.e. 6800C34. So I chose a starting frequency of 5500 MHz with a multiplier of 55, a BCLK of 100 and a voltage of 1,3 volt. The Ecore and the cache are placed at 4500 MHz and 5000 MHz. The idea is then, in the OS, to test the stability on several runs of Cinebench R23 multithread.
As we can see, it is quite stable on Cinebench R23. The temperature is contained with 74°C for a voltage in load of 1,26V. It should be noted that on this Z790 Aorus Elite AX the measurement of the Vcore is done with the die sense which is very precise. We can still push a little the Frequency with this time 5800 MHz on the Pcore, 4600 MHz on the Ecore and 5000 MHz on the cache.
As we can see, the motherboard manages to hold this frequency without any difficulty. The effective frequency is at the level of the requested frequency. It should be noted that our example of I5 13600KF is particularly good, many will not hold such frequencies. For example the Biscuit score of this CPU is 96,1 CP and this is the best it is currently. The Biscuit score was until now reserved for the Aorus Tachyon but we now have this score on mainstream motherboards of the brand.
[nextpage title=”Memory overclocking:”]
We now move on to the most interesting part of this test, namely memory overclocking. We expect a lot from this motherboard, whose hardware could suggest good memory performances.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter, all the memory tests were carried out with a Pcore CPU frequency of 5500MHz, Ecore at 4500MHz and a cache at 5000Mhz.
Test on DDR5 Hynix M-die :
We start the memory overclocking tour with a Corsair Vengeance 6200C36 kit equipped with Hynix M-die chips. The latter was tested some time ago on the excellent Evga Z690 Dark Kingpin coupled with a very good i9 12900KS. Here, we will see that the Elite AX has nothing to envy to a motherboard at more than 1 000 € for use with a Hynix M-die kit. Indeed, Gigabyte seems to have done a very good job on these chips and the latest Intel Raptor Lake CPUs do more than well with them.
XMP and bios optimizations
We start with the tests on Aida64 and Geekbench 3 with the XMP vice memory. Here the performance reflects perfectly what we expect from the kit used.
We then move on to the optimizations of the Bios on the memory, namely the low latency mode and the high bandwith mode. As we can see, these options playing on the memory profile as a whole allow a simple overclocking for all. The gain is about 1600 points on the memory score of Geekbench 3. For Aida64, we gain in 5ns in latency and up to 10gb/s in copy and write. A very interesting option for gamers.
Maximum overclocking
We then pushed the overclocking to its maximum (can we push more?). With 7466C32 we reach the maximum obtained on the Z690 Dark and the 12900KS. The gain is about 2200 points on the CPU score and almost 400 points on the memory score on Geekbench 3. On AIDA64 we reach 113 Gb/S and 51 ns latency, which is excellent.
Test on DDR5 Hynix A-die:
We continue the memory overclocking with a Gskill Trident Z5 RGB 6800C34 Kit equipped with Hynix Adie chips. The latter had also been tested on a Z790 Apex and an i9-13900K. We will see here, this Aorus Elite AX also does very well.
XMP and bios optimizations
We start with the tests on Aida64 and Geekbench 3 with the XMP vice memory. Here the performance reflects perfectly what we expect from the kit used.
We then move on to the optimizations of the Bios on the memory, namely the low latency mode and the high bandwith mode. As we can see, these options playing on the memory profile as a whole allow a simple overclocking for all. The gain is about 2000 points on the memory score of Geekbench 3. For Aida64, we gain in 5ns in latency and up to 10gb/s in copy and write. The gain figures are almost identical to the use of an M-die kit. The gap is widened by the higher base frequency which does not change after the optimization.
Maximum overclocking
Just like the M-die kit, we pushed the overclocking to its maximum with this time 8000C34. The gain is about 2200 points on the CPU score and more than 4000 points on the memory score on Geekbench 3. On AIDA64, we reach 120 Gb/S and we pass under the 50 ns latency, which is excellent. We are slightly ahead of the M-die kit in terms of performance but the time spent is much more important. We feel we are at the limits of the motherboard in A-die while in M-die a margin of progress still seems possible.
[nextpage title=”Conclusion:”]
Conclusion:
We are coming to the end of this test, and Gigabyte is hitting hard in the mainstream motherboard range. The motherboard tested here is very powerful for overclocking at a price more than twice lower than motherboards intended for this exercise. However, the board has some shortcomings and for users who don’t want to touch overclocking, it would not be the wisest choice. These main weaknesses would be its connectivity with its outdated sound card and the Realtek network card. However I think that for the informed gamer who will read this article, the gain on the memory in 1 click and its attractive overclocking capabilities make it a very good choice for a gaming use. You may have to switch to wireless headphones or an external DAC. For gaming, the latency of the Wi-Fi 6E works wonders and it’s been a long time since I plugged an Ethernet cable.
At about $259.99, this Z790 Aorus Elite offers a complete solution for those who want a powerful gamer PC at a lower cost or to try overclocking.
Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX
We liked:
- The overclocking capabilities
- The intuitive and complete Bios
- The Biscuit score in the Bios
- The tools on the PCB to overclock
- PCIe and M.2 Q-Latch
- The multi-key button
We would have liked :
- A better sound card
- A better network card
- A larger Q-latch PCie for big backplate graphics cards.
Gigabyte offers us here the perfect motherboard for gamers who are concerned about the performance of their machine and do not want to cut the budget of other components. For about 340 €, we have a perfect motherboard for this use or to learn about overclocking. This leaves us dreaming about special overclocking motherboards at $259.99 in 2 dimm even if we can always dream? In any case, it’s a favorite for this Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX!
