Custom PC – October 2019

GIGABYTE X570 AORUS

MASTER/£390 inc VAT

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk

VERDICT

A decent array of premium features that

leaves some more expensive boards

wanting, but it’s up against hefty competition.

LABS TEST / X570 MOTHERBOARDS

W

e’re pleased to report that the
Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master has
received several BIOS revisions
since last issue, bringing control of the chipset
fan to the EFI, and allowing it to spin down
when it should do so.
Unlike some of the boards on test this
month, the Gigabyte has individual single-slot
M.2 heatsinks, rather than a large one to cover
its trio of PCI-E 4 M.2 slots. This arrangement
enables you to access each SSD without
needing to remove graphics cards and
other PCI-E devices, but the small heatsinks
did mean the board had the highest M.2
SSD temperature on test using our Corsair
MP600 SSD, which was actually a little
cooler using its own heatsink. Despite the
separated heatsinks, the board is definitely
one of the best-looking on test, and the
subtle RGB lighting adds some pizzazz to the
otherwise black and silver colour scheme too.
The Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master sits in
the middle of the pack in terms of prize, but
it actually offers a few extreme overclocking
features, such as PROBELT voltage
measuring points and dual BIOS switches.

Meanwhile,itspowerandresetbuttons,

a clear-CMOSbuttonandLEDPOST

codedisplaywillbehandyforanyout-

of-the-casetesting,overclockingand

benchmarkingthatcomesitsway.

Thereare 14 powerphases,andtheVRMs

arecooledbylarge,finnedheatsinksrather

thanblocksofmetal,whichGigabyteclaims

improvescooling.Thetemperaturesofthe

VRMswerereportedtobe59°Catstock

speedunderload,whichishigherthansome

resultsthismonth,butstilloffersdecent

headroomforoverclockingandhopefully

dealingwithAMD’sRyzen9 3950Xtoo.

Intermsofnetworking,there’sa Realtek

2.5Gigabitport, IntelGigabitLANand

802.11axWi-Fi.AlloftheX570Aorus

Master’sPCI-EslotsandM.2portsare

PCI-E 4, and all its M.2 ports support SATA

SSDs too, which makes up for only having

six SATA ports compared to the eight

on several other boards this month.

Meanwhile, Gigabyte’s EFI fan control

section and Windows software are excellent,

and while it generally isn’t as snazzy as MSI

or Asus’ efforts, we still hit the usual 4.3GHz

with a vcore of 1.425V. This overclock saw

the RealBench system score rise from

306,884 to 315,214 and the video encoding

SPEC

Chipset AMD X570

CPU socket AMD Socket AM4 (Zen+, Zen 2)

Memory support 4 slots: max 128GB

DDR4 (up to 4400MHz)

Expansion slots Three 16x PCI-E 4, one 1x PCI-E 4

Sound 8-channel Realtek ALC1220

Networking 1 x Intel Gigabit LAN, 1 x

Realtek 2.5 Gigabit LAN, 802.11ax Wi-Fi

Overclocking Base clock 100-

300MHz, CPU multiplier 8-64x; max

voltages, CPU 1.8V, RAM 2V

Ports 6 x SATA 6Gbps, 3 x M.2 PCI-E 4, 3

x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 2 x

USB 3, 4 x USB 2, 3 x surround audio out

Dimensions (mm) 305 x 244

PERFORMANCE

33 / 35

VALUE

19 / 30

FEATURES

29 / 35

OVERALLSCORE

81

score go from 835,226 to 848,107, although

the board already exhibited excellent lightly

threaded performance in the image editing

test and Cinebench R20 single-thread test.

The Gigabyte is also relatively power-frugal.

Conclusion

The Gigabyte includes a lot of features, and

while it does cost a lot more money than the

likes of the Asus ROG Strix X570-E Gaming,

it largely justifies the extra outlay if you really

need those extra overclocking features and

support for lots of PCI-E 4 SSDs. It’s great

to see Gigabyte has fixed the annoying

chipset fan too. For most people, though,

we recommend opting for the Asus board

and spending the extra cash elsewhere.

GIGABYTE

+ Plenty of premium features

+ Excellent fan control

+ Plenty of expansion

possibilities

BYTE

• Average M.2 heatsinks


• Expensive


• Average overall
  performance