I
f youthoughttheAsusROGZenith
II Extremewasexpensive,then
Gigabytehaswellandtruly
trumpedAsuswhenit comestostomping
yourwallet.Atover£800,thismonster
motherboardis,thankfully,drippingwith
features.It stretchesouttotheXL-ATX
standard,sittinga coupleofcentimetres
tallerthanyourtypicalATXmotherboard,as
wellasbeingwider.It hasa similarcooling
arrangementtotheTRX40AorusMaster,
witha pairoffinnedheatsinks,butthey’re
largerandareequippedwitha thicker
heatpipetoo,allcoveringa 16+3power
deliverysystem.
Theboxisheavyasa result,notleast
becausetheboardalsosportsa huge
backplatethathelpstocooltheVRMs,as
wellasprovidinga diffusedstripofRGB
LEDlighting.Gigabyte’ssoftwarereported
theVRMssittingata maximumof67°C,
withourexternalmeasurementsreaching
49°Cand58°Cfor thetopand bottomside
ofthePCBrespectively– thosefiguresare
wellawayfrombeingtoasty,althoughthe
MSICreationTRX40wasa littlecooler.The
otherfactorthataddstothebox’sweightis
AorusXtreme’smainaccessory– a PCI-E
expansioncard.
GIGABYTE TRX40
AORUS XTREME
/£830 inc VAT
SUPPLIER scan.co.ukThis cardhou
four M.2 ports,w
are cooledfrom
and belowwith
thermal pads,a
a blower-stylef
that cools alarg
copper heatsin
sits on topofyo
SSDs. It’s equipped
with a backplateandbrushed metal top, so
it not only brings up the total number of M.2
ports to eight, but it looks great too and it’s
relatively quiet as well. If you have SATA M.2
SSDs, you’ll want to transplant them into
the board, as all of the PCB-mounted slots
support them. The rest are limited to PCI-E
SSDs, with all the ports supporting PCI-E 4.
The M.2 slots on the motherboard are all
covered by large heatsinks too, but require
much of the chipset shroud to be removed in
order to access them. Unfortunately, that will
also mean removing your graphics card as
well, which is potentially an issue if you plan to
water-cool your graphics card.
The chipset fan is also able to cool the
M.2 slots next to it, with some small notches
cut into the chipset heatsink. However,
we’d like to see more integration here, withthe fan aiding the surrounding heatsinks
more extensively – M.2 heatsinks could be
thermally linked to the chipset heatsink, so
the fan cools the lot.
As a result of this arrangement, the M.2
slots farthest away from the graphics card
only managed a temperature of 66°C on
our Corsair MP600 SSD, with most other
boards faring better. However, the expansion
card saw this result plummet to just 33°C. If
you’ll be torturing your SSD with hundreds
of gigabytes of data on a regular basis, it’s
definitely worth using the expansions card.
As well as a slightly ridiculous count of
eight M.2 ports, Gigabyte has also used an
ASMedia controller to add a further two SATA
6Gbps ports, bringing the total to ten.
Meanwhile, practically all the side ports
on the PCB are angled, which is fantastic for
cable routing, and Gigabyte has even put five
of the seven fan headers on the edge too.
However, this means you’ll need to route your
rear and roof case fans all the way to the right
side of the motherboard, which may require
extension cables.
The whole right-hand edge is also covered
by a large shroud, which has integrated
power and reset buttons and an LED POST
code display – the result is a supremelyLABS TEST / TRX40 MOTHERBOARDS
ses
which
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large
ndby
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pped