LABS TEST / Z490 MOTHERBOARDS
D
espitecostingnearly£300,
Gigabyte’sZ490AorusProAXfeels
lesssubstantialthantheother
boardsontest– evenMSI’sfarcheaperMAG
Z490Tomahawk.It sportsa 12-phasepower
deliverysystem,butit’slessbeefythanthe
oneontheZ490AorusMaster,Plus,while
there’sa largeheatpipeembeddedintheVRM
heatsinks,theheatsinksaren’taslargeasthe
othersontestandthere’snoactivecooling
optioneither.
Thankfully,theAorusProAXhasplentyof
potentialintermsofwater-coolingsystems,
witha thermalprobeheaderthatcanbeused
togovernfanspeedsintheEFIorGigabyte’s
software– a featurenotofferedbyeitherof
MSI’smotherboards,andevenAsus’boards
can’tdoit intheconvenientEFIfancontrol
suite.TheGigabyte’ssoftwareactually
workedwelltoo,unlikeMSI’ssoftware,which
wasa littlebuggyinplaces.
WhiletheboardhasthreeM.2ports,only
twoareactuallyusable.Gigabytehasreserved
thetopslotforfuturePCI-E4 support,which
maycomewithforthcomingIntelCPUs.For
now,it’snotusable,buttheremainingports
offerheatsinks,andkeptourSamsung 960
EvoM.2SSDbelow50°Cunderload,which
was8°Clowerthanwithoutthem.
GIGABYTE
Z490 AORUS
PRO AX/£296incVAT
SUPPLIER scan.co.ukSome of the
features are shared
with the pricier Z490
Aorus Master, such
as 802.11ax Wi-Fi,2.5GigabitLAN,USB3.1
Type-C ports andheaders.Youalsoget
QFlash Plus – Gigabyte’s version of USB BIOS
Flashback, eight fan headers and Realtek
ALC1220 audio. However, the lack of on-board
overclocking and testing tools is disappointing
at this price. You do at least get a display output
for graphics card troubleshooting, though, and
the rear I/O panel includes a generous count
of nine Type-A USB ports.
At stock speed, the Cinebench single-
threaded score of 531 suggests the Core
i9-10900K wasn’t boosting to its claimed
5.3GHz, with most other boards hitting 540
or above. The board also seemed to use a
lot of power at stock speed, with our system
drawing 354W from the mains. The Z490
Aorus Pro AX’s benchmark scores were
otherwise on the money, though, and it had
reasonable audio performance too.
Overclocking was tricky, however, with the
board applying 1.34V despite us inputting
1.3V under load, thanks to some aggressive
loadline calibration as standard. We also had
to manually increase the CPU’s power limits,
but we did achieve a stable 5.1GHz overclock.
This saw the system score rise from 318,843
to 327,831 and the minimum 99th percentile
frame rate in Far Cry New Dawn increase from
98fps to 103fs.Conclusion
Motherboards that use Intel’s Z490 chipset
are generally pricey, and the Gigabyte Z490
Aorus Pro AX unfortunately falls into an area
where you’ll see little change from a wallet-
hitting £300, yet get noticeably fewer features
than you’d expect at this price.It’s a tad disappointing as a result. Owners
of the Core i5-10600K would be better served
by a cheaper motherboard, while those
splashing some cash on a Core i9-10900K
system would benefit from opting for the
pricier Z490 Aorus Master instead. The latter
was happier when overclocking, it has better
cooling and it offers loads more features,
making it ultimately worth the extra cash.SPEC
Chipset Intel Z490
CPU socket Intel LGA1200
Memory support 4 slots: max 128GB
DDR4 (up to 5000MHz)
Expansion slots Three 16x PCI-E 3, two 1x PCI-E 3
Sound 8-channel Realtek ALC1220
Networking 1 x Intel 2.5 Gigabit
LAN, 802.11ax Wi-Fi
Overclocking Base clock 98-200MHz, CPU
multiplier 8-63x; max voltages: CPU 1.7V, RAM 2V
Ports x SATA 6Gbps 2 x M.2 PCI-E 3, 2
x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C,
3 x USB 3, 3 x surround audio out
Dimensions (mm) 305 x 244VERDICT
A reasonable effort, but the feature set is
disappointing for £300.PERFORMANCE
31 / 35FEATURES
27 / 35
VALUE
25 / 30OVERALLSCORE
83 %
PRO
Potential for future
PCI-E 4 support
2.5 Gigabit LAN and
802.11ax Wi-Fi
Excellent fan control
ROOKIE- Modest VRMs
and cooling - No overclocking and
testing tools - Disappointing feature
set for the price
5 G b LAN USB 3 1