GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Master Review: Soaring High With Rocket Lake
by Gavin Bonshor on April 28, 2021 1:00 PM ESTConclusion
To get the most out of Intel's unlocked 11th generation Rocket Lake processors (K/KF), the best platform to go with is the latest Z590 chipset. Last April, when Intel unveiled its Z490 chipset for 10th generation Comet Lake, some of the focus from the vendors was on advertising its future-proofing capabilities for Rocket Lake and the PCIe Gen 4 it would bring to the table. Now that Rocket Lake is finally out in the wild, certain elements make Z590 the go-to chipset for the best experience and performance, including double the bandwidth from the CPU to the chipset (DMI x8, previously x4), and USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, as well as a new geared integrated memory controller for even higher memory overclocks than ever before.
One of the higher-end options on Z590 is undoubtedly the GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Master, with its eclectic controller selection and a wide range of features that should satisfy users on multiple fronts, including gaming content creation and enthusiasts looking to push the limits of Rocket Lake. Not deviating much from the design of the previous Z490 Aorus Master, the latest Z590 Aorus Master uses a similar black and grey design, with swathes of PCIe armor M.2 heatsinks and a chipset heatsink that molds into the board's design. This gives the Master a clean look, and despite the aggressive styling on the rear panel cover, which includes integrated RGB LEDs, there's some in the chipset heatsink which highlights the Aorus Falcon logo.
Being a model based on its gaming series, the Z590 Aorus Master has plenty to push frame rates with two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at x16 and x8/x8, but it also has another full-length slot which is electronically locked down to PCIe 3.0 x4 from the chipset for add-in cards. The integrated audio solution is premium, too, with a Realtek ALC1220-VB HD audio codec and an ESS Sabre ESS9118 DAC, which provides plenty of power to drive high impedance headphones. The only negative here is that some vendors are still insisting and utilizing the Microsoft Store to download the Realtek application, which allows customization, which vendors opting for other options such as Nahimic are more favorable and accessible audio control out of the box.
There's plenty of storage support available, too, with three M.2 slots, including one PCIe 4.0 x4 slot (top) with two PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slot and six SATA ports. One interesting thing to note is that none of the M.2 and SATA ports share any bandwidth, which means all six SATA ports and both PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 ports can run without limitations; something that's been somewhat of a hidden issue on a lot of motherboards of the last couple of years. GIGABYTE is also packing a decent I/O on the rear panel, with one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. Networking is another selling point with an Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE controller and Intel's latest AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi covering both areas of connectivity with the most premium solutions currently available.
In our performance testing, the Z590 Aorus Master performed well in all of our system tests, with some of the quickest POST times of any Z590 model we've managed to test thus far. With vendors doing their own thing regarding power limits on Rocket Lake, GIGABYTE's default settings are very competitive with the other brands regarding compute and gaming performance, with no anomalies found.
The GIGABYTE also did well in our overclock testing with very tight VDroop control when compared to the CPU VCore variables we ran every 100 MHz stepping from 4.7 GHz to 5.2 GHz. Unfortunately, 5.3 GHz wasn't stable, and this has been the case for all models tested so far with our Core i9-11900K chip, so it's certainly not a detriment. The only negative was in the firmware's OC mode, which wasn't stable, despite it supposedly being the solution for users looking to let the hardware decide for itself the best possible overclock. This may be revised as the firmware matures, and we certainly hope so. The board includes a large 19-phase power delivery which was acceptable in our thermal VRM testing and didn't do itself a discredit when compared to the ASRock Z590 Taichi, which uses an actively cooled design compared to the passive design of the GIGABYTE.
Final Thoughts
The GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Master is available at Amazon for $410. Despite not including Thunderbolt 4 like the ASRock Z590 Taichi ($430), it shines above in other areas such as power delivery, networking support, and other rear-panel USB connectivity. At its current price tag, the Z590 Aorus Master is a solid option for users looking to avoid paying flagship prices. It has a 19-phase power delivery with high-quality components, 10 gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, triple M.2, and support for fast DDR4-5400 memory. This puts it as a very premium offering, but more than worth the cost if that's what you're willing to spend.
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JVC8bal - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link
I don't understand your point you responding to what I wrote. This has nothing to do with AMD vs. Intel. I guess there is a MAGA-like AMD crown on here looking for conspiracies and confrontations.As written above, the PCIE 4.0 specification implementation first found on x570 showed up on Intel's first go-around. If anything can be said, those working on the Intel platform motherboards learned nothing from prior work on the AMD platform. But whatever, read things through whatever lense you do.
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link
I thought it was more of a BLM- like intel crowd that looks for any pro AMD comment and tries to railroad it into the ground while dismissing whatever merit the original comment may have hadTheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, April 28, 2021 - link
I'm dissapointed that these newer boards keep cutting down on I/O. This board only offers 3 PCIe X16 slots, the third is only x4 and the second cuts half the bandwidth from the first slot despite multi GPU being long dead. So if you had, say, a sound card and a capture card, you'd have to cut your GPU slot bandwidth in half AND have one of the cards right up against the GPU cooler.IMO the best setup would have all the x1/x4 slots ont he bottom of the motherboard so you can use a tiriple slot GPU and still have 3 other cards with room between for breathing, with all the bottom slots fed fromt he chipset not the CPU.
And for those whoa re going to ask: "why do you want more expansion everything is embedded now blah blah". If you only have a GPU and dont use the other slots that's why you have mini ITX, or micro ATX if you want a bigger VRM. Buying a big ATX board for a single expansion card is a waste.
abufrejoval - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link
While I am sure they'd love to sell you everything you're asking for, I'm less convinced you'd be ready to pay the price.You can't get anything but static CPU PCIe lane allocations out of a hard wired motherboard, with bi/tri/quad-furication already being a bonus. You need a switch on both ends for flexibility.
That's what a PCH basically is, which allows you to oversubscribe the ports and lanes.
In the old 2.0 days PCIe switch chips were affordable enough ($50?) to put next to the CPU and gain full multiple x16 slots (still switched), but certainly not without a bit of latency overhead and some Watts of power.
All those PCIe switch chip vendors seem to have been bought up by Avago/Broadcom who have racked up prices, probably less because they wanted to anger gamers, but because these were key components in NVMe based storage appliances where they knew how much they could charge (mostly guessing here).
And then PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 are likely to increase motherboard layout/trace challenges, switch chip thermals or just generally price to the point, where going for a higher lane-count workstation or server CPU may be more economical and deliver the full bandwidth of all lanes.
You can get PCIe x16 cards designed to hold four or eight M.2 SSDs that contain such a PCIe switch. Their price gives you some idea of the silcon cost while I am sure they easily suck 20 Watts of power, too.
If you manage to get a current generation GPU with PCIe 4.0, that gives you PCIe 3.0 x16 equivalent performance even at x8 lanes. That's either enough, because you have enough VRAM, or PCI 4.0 x16 won't be good enough either. At both 16 or 32GByte/s PCIe is little better than a hard disk, when your internal VRAM delivers north of 500GB/s...because that's what it takes to drive your GPU compute or the game.
The premium for the ATX form factor vs a mini ITX is pretty minor and I couldn't care less how much of the tower under my desk is filled by the motherboard. I tend to go with the larger form factors quite simply because I value the flexibility and the ability to experiment or recycle older stuff. And it's much easier to manage noise with volume.
TheinsanegamerN - Friday, April 30, 2021 - link
Boards like the gigabyte X570 elite exist, which have a plethora of USB ports and multiple additional expansion ports none of which sap bandwidth from the main port.This master is a master class is taking money for looking "cool" and offering nothing of value.
Spunjji - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link
Agreed, that layout is a big mess and rather defeats the point of having an ATX board - but then a huge number of these are just going to go into systems that have one GPU and nothing else, but the buyer wants ATX just because that's what they're used to 🤷♂️Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link
AGREED, my b450m pro 4 has like 4 USB 3, 1 USB-a 10gbps, 1 USB-c 10gbps and 2 USB 2.0. frankly amazing io and i couldn't appreciate it moreMolor1880 - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link
Not completely the motherboards fault though. There are only 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes from the CPU. 4 for IO and 16 for graphics. There are no general purpose PCIe 4.0 lines off the Z590 chipset, and the DMI link is wider, but still just PCIe 3.0. When Intel starts putting general purpose PCIe 4.0 lanes on the chipset (690?), a lot of those issues would be resolved. Otherwise, it's a bit of a wonky workaround to shift things for one generation.Silver5urfer - Wednesday, April 28, 2021 - link
Unfortunately GB BIOS is not that stellar ? And why does this mobo have a fan to cool the 10G LAN chip ? I do not see that with some other boards like X570 Xtreme, X570 Prestige Creation and Maximus XIII Extreme.TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, April 29, 2021 - link
Gigabyte BIOS is fine, the UI is a tad clunky, but hey it's a huge leap from BIOSes from the core 2 era. Just takes a little getting used to.