Gigabyte Z390 UD (Socket 1151/Z390 Express/DDR4/S-ATA 600/ATX)

Product Information

It can’t really handle multi-GPU and it doesn’t have wireless internet, for instance. However, you do get two M.2 connectors and six SATA ports. The Realtek audio hardware is beefed-up with an eight-channel, 32-bit DAC, and you get dual Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac wireless. There’s a lot to like about the specification of the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro. A mid-range Z390 motherboard, it has solid PCI options that match its rivals, and few others at this price have steel supports around both PCI and memory slots. It also means that Intel Z390 motherboards support both the 8th generation and 9th generation Coffee Lake CPUs – such as the Core i5-8600K, the Core i7-8700K, and the Core i7-9700K. However, it’s worth remembering that Z370 builds are still perfectly fine, and that Z390 only offers an incremental upgrade over its immediate predecessor – so it may not be worth upgrading if you have a relatively modern system.

As usual, there’s support for 64GB of DDR4 memory, a solid Realtek ALC1220 audio codec and entirely normal wired networking. On board you get reasonable USB connectivity, and average allocations of fan connectors and CPU power plugs.Intel Z390 Gaming motherboard with 16 Phases IR Digital VRM, Fins-Array Heatsink, RGB Fusion 2.0, 802.11ac Wireless, Intel Thunderbolt 3, ESS SABRE 9018K2M DAC, AQUANTIA ® 10GbE LAN, RGB FAN COMMANDER, OC Touch This board is a few pounds more expensive than others in the middle of the market, but it justifies its price with great features and performance. It’s the best mid-range all-rounder. Read the full review It looks attractive, too, with dark metal heatsinks, RGB LEDs on the board itself and plenty of options for connecting RGB LEDs elsewhere around the rig. And then, finally, think about form factor. Most of the boards in this Z390 group test use the standard ATX form factor, which means that they’ll fit inside mid- and full-sized tower cases without issue.

Gaming audio: High-fidelity sonics that draw you deeper into the action, with SupremeFX and Sonic Studio III. Intel Z390 AORUS Motherboard with 12 Phases IR Digital VRM, Fins-Array Heatsink, RGB Fusion 2.0, 802.11ac Wireless, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guards, ESS SABRE HIFI 9118, Intel ® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-CEvery motherboard will have the ability to run a single graphics card, but you’ll have to pay closer attention if you want to run two GPUs, or if you want to use a lot of M.2 or PCI-based SSDs in your machine. Some motherboards won’t have sufficient bandwidth to go around all of these components. That means their performance will be reduced. Many motherboards have been audio chipsets that are enhanced with DACs, and a lot of them have wireless internet. Plenty also have beefed-up wired networking connections that prioritise gaming traffic or allow for higher speeds.