GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Elite Pictured, New Round of Branding Chaos Incoming

[btarunr]

GIGABYTE is ready with its Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard. The name might suggest that it's the company's flagship product based on the Z390 chipset, but in reality, it's part of the company's new nomenclature that differentiates boards from different price-points. The current "Gaming 3, Gaming 5, and Gaming 7" series is going to be replaced. The cheaper "Gaming 3" extension will be replaced by "Elite." The slightly divergent "Ultra Gaming" extension gets replaced by "PRO." The mid-tier Gaming 5, on the other hand, extension is replaced by "Ultra." The high-end Gaming 7 tier is replaced by "Master," and the flagship Gaming 9 extension by XTREME. We've already seen one of these with the recent Aorus X399 XTREME TR4 motherboard.

Moving on to the product at hand, the Z390 Aorus Elite is a somewhat entry-tier product that's probably priced around the $150-mark, owing to the high chipset price and the higher CPU VRM requirements it mandates. We already count a 13-something-phase VRM (which could include phase-doubling). The "Gaming 3" extension historically lacked NVIDIA SLI support, and that carries over to the Z390 Aorus Elite. The second PCIe x16 slot on this board is electrical x4, and wired to the PCH. Storage connectivity, besides six SATA, includes two M.2 slots with x4 wiring, one of which includes a heatsink. GIGABYTE boards are known for good onboard audio implementations, and this board is no exception. It appears to have WIMA capacitors, ground-layer isolation, EMI shield over the CODEC, which very likely could be an ALC1220. USB 3.1 connectivity, including a type-C port, and 1 GbE interface driven by an i219-V could make for the rest of it. There's minimal RGB bling on board, but you'll get 2-3 aRGB headers.



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[RejZoR]

This is reaching full retard levels. Make up your damn distinct names, jesus. It's not like someone is going to mistakingly buy your board (wrong chipset) and say "you know what, I'll just keep this one".

As for the phase doubling, it's not "which could include phase doubling", it's more like "it's guaranteed to be doubled". They all do it and they all lie about it. Really annoying.

 

[dj-electric]

I'm just sitting here hoping not to get overly glorified 4+1\4+2 Phase systems again. Kinda tired of this BS.
Should just order that damn Z370 FTW from amazon at 119$ and be over with it....

 

[eidairaman1]

More bottom barrel stuff...

 

[btarunr]

I'm just sitting here hoping not to get overly glorified 4+1\4+2 Phase systems again. Kinda tired of this BS.
Should just order that damn Z370 FTW from amazon at 119$ and be over with it....

Maybe you miss the "UD5 @ $150" glory days because those were pre-FIVR?

Post-FIVR motherboard phases aren't driving as much current, and so you needn't spread it across like 16-phase (8 real) to stay cool/durable.

 

[dj-electric]

Maybe you miss the "UD5 @ $150" glory days because those were pre-FIVR?

Post-FIVR motherboard phases aren't driving as much current, and so you needn't spread it across like 16-phase (8 real) to stay cool/durable.

And then we started building off 14NM more speed and more cores to the point where CPUs consume insanely high mounts of power and their VRM systems are still designed like in the 4-core era. 100C+ VRM systems at stock clocks on 150$+ motherboards is what we get these days.

 

[Ruru]

This is reaching full retard levels. Make up your damn distinct names, jesus. It's not like someone is going to mistakingly buy your board (wrong chipset) and say "you know what, I'll just keep this one".

As for the phase doubling, it's not "which could include phase doubling", it's more like "it's guaranteed to be doubled". They all do it and they all lie about it. Really annoying.

I've started to miss those days where the model names were just letters and numbers. Like Asus M3N78 SE on my HTPC.

 

[Upgrayedd]

I've started to miss those days where the model names were just letters and numbers. Like Asus M3N78 SE on my HTPC.

Yeah I liked their old schemes. This Ultra, Elite, Pro, Ultra Pro, Aorus Elite crap is just too much confusion. I know a 7 is higher than 5 but now I gota rank nouns ?

 

[RejZoR]

I'm just sitting here hoping not to get overly glorified 4+1\4+2 Phase systems again. Kinda tired of this BS.
Should just order that damn Z370 FTW from amazon at 119$ and be over with it....

Watch Buildzoids videos (Actually Hardcore Overclocking). I know he looks at everything through hardcore OC perspective, but he explains how VRM's are designed and they all do this crap. Watched his X470 overview the other day and basically all do this doubling nonsense. Even on higher tier boards. Intel boards are no exception either...

I don't get it why they can't use two letter "initials". And yeah, I kinda blame AMD here for ripping off Intel's naming scheme.

Why can't they name their series with round numbers? Like ZX200, ZX400, ZX600, ZX800, RT200, RT400 or RZ200, RZ400 etc. There are so many long term options that sound alright and are still distinctive.

 

[Animalpak]

Ohh c mon you guys is only isolated to X390 chipset is not a whole disaster in names.

Now we have X270 and X390...

 

[randomUser]

This is reaching full retard levels. Make up your damn distinct names, jesus. It's not like someone is going to mistakingly buy your board (wrong chipset) and say "you know what, I'll just keep this one".

As for the phase doubling, it's not "which could include phase doubling", it's more like "it's guaranteed to be doubled". They all do it and they all lie about it. Really annoying.

You're wrong about "it's guaranteed to be doubled". They will NOT be doubling phases on these. They will only double the components for the phases they have. This is NOT the same as doubling phases using phase doublers.

 

[RejZoR]

Yeah, I know I worded it wrong. That's what I meant. Doubled components to make it look like they have tons of phases. And it's guaranteed that all of them do this nonsense.

 

[Darksword]

ULTRA Confusing

XTREME-LY Unnecessary

 

[Upgrayedd]

Well I just realized "Chaos" from the title isn't one of the models like I initially thought.

 

[buildzoid]

Maybe you miss the "UD5 @ $150" glory days because those were pre-FIVR?

Post-FIVR motherboard phases aren't driving as much current, and so you needn't spread it across like 16-phase (8 real) to stay cool/durable.

LGA1151 doesn't have a FIVR.