GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS PRO Wi-Fi (Intel LGA1151/Z390/ATX/2xM.2 Thermal Guard/Onboard AC Wi-Fi/RGB Fusion/Gaming Motherboard)

It was just under $200 when I purchased it. It's a great motherboard, but it is NOT for beginners. I have been using this motherboard since October 2020 and it has been smooth sailing. A few notes I had to learn the hard way since it isn't well documented... - The board IS Windows 11 compatible. You have to go into the BIOS settings, activate TPM, and then Windows 11 can be installed without issue - It is ARGB compatible, but the instructions are... confusing to say the least, in the instruction manual. - Gigabyte is not known for having robust or stable firmware, but it can still be a worthwhile experience if you know how to manage it As I mentioned, this is not a board for beginners. There are certain caveats to consider when purchasing a performance-oriented, but budget-friendly board, that can be easily overlooked if you don't know what you are doing. Even so, for the features and performance alone, it is definitely a 5-board for PC builders with a bit of experience.

After researching the top 3 brands of motherboards (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte), I decided to go with the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi board for my Intel i7-8700K. I was looking for certain features including a board with WiFi and the latest M.2 NVMe Technology, and not too much bling with lights So far, I am very pleased and happy with this board because I wanted to use Samsung's 970 EVO 500 Gb M.2 NVMe SSD. And so far, the stick is working smoothly with Windows 10 installed. The board instantly recognized the stick without doing any setting in the BIOS. Just make sure you only have this SSD installed when first installing Windows 10 if you want the OS on this SSD (or else you may have issues) I currently have 4 sticks of 3200 RAM CORSAIR Vengeance RGB 8GB DDR4 3200MHz C16 installed on the board along with a GPU EVGA 1070Ti FTW2 - the board booted up the first time it was turned on going straight to the BIOS screen and instantly recognized my Corsair fans, AIO Cooler, M.2 Samsung Drive and EVGA GPU card without any tweaking in the BIOS. A lot of people say the BIOS interface is not the best; but, being a first time PC building, the BIOS has an EASY Mode for a newbie like to me navigate through. However, the board defaults at the 2133 Mhz for any RAM over 2133; you'll have to go back into the BIOS...easy mode...enable XMP...then reboot to get it to change automatically You also can get a 3 year warranty with Gigabyte if you register your motherboard

Built another system for myself-my ASUS mobo arrived DOA, and after months of fighting I gave up on them. Found this board-was a little apprehensive, as this was the first time I used something other than ASUS in over a decade. I'm pleasantly surprised. This board has delivered well in every area. Designed well, plenty of extra connectors, all the USB support I like, even wifi support built in as an added plus. The bios isn't as intuitive as the ASUS boards, but I had no trouble with it as I'm used to tweaking settings-a novice user might have some difficulty. The only thing that I would consider to be a negative is the placement and direction of the SATA connectors, but many board makers seem to favor this approach. The connectors are bundled together and face towards the drive stacks. The bigger problem is if you have a large video card (I had an ASUS DUAL-RTX2080-A8G I had to cram in there). Mine completely obstructed the SATA ports which made plugging in anything to the SATA ports impossible. I had to take out the video card just to plug something into the SATA ports. This was a minor issue though, and compared to the rest of the perks of the board, really inconsequential. Just install your SATA cables first. ;)

I've got nothing bad to say about this one. I'm not a Gigabyte fan in general, but they got this one right. I put a lot of effort into building it as a gamer for a specific client, and it did everything well when I tested it and shipped it out. Just recently had contact with the buyer, he absolutely loves it still, won't even consider "upgrading" to the Intel 10 series because he doesn't want to switch boards. This has all the bells and whistles (ARGB headers being his favorite), but it's still as rock solid performance-wise as they come. The lighting is cool, even I admit it. The software to control it is even better in my experience than most, and I was able to tweak the settings I'd normally not want to saddle a buyer with right out of the box. Great board, fair price.

Background: I have worked in IT for 24 years; my first several years were in the 90s in a small shop that built PCs. I upgrade about every five years at this point, and for the first time in awhile, competition in the market has produced worthwhile advancements, so I went shopping to upgrade my Core i7-4790K system, choosing the Intel i9-9900K because I found a good deal on pricing. I have used most major brands of mainboards available (Gigabyte, MSI, ASUS, Asrock); I looked at all major brands for a solid Z390 board of quality construction, especially in voltage regulation, but with a measure of features I like. Amazon has this board currently for the most competitive price of any vendor, and after shopping around, I found the Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi also had all of the features I wanted, and many competitors in the same range did not, or charged more. PROS: -A thick, solid PCB that will not warp or flex too easily -Quality voltage regulation featured by the Aorus Elite, Pro, Pro WiFi, and Ultra boards (all have the same setup). Note that ASUS, for example, doesn't have nearly as good of voltage regulation until you hit their top-end boards, and charges considerably more for their ROG STRIX Z390-E. MSI has similar quality, but their MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC (say that three times fast) board is also a step up in price. -Realtek ALCS1220 audio onboard codec, separated from the electrical components on the PCB to eliminate crosstalk, using quality capacitors. It sounds quite good on a Logitech 5.1 speaker system, I had no crackles, pops, or other defects. -Two M.2 NVME slots for SSDs, both with included heatsinks (Note:, Using these will take away some SATA ports; read the specs and know this beforehand, this is how the Z390 chipset works for every vendor, there are only so many PCIe lanes) -Onboard Intel AC wifi, which I have tested with a Ubiquiti AC access point (it works very well, though I normally go wired) and an Intel gigabit NIC -Two metal-reinforced PCIe slots (perfect for my SLI setup) and metal-reinforced DIMM sockets, to prevent slot breakage and board warping -Two temperature sensors headers onboard, which will (with the included sensor leads) let you monitor temperature of areas in your system if desired -A plethora of all of the necessary ports, USB2, USB3.1, and USB3.1C to meet your needs -Gigabyte DualBIOS to protect from an accidental BIOS corruption -A built-in backplate; you'll never lose it, small thing, but a welcome one CONS: -BIOS. This honestly isn't the worst thing in the world, but Gigabyte's BIOS is not intuitive compared to ASUS (the leader of the pack) and has lots of items buried in sub-menus, and not always defined clearly. Once you have the board set how you like it, it's not going to be an issue, but if you're a tweaker, you're going to need to do a lot of research to define some options, or even find out where they are. Thus my deduction of one star. Also, make sure you're up to the latest revision (F9 at this time) -I'd have loved to see three additional things on this board; a debug LED, a Displayport connector in addition to the HDMI, and power/reset CMOS buttons on the backplate. Admittedly, this would raise the price, and nobody has the debug/LED, or power/CMOS buttons at this price (a few have the Displayport). Not knocking anything off for this, just me wishing. I have been running this board for a month; nearly three of those weeks I have run Folding@Home on my i9-9900K when not gaming, which uses 100% of my two Geforce GTX 1070 cards and 100% of all eight CPU cores at 4.8GHz max turbo speed. My system has been rock solid stable (using a Seasonic Platinum I 1000w PSU) with no crashes or issues. All of my games have either run a minimum of 10fps faster (many more than that), or allowed me to set higher detail settings than my 4790K system (with same graphics cards) at 1900x1200 resolution. I would recommend this board without hesitation as the best model you'll find under $200, and above that price, you're mostly buying fluff, or features designed for liquid cooling folks. Solid purchase. UPDATE 7/11/2019 - I replaced my storage, going from two Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSDs (2.5") and one WD Black 1TB to keeping one of the SSDs for storage and adding two HP EX920 1TB M.2 NVMe x4 SSDs. They work beautifully and they're wicked fast. The first SSD does not take any SATA ports away (as long as you use NVMe), the second takes two ports away (4 and 5). With these two drives, I still have enough room for the SATA SSD, a DVD burner, and the SATA dock built into my case, with one port left to spare.

First of all this is not a full review, I just need to say this right away. The box it came in was not sealed. In fact it wasn't even taped shut and there is visible corrosion on the VRM modules. The gigabyte MB box was delivered by Amazon along with some other boxes inside a larger box. The Gigabyte product box not only was opened and not taped or sealed in any way, it appeared to have been opened and closed several times as you can see by the wear and tear on the cardboard in my included picture. All the parts and documentation plus my Aorus sticker plate are accounted for and have protective bags and plastic wrap although that said protective plastic all looks suspiciously generic and not factory. Maybe that's just Gigabyte's way of keeping costs down I don't know. The antistatic MB bag was taped with scotch tape and once I took out the board I noticed right away the crooked VRM modules which are clear to see in the picture. I'm not too hung up on that, as long as it's solid solder and works well I won't see it anyway but I mean hey this is supposed to be a flashy LED lit up board WTH? The VRM's also have discoloration on them which I'm guessing is from sitting in an unsealed box (not a single silica gel pack anywhere) in an air conditioned warehouse. I inspected the CPU socket pins and they appear to be flawless so at least there's that. I've owned 2 Gigabyte MB that have both lasted for over 8 years and been moved multiple times from Guadalajara Mexico (3 years) to NH and NY for a year, Houston Texas for 3 years and now in California for 2 years now and only just started to have issues with the Z77 board. My Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4 is still going strong with heavy OC'ing and many different hardware changes so I'm expecting BIG THINGS from this latest Z390 board. So far I'm NOT impressed and undecided if I made the right choice. Since it is sold and delivered by Amazon (Prime) I'm not sure who is at fault if it does not work correctly. ***UPDATE 7/17/19*** So I installed the board. The first problem I had is the extra height the I/O shield has, the back of my case has a fan and radiator and the board was very difficult to get in place, it just barely fit so be mindful of that. Fan Headers!! Wow! And the advanced fan control seems to work wonderfully, goodbye my old friend SpeedFan! Oh and they are all four pin PWN/Volt and can each be assigned to function indivifually as either PWN or voltage speed control. The lights are cool but I haven't messed with that yet. The sound comes with a Gigabyte audio control panel that gives you basic sound field stuff like an EQ and choice of environmental effects. But it's pretty basic and my speakers don't sound nearly as good as with my SoundBlaster Z card, I'll miss that. Seems to run much cooler than my Z68 board, my office is significantly cooler. Haven't tried any overclocking yet, waiting to get used to it first. The settings in the advanced part of the BIOS are very detailed and rather cryptic, Gigabyte style. ASUS has a much nicer and friendlier BIOS but this Gigabyte Aorus Pro Wi-fi is rated in general to better handle the power required for a i9-9900k and has a few more features for way less money. TLDR: Pros: Cheap, great power handling, decent looking, nice lighting, Many fan headers all individually controllable, Many temperature sensors all addressable, 2 m.2 ports each with nice heatsink, reinforced PCIe x16 and x8 ports Cons: BIOS is confusing and unclear, packaging was unprofessional, documentation is lousy, not a lot of SATA ports, sound is not as great as they claim

I will start this review at 5 stars simply for the fact that I plugged everything in and booted up. It booted up no problem and windows adjusted to the new motherboard (been waiting for that for like 15-20 years and was promised before now and it never worked). Then I reset it and set my XMP profile to on and it has run my RAM at speeds without any issue at all. I am actually kind of amazed. So I've never had an easier install. First boot up the CPU was at 28c with a Deepmax 400 HSF. Last I saw it was 30-32c, which is still acceptable, and it's brand new so needs time to adjust to the paste. So far I am loving it. Need to ensure all my drivers are up to date and that I have all that Gigabyte has to offer software wise so I can see if any of it is useful, which they install CPUZ, Cfos, and Smart fan, which are all items I always have or don't mind having when a motherboard reminds me they exist (cfos). Layout is nice, and the added heatsinks for your m.2 drives is bad a$$. I was sad I had to rip off my 970 + 960 sticker so I could make sure the heat film touches the chips and not the sticker, but I placed them on the outside of the heatsink so it works out. I was able to screw in all screws without too much hassle. My last mobo in the same case was more difficult due to the placement of stuff. This one, not so much. Overall I am amazed and absolutely love this mobo, but time will tell if this changes. As I own this thing I will come back if any stars need to be removed If you have specific questions add a comment and I can try to answer.

I bought this motherboard for my new PC, and got to installing Windows 10 right away. After about 15 minutes, the PC shut off and the motherboard stopped posting. After some research I found that certain versions of the BIOS in this motherboard aren't compatible with i9 gen CPUs. I ordered a replacement and the first thing I did before booting into Windows was install the latest BIOS version (F10 in my case) and everything worked like a charm. As others mentioned, this is a great motherboard for the price. The WiFi is particularly great, and since that was the main reason I chose to get this motherboard over the competition, I'm very happy with my purchase.