Core i9-9900K, High-end Z390 VRM Temperature Test, Which Board Should You Buy?

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Hope you've enjoyed the testing so far, it took a lot of time just to make this first part of the Z390 series. Also for those interested here are the past X399 and B450 VRM thermal comparisons. X399: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j6m7XmSbYtNjg80 B450: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e6K0lJqtr5abj6M

[@charlestwoo]

what board was best for OC?? plz give us that info.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@@charlestwoo Gigabyte as hands down the easiest here, then Asrock.

[@JagdSeelen]

Which open loop cooler did you use?

[@onTopOfYoMutha]

Loving it so far. I'm really happy to see the focus on testing for Z390 mobos. I understand you can't get to them all, but I hope too see the GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS ULTRA in the list. I think it might be on par with the Master for the mid-range.

[@ironmaiden5658]

You do some fantastic work mate. I've had nothing but good times with Asrock. I ditched Asus after I had one board fail for no reason at all and another had ridiculous vdroop that would make the board unstable.

[@CoercedNut]

Love the sheer honesty in your videos, regardless of what the fan base fights you over. And it’s no surprise Asus didn’t send you that board, they didn’t want to get called out! (;

[@TheSocialGamer]

It's exactly what I'm thinking.. Good point..

[@Aereto]

@@kimhoffmannandersen5477 But no one pushes it has hard as this... or Gamers Nexus.

[@Hirens.]

*GIGABYTE Z390 GAMING X vs MSI Z370 SLI PLUS* Wich should I pick? They have the same price here I want the best VRM that I can get for this price! And no, I can't go for Gigabyte Elite because it costs a lot more.

[@endx9]

This is awesome, real fan of these types of vids, makes it a lot easier to pick hardware!

[@ashenone3427]

Jon_X9 heck yeah

[@delta9k]

No bad vibes from this Asus fan. Facts and data do not lie... Thanks for your time and effort in testing and review.

[@UnacceptableViews]

Asus fan here too, if Asus gets it wrong they should be called out for it. no hard feelings to reviewers.

[@r100curtaincall]

Yeah I’m with you. In fact I actually have a Hero inside my crystal 570x. It’s a great board I have to say I like it despite this unfortunate tidbit. It still performs like a champ for me.

[@PRamsey77]

Asus fan here too. Not mad, just disappointed in ASUS. Looks like I will be looking closer at the Gigabyte boards this time around.

[@billklatsch5058]

Not a ASUS fan yet but i will order a CrosshairVII or a HeroXI the next few days... i will just do some waterblocks that i glue on top of the stock heatsinks, should get the temps low. Not a cool move from the company tho, i hope they get the bill for it. You should not lie to the ppl that buy your stuff. In Pursuit of Excellence? not so much.

[@Fiufia]

I still wait for buildzoid review. All that temps do not seem to be bad for VRM so i dont see any problem with none of the boards. I still stay here for games benchmarks.

[@knives6683]

Thanks for proving that brand loyalty is a ridiculous notion in PC hardware.

[@feelingtardy]

yeah, i also think he's giving asus fans too much credit thinking they'll come around, lol

[@pRopaaNS]

Not really ridiculous. The issue is that pc tech is pretty complicated and keeps changing, so you have to devote part of your life to keep track of it all. Brand loyality is just one of few limited options available for a person that isn't choosing that path.

[@B.D.E.]

Anyone with more than three brain cells could have worked that out just by being a PC user. Brand loyalty is for schoolchildren.

[@kumbandit]

Unless you are with AMD, they seriously made huge strides and the prices are still low... Not even gonna go with 9900K/2700X price ratio, but even motherboards, AMD mobos are around $150 for an average latest-gen high-end mobo (X470), while their counterpart (Z390) as you can see is double...

[@alexatkin]

Brand loyalty is always dumb period, anywhere. It just encourages the brand to cut corners as they know people will buy it anyway.

[@TimmyJoePCTech]

I really liked this video. I can only imagine the time spent swapping CPUs and putting motherboards in cases. You're an MSI GODLIKE tech reviewer. I appreciate it!

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Thanks Timmy Joe, appreciate it mate.

[@kumbandit]

It must be like the hardest thing for swapping, you practically have to swap goddamn everything apart from PSU and SSD...

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@@kumbandit It's more just plugging in and unplugging cables for the most part.

[@kumbandit]

@@Hardwareunboxed And sockets, slots (RAM, GPU), etc, so basically everything, it's not too far from building a new rig :D

[@funbucket09]

kumbandit lol I now have an image of Steve screwing every single motherboard onto every standoff in a case then unscrewing everything after testing to put the next one in 😂😂. I know he wouldn’t do that but I am strange and for some reason find that funny.

[@rodneylawrence3421]

My New PC checkout list has only changed a few thousand times in the last 2months :). All for the better thanks to channels like this. Keep up the good work!

[@fidamdsaini8452]

USD$$ or AUD$$???

[@rodneylawrence3421]

AUD. It's been a crazy market of new cpu, gpu and motherboards. The main parts of my long awaited build is mostly unavailable in Aus. Each new tech analysis video is greatly appreciated. There's been a lot to take in and the full extent of the public's information hasn't quite settled yet.

[@fidamdsaini8452]

Same here mate been looking at doing a hackintosh mini itx build trying to avoid Intel's high prices by going Ryzen though I'm not too certain how Ryzen would optimze for Mac OS.

[@fucksereinstrucotrs1711]

Fida Md-Saini ryzen does not work at all for Mac OS from what I know , all the luck to you mate!

[@Tallnerdyguy]

@@fucksereinstrucotrs1711 actually ryzen works remarkably for hackintosh

[@carbonicdk2]

Me having left Asus boards and having gone to a Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master seem like a even better idea after seeing this :)

[@CHEF2077]

Very great job Steve! As always your content is outstanding! Thank you.

[@BMXaster]

His work is Godlike...

[@Oniphire]

siXtreme you mean it's limited edition? :'(

[@BMXaster]

Oh :( hopefully not!

[@mitchell3876]

Thank you Steve, very cool!

[@akshathk.]

Wow I didn't expect ROG Maximus to do so bad :(

[@akshathk.]

Btw first, notification squad :)

[@fabiusmaximuscunctator7390]

Overpriced and overhyped imo, like the RTX series and 9th gen Intel stuff. I got to admit that I am an Asus fan though.

[@greggreg2458]

@@fabiusmaximuscunctator7390 Same, i owned a Maximus IX Formula and i currently own a Crosshair VII.

[@Crimsonwolf1923]

had the same reaction.. wow

[@fabiusmaximuscunctator7390]

@Greg They both are great, but too expensive imo. In 2013 the Z87 Maximus Hero could be had for less than 200 bucks, today it's 300+ with an underwhelming VRM. Seems Asus go the GigaByte route of downfall...

[@sebastian8486]

Gigabyte really stepping up the VRM game! Nice analysis as always Steve!

[@Malus1531]

Now if only their BIOS wasn't shit

[@funbucket09]

@@Malus1531 it isn't that bad in all honesty. Just takes a little while to get used to. When you learn where all the options are, I find their BIOS has just as many features as the ASUS BIOS

[@Malus1531]

@@funbucket09 I dunno I had issues with my Z170 Gigabyte board. Had a bug where my Vcore settings wouldn't take effect, stuck at a certain voltage no matter what I entered. Adaptive & offset voltage seemed to behave strangely, or at the least were confusing to use and poorly explained. There would be some settings without a toggle, like if I wanted to change a setting back to auto I'd have to actually type in "auto." Many things weren't explained, like what's the difference between "CPU upgrade" and "performance upgrade" (auto OC). To be fair though Asus isn't much better at explaining settings in the manual, they could both use better documentation. I have to search obscure forum posts to find out what some settings do. And while Asus has a better UI, at least the Gigabyte BIOS was written by someone who knows English and didn't have grammar mistakes.

[@Boorock70]

and also they are excelling in the audio section too... Using much better components ESS Sabre ES9118 DACs with some highly appreciated WIMA & Nichicon Caps configuration that can't be seen on any other manufacturer. ASUS's ESS Sabre ES9023P DAC is a downgrade version and who knows what MSI is using :( But Gigabyte's UEFI BIOS sucks, really ! Also I would like to see more mature, minimalist designs from Gigabyte too... Their X470 boards look like designed by 3 year-olds. This Z390 looks much better. They do have lots of potential but I believe there is someone (an ASUS/MSI Spy maybe) sabotaging Gigabyte with lots of garbage features. They need to calm down & grow-up a little !

[@YavNe]

Yeah, ASUS should prevail!

[@Crossfire2003]

Thanks Hardware Unboxed! Thank you Steve for this video! I first watched it in late 2018. I bought the Z390 Aorus Master in early 2019 and it’s been a great buy! I never had any issue with it. The board is still working perfectly today, after 2 years of usage.

[@acidstorm001]

My confidence in Asus products has taken a sharp blow! ROG is not supposed to have shortcuts and anything less than the top-shelf parts... For the cost of that board, it shouldn't be a 4 phase! That's incredibly shady of Asus and I will always slam any PC parts vendor when they do things like that. For those of us that understand what we are buying, we can spot it and shake are heads at them, but for many others that just see the name and know the reputation of an ROG product, they just buy it thinking they are getting the top-end part, that really doesn't even belong in the ROG line-up!

[@dragonslayer-ug7sk]

Amazing as always. Keep doing your deep analysis.

[@TechnoFreak-IN]

z390 aorus master is insane , VRMs on it is of best quality , i've OC my 9900k to 5.2ghz all cores

[@SkyReviewsNet]

how are you liking it?

[@tntgdh]

i'm thinking about the z390 ultra, sames VRM config

[@benhansen542]

Loving mine, so awesome!

[@170adamb1]

@@tntgdh On paper you're actually getting an even better vrm. The cheaper aorus boards all use 50amp power stages, compared to the masters 40amp. Go figure!

[@170adamb1]

@@tntgdh +Much better "smart" doublers 😀

[@jhonnyxyz]

Really great work Steve. I like your objectiv standpoint and I enjoy every video on the channel. I think Asus is a little overhyped these days. They should make better Hardware instead of wasting money on ads.

[@interwebdeuce8918]

I'm not sure about the reason behind the Asus board selected. The Asus Formula or Extreme are closer competition to the "Godlike Gaming" and the others. From the video, mid-variant Max versus higher-end variant which is along the lines of the other boards.

[@surferboyuk84]

@@interwebdeuce8918 Godlike is not part of the review

[@Igorsov]

Interweb Deuce are you mad that Asus is crap?

[@PowerRanger83]

@@interwebdeuce8918 Have you actually watched the video? The Godlike Gaming is not even part of the review. All four tested boards are in the 289 - 300 USD range (Newegg.com).

[@Gadgetakias]

So we Patreon helped you buy the worst hogh-end z390 :(

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Congrats mate 😂

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@shinkueagle It was this or I let Tim buy more Lego.

[@RealDafuh]

Well look at this way: Better, patreons paid for us to know how shitty it is, BEFORE we buy it ^^

[@vaggelisdogas]

Hmmmmm😂

[@knives6683]

@Lucas de Abreu ha, great reply lol

[@elmSTREETnasty]

About to go to sleep. Refresh KZbin and see Hardware Unboxed has a new video about a CPU and motherboards I'll never buy. Here I am.

[@NicolaiSyvertsen]

I have gotten into watching fitness videos instead a bit but still gravitate towards tech videos. Bad habit.

[@thealien_ali3382]

I have a z390 e Asus which I love. MSI I have a z97 and the board kept losing drives everytime I turned on the pc drives use to go missing and boot drive use to change, changing the bios battery didn't help so I went with Asus and loved em since

[@Buffinator1988]

Every year the ROG boards get more expensive. Literally with every chipset release the price seems to go up £20... I might be imagining this lol. I own a formula but when I upgrade ill probably avoid ROG as its gotten crazy expensive for what you get. Asrock give you the most for your money, if only the BIOS and tuning was better...

[@samuel5916]

Calculate inflation into that, also electronic component prices tend to fluctuate wildly from year to year. Perhaps most importantly, electronics companies are constantly having to add new features and technologies to each product while maintaining and improving the old. So it does tend to add up. But since most of them are publicly traded companies you can easily pick through their financial results if you think they’re just padding their profit margins.

[@jakegarrett8109]

@@samuel5916 Ah yes, inflation... That's why the worlds fastest CPU (Threadripper 2990WX) costs $1700, when 2 years ago that got you a pitiful 10 core (instead of 32 core) that wasn't even remotely close to taking on Xeon chips (and Threadripper/Epyc easily destroy the $10,000 Xeon platinum, Epyc costs under $3k for the 32 core). My dad's first budget computer was $2,800, I'm building a Threadripper 1950x with quad channel 3600 Mhz RAM, 4x R9 Fury (could go RTX, but Nvidia drivers sucked on my Titan Xp) with hard-line water cooling, and I think I have enough left to even count the $400 LN2 cooler for TR in benchmarking with duel HX1200i platinum PSUs. Inflation....

[@Malus1531]

@@jakegarrett8109 Weird flex but ok

[@Malus1531]

Asus does have the best BIOS from what I've heard though. I've only owned Gigabyte and Asus personally, but Asus was definitely better.

[@jakegarrett8109]

@@Malus1531 Just pointing out how you can get the most insane builds, for the price of the most budget system (his was DOS based, about the cheapest "home edition" system you could get, it actually still runs for some super retro text based games, which are when gaming storyline was first developing). So I don't believe technology is increasing in price (except when there is no competition, then you charge kidneys and major organs). Right now its super cheap to build a PC (hence I'm going almost full out, plus its pretty much mandatory for 4k and this should also let me do some older games at triple 4k as well). Peripherals are cheaper, $10 gets you a nice mouse, $80-$120 gets you a nice mech keyboard, and 4k monitors are just around $300 with Freesync. Back in the day, $80 got you terrible headphones (now you get really good quality surround sound, which is awesome in FPS games), and the mice aren't complete trash gumming up the rolling ball, but keyboards haven't improved much besides RGB (which does look pretty awesome...). The GPUs are only $120 for a used RX 480 8GB, so you're going to run stupid speeds at 1080p High settings, and the only thing that's expensive is RAM... No competition in RAM it seems.

[@AndreBorralho]

Those type of tests are awesome. Thank you for the hard work, please keep going!

[@3800S1]

It's amazing how good the boards look with the plastic removed.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Couldn't agree more mate.

[@3800S1]

@@Hardwareunboxed Like the good old days.

[@turbo5483]

@@Hardwareunboxed is it possible to leave the plastic off ?

[@murphy_boy]

Wow, this channel get better and better after each video. Development is the key word. Thank you HUB for your efforts.

[@ACS_Media]

That Gigabyte board is a damn good looking board.

[@felixspyrou]

Your honesty is highly apreciated, can''t wait for those more affordable tests!!!

[@CobrazHD]

Maximus XI $279 = 200$ Bios 50$ vrm 29$ RGB features and m.2 heatsinks

[@realabpc1883]

Good (and fair) review. Gigabyte (while up and down and all over the place with other chipsets, particularly going back a year or two) has really done an excellent job on their Z390 boards; (seriously, ALL of them, even down to the Z390-UD, are really solid in terms of power supply and power delivery). Good for them! They were kind of adrift for a while and I'm happy to see them once again pointed in a good direction.

[@leeadkins1360]

Great job as always Steve!

[@jhall651]

Great Video! I am just now ramping up the process of building a new gaming PC. I haven't built a PC in years so I have been doing my homework and buffing my knowledge back up. This video was absolutely amazing and highly informative. I just thumbs up'd and subscribed. Keep up the good work! From and new American fan to my new favorite Aussie... I respectfully say... Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!!!

[@TechnoFreak-IN]

every z390 board of gigabyte is top notch, from aorus pro to aorus master! every board got high quality and 12 phase VRMs

[@Zeorymer300]

TechnoFreak yup and the Xtremes have 16. Such a great lineup

[@scriptbug6486]

Bullshit their motherboards are piece of shit

[@sanityadvanced8239]

MSI MEG Z390 ACE is an amazing board, Especially when you dial in all the extra Phase settings MSI has added in the bios.

[@DmitriWeissman]

I like high end asus more than others for the bios and overall quality. I was aware of such VRM arrangement on STRIX line, but its a new low to put such thing on a 300$ ROG board. Will have to check twice before getting next MB from ASUS. Blender is nice test and it produces high enough power draw. Personally, I'd prefer to see delta over ambient instead of absolute values.

[@amunderdog]

Seems Asus like Silverstone have lost there direction. All the years building a name brand identity, then just ride the name to the bottom. Or many ride the name until it turns then sell the name. These new business models baffle me.

[@StalewindFarto]

@@amunderdog Marketing is a sign of the end, and marketing is strong with Asus today they have lost their way

[@yenkins5086]

Been researching z390 boards for days and this video alone has convinced me. Thank you! I am confident that you guys are unbiased, do your vetting, and I trust your recommendation. Keep up the high quality testing!

[@brandongoh1797]

It can't be denied that asus has the best bios of any of the other brands on the market and a good bios has a lot to do with a board's overclocking performance

[@Aereto]

But if the hardware can't keep up, what good is the firmware?

[@TheSineira]

Well, the BIOS right now is shit. I have a XI CODE and it randomly fails to detect IDE drives, fails to boot, locks up after sleep etc. NOT GOOD.

[@madd5]

That's the only reason I ordered Asus XI Hero. I love their BIOS and software.

[@areyou0k98]

TheSineira i also have an xi code and none of that happens and my 9900k is running well on it with my ROG Ryujin 360m

[@eliasborsov8188]

Brandon Goh most of the sane people don’t give a shit about overclocking ? Why should you shorten your components life time for a little performance boost...only gamer freaks do that ..

[@A1phaCanis]

Thank you! I really needed this review for my Black Friday shopping!

[@ae0072]

Quality content. Keep it up. You guys deserve millions of subs for useful content.

[@erikhendrickson59]

In-depth motherboard analysis/content from the likes of Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus the past year or so has been really great! These companies can no longer get away with substandard power delivery; sometimes even LYING about their power delivery systems altogether! My GigaByte x470 Gaming 7, with ACTUAL FINSTACK HEATSINKS, has been really amazing! My 2700x runs @ 4.2GHz and 1.400Vcore and the VRMs never exceed 45-50c, under full stress-testing loads! Keep it up guys!

[@vMaxHeadroom]

Fantastic analysis as I was looking at a new Z390 board and the Ace, Master and Hero were the one's on my list to look at... Frankly surprised at ASUS as I was moving towards the Hero solely because of there new AI overclocking feature that looks great...But now the Gigabyte is worth more of a look, especially with the 9900K being so hot..Looking at Buildzoid's comment all the Gigabyte boards from the Elite up have the same VRM setup...

[@Malus1531]

Manual overclocking is better if you have the time, but I was impressed with AI Overclocking on my Maximus X Hero (Z370). Overclocked it fairly well and even did per-core, and it was a good way to quickly compare two 8700k's I had and see which was the better overclocker.

[@vMaxHeadroom]

@@Malus1531 Agreed on the manual overclock...I have the Z370 Gigabyte Gaming 7 and have manually overclocked but I saw a KZbin video on the Maximus Hero XI where it showed in the BIOS what a CPU could do and at what voltage which looked really cool...

[@GioSinatraFan]

I'm normally a MSI guy, but I recently bought the Asrock Z390 Taichi Ultimate for my work machine and have to say, I love it. Easy to set up and works great with my 9800k and NH-15s

[@n8likesmath]

Can we all appreciate the insane amount of time and effort that went into this 1 video. With no ads. Holy shit

[@emp.splash]

I love these VRM test videos. Helped me a lot to choose a motherboard for my Ryzen 2600 CPU.

[@byarnneil1916]

Your honesty is very much appreciated, I really enjoyed your review, thank you.

[@woopishk]

we have seen in the past Motherboard companies being biased against AMD .. the made some shitty boards for the fx Chips....and some Badass boards for the Intel CPUs... the opinion of the Bulldozer chips being substandard and underwhelming apparently became the opinion of motherboard companies also.. why put premium parts on a board for a shitty processor? is there any change now ??? With these reviewers on youtube.. Steve and his team .. they cannot pull any more fast ones.. I luv it !!!!

[@fidamdsaini8452]

Hopefully we could FINALLY get some sweet mobos when AMD drops 7nm Zen 2 next year. I'm NOT a fan of the orange crap Aorus is doing with their boards.

[@woopishk]

@@shaolin95 I admit I love AND just like I root for the under dog... but be real why would a maonboard company put their best and costly parts on a product that won't sell well. It's about return...

[@SuprSi]

@@woopishk I'm very happy with my (2 year old now) Asus Crosshair VI hero, the VRM is extremely good and barely gets warm even pushing close to 200W, it's sad to see Asus' quality dropping off though, hopefully they get their shit together.

[@BrianFairlamb]

Thank god for an honest reviewer i will most certainly heed his advice, i must admit hardware unboxed is the channel i watch most these days and will in the future, because lets face it a spade is a spade, well done look forward to many more.

[@ediciusrift]

I dont know why im watching these kind of videos. I dont have money to buy a ~300 pc, let alone a ~300 motherboard

[@ssrdn]

Haha, wouldn't have realised it if you hadn't mentioned it

[@ediciusrift]

@Jesus McBeth done hahaha sorry bout that

[@feelingtardy]

that's what credit cards are for, lol

[@eagleeye8916]

That's why we Americans are in credit card debt. I could really use a 34" alienware display. Love my Mastercard

[@kendragon2827]

@@eagleeye8916 I have that alienware for sell! Lol

[@AsreiMurasame]

I will say the Gigabyte flagship the XTREME (which is even stronger than the master) is a complete monster. They even have a water block variant with a supposed 16 phase VRM. Which is pretty hardcore for OC'ing.

[@mymanzach8265]

I knew it! He is a gigabyte, ASRock, and or msi shill!

[@gnoldi]

I laughed out loud! Thanks!

[@kumbandit]

Good one :D

[@DrunkNeltey]

Just realistic, that's it

[@truthseeker2733]

Do your own test then

[@ywsx6489]

As an Asus fanboy, I just got a Maximus Hero XI. Disappointed in their marketing wank. Wished your video came out earlier by a couple of days. Thank you for the great work and keeping the manufacturers honest.

[@BrianGarside]

How is it working so far? I just bought one myself, not knowing all this. Yikes!

[@fwabble]

YOU DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND YOURSELF. Keep doing what you are doing, telling it how it is. RESPECT

[@David_Quinn_Photography]

such a good benchmark or mobos, I am so happy to see at least one person does this for us so we know what to and what not tp buy.

[@Etheoma]

ASUS shit the bed with this one. No wonder ASUS didn't want it put in a competent reviewers hands. I remember when the Hero used to always have a ludicrously overdone VRM. Now a 4 phase, come on ASUS get you shit back together.

[@kumbandit]

"didn't want it put in a competent reviewers hands" - so basically they went Intel (pre-release)? :D

[@Nirotix]

Pretty much. You know it's f'n shady when they block you from reviewing it until a certain date or won't hand out free samples to review. I was JUST ABOUT to get the hero (have my 9600k, 3200 cl14 trident, and 970 evo sitting in my cart atm) to be paired with my strix 1080 ti oc I already have. Now I'm having serious thoughts about the Gigabyte Master, I just HATE thier bios. Asus bios is the best, bar none. Ugh...!

[@kumbandit]

@@Nirotix Get an MSI. Was going to say go Ryzen because, well let's be real, but I know some ppl like to pay for the bit of the extra juice...

[@Nirotix]

@@kumbandit In fairness, I've grown up with computers since vic 20 tape drive. Moved to an Amiga with an actual hd after that playing some of the games I only WISH they had today. Amiga was a monster, too bad they sold thier soul with a chip design they had going on. RIP Agnus. 16 bit sound, 4 channel back in 1987. All of my builds have been AMD since the death of Commadore. Athlon 32, than 64. My old computer is a 965 AMD CPU. Would love there to be more competition, just looking for a new rig that pushes frames and serves my interests. I don't enjoy being violated from behind to get it thou. Lack of competition yeilds being fucked without getting off. Doing my best to limit how "fucked" I get atm.

[@Nirotix]

@@kumbandit Here is a broad but much larger question, with all the bling and graphics power, why are most games not as enjoyable as they were during the Amiga years? I implore you to check out some Amiga games on a simulator etc. After playing a few excellent titles such as Emerald Mines, Nuclear War, Test Drive, many bad ass Psychosis titles like Turican. You'ld be wondering what they might look like in 4k. Sooooo many more like Giana Sisters. So many great games, most put the games released these days to shame.

[@shooweri3666]

Thank you for this video! Had problems with two different boards with overclocking stability and after watching this placed an order for z390 Aorus Master. Really looking forward it to arrive, should be here in couple days!

[@barneyrubble8255]

Has the gigabyle worked good with i9900?

[@shooweri3666]

@@barneyrubble8255 Actually, I'm currently using my old delidded 8700k clocked to 5Ghz at 1,36v. Temps are outstanding and the system is far more stable than with other boards I tried. I'm planning to order 9900k on next black Friday sales and I'm very confident that it'll run impeccably with the Aorus Master.

[@onTopOfYoMutha]

If possible, please consider reviewing the GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS ULTRA (it's the 'Z370 Gaming 5' equivalent) as well, which seems somewhere in the mid to top-end, but not quite on the Master or Extreme $$$ level. Thanks :)

[@vMaxHeadroom]

Good thing about the Z390 Gigabyte Ultra is that it has pretty much the same VRM setup, in fact all Gigabyte boards from the Elite upwards have the same VRM setup...Looks like Gigabyte took on all the criticism they received from the last round and over compensated!!!! which is a good thing.

[@onTopOfYoMutha]

@@vMaxHeadroom I thought so too, but according to a table of Gigabyte VRM Specs posted at overclock.net, each market range in the Gigigate Z390 lineup has a different VRM and cooling solution (see: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l2FHTvye2cYp6D2lfUqHJLqMltR0Z2dQkqGDDz119AQ/edit#gid=0). I don't have a problem with that, I just hope the VRM/PWN are still of decent enough quality in the mid range. So all I can hope for is a review as I am interested in getting the Ultra mobo strictly for a gaming\multimedia build running a 9700K stable @5 GHz (w/o a crazy high voltage) on all cores and with all C-states enabled.

[@TheChurchofCacti]

Got the Taichi Z390 on sale for under $200. 8 fan headers and the clean design sold me.

[@kchimusaru]

Thanks for being honest. ASUS is not always the best, sometimes Gigabyte is better.

[@anasevi9456]

these brands seem to place musical chairs with every generation/chipset; to see who has to make the shitty board to make everyone else look good.

[@Tallnerdyguy]

Wasn't the gigabyte 40% more expensive?

[@dhanusharul2416]

You're the hero we don't deserve Steve :') , you are godlike, our master, as rocking as ever. I love vids like this.

[@Tony100]

I looked at the Maximus XI Hero reviews on Amazon to make sure I got a good "unbiased opinion" about the motherboard and to see if anyone was having issues with the VRM being too hot or anything like that and there were only a few who knocked ASUS on the VRMs. Basically everyone in the Amazon reviews knows that the VRM sucks but Maximus XI Hero still has some of the best components. Saying things like, "If you're going to put stress for hours on end on the i9-9900k, you shouldn't get the Maximus" should be followed up with a "But if you don't care about the heat all that much, Maximus still has some better components that the other boards do not have." I was about to return my Maximus Hero XI but after looking at the Amazon reviews and seeing Only like 1 comment out of like 1,000s, complaining about the heat, I have decided to keep the Maximus instead of listening to this video.

[@MLWJ1993]

I've got 1 as well but with an i7-8700. Functions perfectly fine. Actually kept my system running even with 42°C room temperature during this summer. The same can't be said about my brothers HP omen system since it repeatedly shut itself down 😂.

[@Osillius]

Thanks for this video! The Asus power delivery has made me seriously reconsider my board choice. It might be interesting to compare component voltages between the boards in the same situations as the heat testing.

[@zzz89782599]

How it performs 9900k on the old high quality Z370 motherboards? Can you overclock on that?

[@kumbandit]

Think I saw in some video that it is a big fat nope, in fact the entire meaning of z390 series is to provide heavy VRMs that could survive 9900K OC (and logically any other chip too)... Z370 have 4 phases mostly if not all, and as you can see all z390 have way over that, well apart from Asus, they don't have to even try harder when they have an army of ppl wearing ROG tattoos...

[@zzz89782599]

kumbandit I have a z370 taichi and a z370 formula, I’m wondering should I upgrade to z390 chipset or these boards are good enough for the new 9900k.

[@unleasheth]

@@zzz89782599 if u have that kind of money why ask? Buy it all, I mean for fuck sake! U people I think like to type/text to puff up yourselves or your feel good impulse buying chemicals in the brain. If u have two expensive boards and a super expensive chip what's one more board gonna hurt? I bet u have expensive cards and everything else too so this is a no brainer. Just buy it all and get it over with!

[@zzz89782599]

@@unleasheth Chill man, I just got these boards in occasion. The plan was upgrading to 8086k, but since the new 9900k and 9700k is out there, I sold 8086k with a very decent price and keeping 2 motherboards until I can test which performs better after I got the new CPU. Taichi seems to be better with 10 phases VRM for CPU but lack RPM header for LC, ARGB header; Formula feels premiumer aesthetically, but Gamers Nexus said ZF906 MOSFET suck.

[@kumbandit]

@@zzz89782599 if you already have them and plan to buy 9900K in any case, might as well buy the CPU, install it in one of those, and see what you get. Just don't expect 5 GHz... EDIT: Seriously, no RGB header is that big of a deal? Are you an Apple fan or something? Sheesh...

[@bryanangelov]

You guys are the best source for helping us choosing the right pc components. Thanks!

[@steamedauroraborealis8208]

That Gigabyte motherboard looks a MILLION times better than the X470's top end Gigabyte counterpart. The orange on everything is so unappealing. (Please don't turn this into an AMD vs Intel thing. I'm only commenting on the aesthetics.)

[@Malus1531]

Agreed. Orange is literally the worst color.

[@vMaxHeadroom]

Yep I have to say you are spot on...Even though I am an Intel user (Z370), the X470 and even the X370 motherboards for Ryzen just do not seem to look as good...I wonder why? it does seem out of place as there is a huge AMD fan base and they should also be catered to....

[@HayateAzekura]

@@vMaxHeadroom AMD users are all poor peasents.

[@kwedog2373]

Thanks Steve for the excellent content. This is a question I have wanted answered for a long time. Especially since there are so many choice and most of us want to get the most out of our budgets.

[@RealDafuh]

There you have the evidence...if you call out those shady practices, they are willing to change and suddenly they are on top (looking at you Gigabyte, welp!) And Asus is just getting Shintel right now, they knew they were on top and now they get lazy and greedy!

[@RealDafuh]

@Iggy I appreciate your opinion on Biostar, i personally never heard anything about them, finally somebody has something to say :D Motherboard-prices and some of devs decissions are getting out of hand, it is about time new companies join the market for price competition!

[@____5837]

@Iggy I'm amazed there hasn't been any coverage on the aftermath of the gpp. Yes nvidia shut it down (at least publicly) but none of the brands that changed appear to have changed back. There are still no rog or aorus rx 580 or rx vegas anymore.

[@kumbandit]

What's with all the crap the ppl are giving Gigabyte? They always made great mobos...

[@donnyboi1990]

Last time I actually seen a mobo doing something nobody else was and was actually cool was ASRock. Back in 2007-2008ish I bought a board with AGP 8x AND PCI 16x slots. I bought it so I could upgrade my cpu and then upgrade my gpu later on. pretty neat stuff. (edit: last AGP card I had was a 7950gt, I was young and dumb and got a pci-e 9600gt to replace it, still better and was cheap but I should've went with the 8800gtx....my mom bought one for herself and one-upped me. lmao)

[@dangingerich2559]

Regardless of these results, I still would not touch a Gigabyte board. I have had 3 Gigabyte boards, and all three had MAJOR bios issues that they NEVER fixed. First, I had a P35 board that would not boot with a USB game controller connected, so every time I had to reboot, I had to climb under my desk and disconnect the game controller, wait until it reached Windows, and then plug it back in. Through several bios updates, then never fixed it. Next, I had a P43 board that would not boot with 4 DIMMs installed, through 4 different sets of memory. So, while I had that board, I was stuck with 2GB of memory. Last, after a break, I bought an X79 board. It had issues where during boot, the only keyboard it would detect was my Nostromo controller if it was connected. So, for every boot, I had to unplug the Nostromo, wait to get into Windows, and then plug it back in. Really annoying. They actually fixed that for one bios revision, only to re-introduce that problem in the very next version. In addition to that, I slowly lost power to various components, starting with the USB ports, 2 at a time, starting while the board was only 4 months old, finishing off with the NIC and audio going out when it was just 6 months old. I tried getting a warranty replacement, only to have them stall on me for 6 months until they finally said they wouldn't replace or repair it because it was out of warranty. I swore off buying another Gigabyte product again after that garbage. I have since heard of many bios problems with various Gigabyte boards since then, and I fully believe it. They need to put some money behind their bios team, and either get enough people in there to handle the load or replace some of those people with someone who knows what they are doing, whichever solution is applicable.

[@willl4575]

And of course I bought that Asus Maximus Hero board a couple of weeks ago... T Y P I C A L Thank you Asus for RIPPING ME OFF!! (yes I know it's my fault as well for not being more careful but typically the Hero Asus boards are a solid offering)

[@crazymolly1517]

Same for me , bought a new pair of sennheiser cans and went for a motherboard with a integrated DAC , at the same time ive been building on a new Beast PC since i had to change my cpu wich will fit on this board , bought the 9700k , at least since im not a OC expert , im not going to push those 2 new pieces to their death but still have you found out any issues with? Mine isnt already builded up yet.

[@willl4575]

@@crazymolly1517 To be honest I've been using the board with an 8086k so its not as demanding on the VRM's as the 9900k/9700k. I managed to run cinebench @5.4GHZ @1.4v just for fun... Its still a good board if you don't plan on having a highly overclocked 9900k and running blender all day. The DAC I find is very good and should complement your sensheiser well although if they are really high end I would invest in an external audio interface as they are affordable and really make a difference but I'm a bit of an audiophile. Just set your 9700k @5ghz on the lowest possible stable voltage and you're good to go. Cheers.

[@crazymolly1517]

Very happy to read that feedback :) The DAC will push my HD660S perfectly and yeah 5ghz will be more then ever of what i need atm , moving from a i5-7400 4c 3.0 .. LOL . Thx again to have take time to reply !

[@sparhawk1228]

It is Asus's fault. I thought it was a 8 phase. They said it was....

[@jborde]

Excellent Analysis, looking forward to the low end Z390 but also mid tier possibly ? As always great work guys

[@seycheles27]

Really Asus!? You just slapped a few new plastic bit on the board and a new name and a new humongous price. Really taking people for asses.

[@Tallnerdyguy]

You mean like intel charging $600 for a chip that outperforms $300 by only 18%?

[@kumbandit]

The saddest part is that it works like a charm...

[@kumbandit]

@@Tallnerdyguy not really 18%, that's only in the best scenario, most of the time that difference falls below 10% (tasks that favor neither, and higher-res gaming)

[@enjoyed_lemon]

Really enjoyed this one and very thorough thanks! Lots of great information.

[@TheVillainOfTheYear]

Listen up, Asus. Not sampling boards to reviewers is shady AF. We will find out what you’re trying to hide. Tell your friends.

[@zippy0n942]

Like Hilary hiding stuff?

[@GforceMI1965]

Great work as usual Steve, would appear that Gigabyte are finally getting their act together with the VRM side of things, seems they've been listening and paying attention to the critique they've been getting, hopefully they'll put as much effort into the bios/EUFI. thanks for the vid.

[@loganpratt1434]

Could you do a review over the Asus Rog z390-E?

[@Nobaris9961]

Logan Pratt no, it sucks

[@MonroeBeats]

Bought it last week had to ask for a refund before they deliver it to me, seems like a real cheap bad mobo

[@loganpratt1434]

Monroe I decided to go with the MSI meg Z390 Ace! Saw a bunch of complaints on the board

[@Dolo999]

Wow good thing you guys had this talk. Thank you.

[@zrustyz7341]

Really appreciate the honest reviews from hub.

[@Cash2024]

ASUS how dare you! if Steve asks you for a motherboard then you SEND IT! (thanks for the AWESOME review Steve 😉)

[@moutsatsosa]

Thanks for the good work Steve. It would be very interesting to see the RAM overclocking capabilities of those 4 boards and if you could also include the EVGA FTW that would be awesome.

[@meshsuke6631]

Elmor a Asus ROG engineer shown that the Maximus XI Hero is 4 phases with 8 stages with is more efficient and he shown graphs to show it. Don’t see the issue as on oc forums many seem impressed by the board.

[@jonathanevans5566]

The board is not more efficient, the chart he showed was to do with transient response.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

The most honest review you could get would be from Asus themselves 🤣

[@RyTrapp0]

I guess that's why everyone else is running the same setup on their high end designs, right? You're being played. They put an engineer out front as a very intentional, deliberate appeal to authority; even if they were proven wrong, what are the odds of you believing that person? Hence the logical fallacy. There is no 'special sauce' here, the double 4 phase is a very common, very well understood design that has been and will no doubt continue to be available from ALL of the motherboard manufacturers in one SKU or another. The results are right here for you to see. As far as VRMs are concerned, heat output is directly related to efficiency, and the ASUS board, as Steve has just shown us, has SIGNIFICANTLY higher VRM temperatures than the rest. There's no amount of charts or graphs that will change the results here, plain and simple - ASUS just got caught cutting corners. Don't think that this is some uniquely outrageous claim though, they've cheapened the shit outta the last couple of TUF boards(Buildzoid has plenty to say about them on his AHOC channel), the Prime B350 Plus is rather notably mediocre at best(I can tell you first hand; I recently replaced it with an ASRock B350 Pro4, a direct competitor, has more fan headers, runs my 16gb RAM at 3600mhz while the Prime wouldn't even make it past the BIOS on startup over 3200mhz, I managed to get my R3 1200 up to 4.1ghz instead of the 3.9 of the ASUS, etc., it's just an incredibly cheap, mediocre board that is beat by its contemporaries. Unfortunately, we are actually seeing a very well established brand take advantage of their brand reputation & customer loyalty to increase their profit margins at the cost of some quality. Hopefully this media pressure can have an influence on this, but people need to stop making excuses and giving them a pass.

[@areyou0k98]

I’m not to worried about the Asus board being 4 phase, if you look at any top benchmarks and works records it’s most likely the Asus Maximus hero and rog strix graphics card at the top so if the board works why hate on it.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@@areyou0k98 The board has to last about 10 mins for those overclocks, get back to me after a year of rendering. BTW I'm not hating on the board, I said in the video it's perfectly fine. I'm hating on Asus lying to you.

[@tylerclouthier4288]

I think you are the most level headed reviewer I have seen. Great job. Sucks people are yelling at you for being objective. I bought the hero, to learn its not really that great, but having issues with MSI, and Gigabyte eroding my confidence over the years with poor implementations on Mobos and GPUs, shows that I have to research components each and every upgrade cycle. Thanks I will look to you on my next motherboard purchase, because even though the hero isn’t great it will still get me by on a moderate overclock with solid airflow and low Canadian ambient temperatures.

[@Lionheart1188]

Random question... Why are they called Mother-boards & will we ever see a Father-board? 😂

[@ajwadtahmid]

Father-board went to get a drink and never came back

[@Lionheart1188]

@@ajwadtahmid lmfao 😂

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@@ajwadtahmid 😂 that's rough, but also funny.

[@papalenin]

Because you slot your umm, cpu into it. Technically you can slot stuff into father too, but it's not intended use of said slot :)

[@fastcx]

From all these replies, started to feel I have a sl*t living in my PC now XD

[@Nurph86]

Great vid! Does not make me unhappy with my choice to buy the ACE. Running since today! Still have to configure everything before I try OC

[@bleaberry6045]

I have a ASUS Maximus Hero XI with 9900k, at stock with Noctua NU-14s cooler.... Stress tested it with Prime 95, after 10 mimutes and it never went above 60c

[@Tallnerdyguy]

In lieu of spending nearly $1000 on cpu/ motherboard, you may want to invest in grammar....they werent testing cpu temp either

[@1idd0kun]

​@Blea Berry This wasn't a CPU temp test. It was a VRM test.

[@BrianGarside]

That's great to hear. I have both Hero+9900K, but not yet built. My Cooler is rated for 240 TDP

[@Takashita_Sukakoki]

how about a itx z390 showdown would be an interesting video because the vrm is extremely important in a small bad airflow case. Browsing the web there is close to nothing for the vrm temperatures for the z390 itx boards.

[@cyb3rd3m0n]

You rock steve. I appreciate your'e work and I really like that you open our eyes to the bs manufacturers do. Thanks for buying that asus board and finding out the truth!

[@RojasTKD7]

Your such a shill, never showing respect for [insert my favorite brand here] and always shilling for [insert brand I'm not a fan of here]. In all seriousness I was down to the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master and the ASRock Z390 Taichi Ultimate ended upgoing for the Taichi Ultimate as ASRock wisely did away with the USB 2.0 ports in favor of more USB 3.0 and that won me over. Not to mention no one seems to like their UEFI. I wonder if add some thermal pads to the back PCB will help dissipate some of the heat from the Taichi board? Admittedly having a little Gigabyte Master envy.

[@evocatiproductions]

@Hardware Unboxed Great Video Steve! Did you do any of this kind of testing on the x470 Motherboards? I know its no longer as relevant now, but I would be very interested in seeing this kind of VRM testing from you on the highend offerings for x470.

[@joeykeilholz925]

Can't imagine why ASUS didn't wanna send you their crappy board for technical analysis

[@lhardly]

The lack of shite talk and dad humour in a tech video is quite refreshing. Thanks for the benchmarks, I was between the Taichi and Aorus before even seeing this so this was super informative.

[@DJaquithFL]

I'm a "me fanboy" .. if only VRM were the 100% choice for or against ASUS. Failure Rates .. after thousands of TH Forum posts .. ASUS per unit has the lowest long-term failure rate. Add to that spending $300-$400+ on a ~$550 CPU in it by itself is asinine. At those prices and depending upon need beyond single only gaming use .. I'd seriously consider LGA 2066 platform. You can cherry pick the single hottest and coolest point on a VRM or whatever component and skew the hell out of the test anyway you choose. You obviously have an *Agenda against ASUS.* Gigabyte has both a high DOA and shorter overall lifespan, add to that an inordinate high batch failure. Test the highest stable CPU OC with the lowest voltage at 5, 5.1, 5.2 GHz or more if your CPU / AIO can remain stable.

[@AlexanderKalish]

Outstanding job by Steve, as always.

[@lenovop9030]

DONT WORRY TINYTOMLOGAN FROM OC3D WILL MAKE SURE THAT THE ASUS BOARD IS THE BEST

[@madd5]

yes, his tests are shit usually. I'm sure he will be able to overclock to 5.3ghz with on xi hero + 9900k, while nobody is capable if doing the same :)

[@mikenogo]

The guy doesn't even have straight teeth, you would honestly consider his opinion valid?

[@LongBarrelJoe]

@@madd5 don't forget to say that he'll be able to do all that with maximum 60°C on load.

[@fabiusmaximuscunctator7390]

Please do more videos like this in the future! Love to watch this kind of content! 😍🖥 Nice beard btw ;)

[@bleaberry6045]

No pay check from ASUS recently, time to scrape the barrel & whip up some negativity.... meanwhile having back pockets full of Gigabytes cash!

[@gazlink1]

Are you people serious?

[@Igorsov]

elink1 this is just a mad troll sent here by Asus 🙈

[@DarkPa1adin]

Thanks a million! If black Friday has sale for GB master, I'll get it!

[@wuka3221]

why the hell are you posting pictures of temperatures performance with conditions no body will use? seems like a useless review to me. Show performance between the boards using the similar cooling setups then we'll see which board is actually the better performer overclocker.

[@UncannySense]

So a IO/VRM plastic shroud on and off temperature test perhaps?

[@ToneysReviews]

Stop lying on Asus Hero, that board is the cheapest of all the boards at $260 in the US. Edit: lol, I love how salty he is that he couldn't get a free board, lol. This dude is lying so hard on the Hero. Tech City has 20-25 degrees less temps than what he is showing, lol. The lies are real here

[@ToneysReviews]

Incorrect, I have an ASUS Maximus XI Hero which I paid 260 from Amazon. Secondly, once again you can not dispute "facts" you can literally go to Tech City's channel and watch him in real time thermal his Hero board showing that these results are either a complete fraud or he fucked with the voltages to make the ASUS run hot. I can literally put up a video or pic right now of the Hero that I got for 260

[@madd5]

@@ToneysReviews Calm down. Even if Hero xi reaches 80 degrees on VRM it's not an issue at all. My only concern is the overlocking potential because I just ordered this board and it's on the way.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Toneey I hope you don't try and review much.

[@madd5]

@@Hardwareunboxed LOL

[@ToneysReviews]

Look at you, being called out on your BS and you try to shift the issue to be about me, lawl. Once again, Tech Yes City has already done the thermals with live video of the thermal camera on the components and it is amazing how his is anywhere from 10-25c lower than yours. Once again, the salt level is high in you because you couldn't leech off of a company to help you get money from views.

[@EdeP79]

Have been waiting for this!

[@silenthill2734]

what a load of rubbish, Asus is the worst, that's why world Overclock res use it, dude how much did Gigabyte pay you for this one Steve

[@Igorsov]

silent hill how much did Asus pay them to use its boards?

[@oIChewbaccaIo]

good review as always. if you could add memory overclocking on your board reviews they would be perfect!

[@shlooky]

Thank you for your review. I currently have the Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 and the Kaby lake is overclocked to 5.0 at 1.28v. runs very cool.

[@Baqersaad-l5n]

What a great test video I was confused between z390 aorus master and msi z390 ace I guess we have a winner here, Definitely going with aorus master thank you sir.

[@鄭華漢]

very useful information ! thanks for the comparison review, so so so HELPFUL ! (thumb up!)

[@Byronthetrucker]

Thank you and buildzoid and tech deals, made me feel better about picking the aorus master z390 to match with my 8086k and my 1080ti kingpin