Introduction
Z490 Aorus Master review
Behold The Master Cometh Comet Lake-S
Z490 has arrived, in this review, we look at the Z490 Aorus Master from Gigabyte. We will test the motherboard with that Core i9 10900K. Meet your possible new Master. Ready for 10h Gen processors this board is about performance and aesthetics, heck even the CPU socket has a metal reinforced dual 8-pin connectors. The dual pin connectors already indicate a strong VRM, and this motherboard as such has 14 phases backed by 90A power stages. Gigabyte applies a familiar dark/grey shielded design, optimized for cooling, and armed with a proper feature set build around 14 power stages and has nice hidden M2 slots, three of them. The motherboard has been fitted with the usual suspects and then some, including a 2.5 Gigabit ethernet and then WIFI6 in the form of AX. When it comes to audio you will run into an ALC 1220-VB Codec from Realtek, paired with WIMA FKP2 studio-grade audio capacitors as well as an ESS SABRE DAC, often used in professional audio devices.
With the new Comet Lake-S you can expect a handful of K model processors predominantly become popular in demand for the PC gamer, as each and every one of the processors will offer proper gaming performance if your graphics card is fast enough. Intel is able to boost the Turbo frequencies towards that 5.3 GHz domain for the flagship processor, the Core i9 10900K. Intel is releasing these series processors initially with a spread of CPU core choices:
- Core i5-10500K (4 Core / 8 Threads)
- Core i5-10600K (6 Core / 12 Threads)
- Core i7-10700K (8 Core / 16 Threads)
- Core i9-10900K (10 Core / 20 Threads)