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Ajdin S.

Ajdin S.

Joined on 04/27/16

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Most Favorable Review

Exhausting install process, great motherboard

GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS MASTER LGA 1700 Intel Z690 EATX Motherboard with DDR5, 5x M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB 3.2 Gen2X2 Type-C, Intel WiFi 6E, AQUANTIA 10GbE LAN
GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS MASTER LGA 1700 Intel Z690 EATX Motherboard with DDR5, 5x M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB 3.2 Gen2X2 Type-C, Intel WiFi 6E, AQUANTIA 10GbE LAN

Pros: As soon as I took this motherboard out of the box and held it, I realized I had made the right call. This is the nicest motherboard I've ever owned and my first one with a back plate. To sum it up in one word: quality. I overclocked my i9-12900K to 5.3 GHz on all cores no problem, reaching 11,922 in CPU-Z (864.5 single thread) with a maximum temperature of 84 Celsius. I'm actually not sure how much of this has to do with the CPU vs. the motherboard. For my prior setup (with a 11700K), any time I tried pushing the CPU the whole system would crash and restart. For this setup, I plugged in both CPU cables to make sure the 12900K has plenty of power. Do note this motherboard allows my CPU to draw 226 Watts when I'm running benchmarks.

Cons: Ok so I promised myself that, if I got this motherboard to work, I would pay it forward and write a review so others know how to get this thing to post/boot as well. I installed the motherboard on a Saturday morning and wanted to just flash the bios (per the advice of others' online reviews) so that, when the rest of my parts arrived, I'd be ready to go. I installed the motherboard, all the cables, and left the CPU, m.2, and RAM vacant. I inserted the USB thumb drive, hit the QFlash+ button and... nothing happened. I then went to a friend's house to format the USB drive again and try again. On attempt #2, nothing happened. Then I went back to the same friend's house and followed an online video detailing how to completely clean a thumb drive and clear the partitions. I then drove back home, inserted the USB drive, clicked the QFlash+ button and... nothing happened. I then installed my CPU, AIO cooler, RAM, and one m.2 drive. This time, the computer actually booted/posted but I got an error code that my RAM wasn't recognized (I forget the code number the motherboard showed at the time). I ignored the code, inserted my USB drive again, and hit the QFlash+ button. Once again, nothing happened. Many reviews mentioned having to completely remove the CPU, m.2, and RAM but I really did not want to do that given my AIO cooler had pre-applied thermal paste and I didn't want to make a mess and risk damaging my $600 CPU. So I only removed my two sticks of RAM (left the CPU and m.2 installed), turned off my power supply, turned it back on, inserted my USB thumb drive, and hit the QFlash+ button. Viola... for the first time, it actually started flashing. Within about 10 minutes' time, my motherboard BIOS was updated. Shortly thereafter, I installed my two sticks of RAM again and I was ready to go. Why did I write this long review? Because getting this motherboard to post was extremely frustrating and, I will admit, the thought of simply returning it crossed my mind multiple times. It's incredibly frustrating to spend so much money and then sit in your living room wondering whether you're doing something wrong or if you're hardware is defective. What worked for me: 0. Turn off power supply 1. Install motherboard 2. Install CPU 3. Install m.2 4. Do NOT install RAM sticks 5. Completely/clean partition USB thumb drive (not just format) 6. Add BIOS files to drive, rename to GIGABYTE.bin 7. Turn on power supply 8. Insert thumb drive into the USB drive by the Ethernet port 9. Hit QFlash+ button I believe the BIOS version I am using is F8a and it's working great.

Overall Review: Love the motherboard but getting it working was pretty frustrating. By the way, I use this setup for a flight simulator (Prepar3D 5.3) and now I am able to fly at maximum settings/graphics. Paired with my RTX 3090, I average about 100 FPS even in urban settings with my third-party aircraft add-ons. Even in cities and inside the virtual cockpit (the most demanding scenario in the simulator), I typically get at least 60 FPS (5120x1440 resolution), which is pretty much unheard of in the world of flight simming.

30-50% FPS increase in Prepar3D (flight simulator)

Intel Core i7-11700K - Core i7 11th Gen Rocket Lake 8-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 1200 125W Intel UHD Graphics 750 Desktop Processor - BX8070811700K
Intel Core i7-11700K - Core i7 11th Gen Rocket Lake 8-Core 3.6 GHz LGA 1200 125W Intel UHD Graphics 750 Desktop Processor - BX8070811700K

Pros: My FPS in Prepar3D (flight simulator) are now 50-60 with the most demanding airports and airplanes vs. 30-40 FPS with my prior CPU (i9-9900K).The performance is now BUTTER SMOOTH and I get the feeling I am in a real airplane when taking off vs. the choppiness of my prior setup.Pairs great with my Gigabyte Z590 Aorus PRO AX and EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra.Temperatures (with my Castle 360EX) seldom exceed 60 C during game play. When running benchmarks using CPU-Z, temps are in the mid-60s (@ 5.0 GHz all cores).

Cons: None.

Overall Review: I actually did not expect much of any improvement after seeing all the negative online reviews and YouTube videos complaining about Rocket Lake. I figured I would have been happy with a 5-10% increase given the criticism. However, I think it's safe to say my system became CPU-bottlenecked when I got my RTX 3090 two months ago.As such, for Prepar3D (a very CPU-intensive game), the jump in frame rates (30-50%) was WAY more than I expected and I am incredibly happy. I also managed to sell my old setup for about half of what I paid for it two years ago... I put that cash toward this new system.

SMOOTH AS BUTTER

Acer Predator Z35 Z35P bmiphz 35" Quad HD 3440 x 1440 100Hz 120Hz (OC) HDMI DisplayPort NVIDIA G-SYNC Flicker-Less Technology Built-in Speakers UltraWide Backlit LED Gaming Monitor
Acer Predator Z35 Z35P bmiphz 35" Quad HD 3440 x 1440 100Hz 120Hz (OC) HDMI DisplayPort NVIDIA G-SYNC Flicker-Less Technology Built-in Speakers UltraWide Backlit LED Gaming Monitor

Pros: I bought a 34-inch ultra wide screen just about a year ago from a big name computer company and I absolutely did not like it and ended up selling it via Craigslist. It's amazing how much better this monitor is than that one ever was. 1) The extra inch of diagonal gives you over 26 extra square inches of real estate! 2) The picture is SO smooth! I think the combination of 120 Hz, G-SYNC, and 4ms RT really make all the difference here. My old monitor's horizon (I play flight simulator) was super choppy and playing on it made me nauseous. This monitor is absolutely GORGEOUS.

Cons: Only con I can think of is that the monitor is so big that I can't lower it such that my eye is level with the top of the monitor. Other than that, with respect to the actual image quality and motion quality, this is the best of the best. No doubt.

Overall Review: I was hesitant about spending so much money and was looking at the X34 as well. I can't vouch for that one but I can say this Z35P is the best computer screen my eyes have ever seen.