The GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Pro WIFI Motherboard Review: A Sturdy $200 Surprise
by Gavin Bonshor on April 12, 2019 10:00 AM ESTGaming Performance
AoTS Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity is a Real-Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any systematic differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.
One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.
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Alistair - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
The problem I've had with several Z390 boards is their inability to handle the 9900k at full load above 4.5ghz. Prime95 will reduce the clock speed to about 4.5ghz despite settings. It's not just a VRM temp issue causing the downclock. You're better off with an 8700k than a 9900k imo with this board. I wish the 9900k OC was tested with prime95 in the review :)dotes12 - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Any version of Prime95 after 26.6 use AVX instead of SSE instructions. Most people overclock their CPU to be stable at the workloads they typically perform, and 100% AVX is not a typical workload for most people. To help people overclock, the Z390 chipset allows the detection of AVX workloads and allow an overclock deduction (AVX Offset) to continue to be stable and not create so much heat. I tried disabling my AVX offset and it would always crash my 9900K running at 5.0 GHz within a couple seconds of starting the Prime95 AVX test.Surfacround - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
interesting, asus my z390i-gaming and i9-9900k (with evga 750p2 psu and nzxt h41 AIO cooler) can pull 250w running prime95 or y-cruncher...(hwinfo watt readout) (serious heat... 95-100c) but it does not crash...weevilone - Monday, April 15, 2019 - link
So the solution to rigorous AVX workloads on the 9900K is to go with a CPU that uses fewer cores to make your overclock look better? Ok..LoneWolf15 - Sunday, June 2, 2019 - link
Did you turn off AVX tests to run Prime95? AVX testing was added in recent versions, and really raises the temps. Testing for stability, most recommend turning AVX off.I haven't done Prime95, but I'm rock-stable 24/7 for days/weeks of Folding@home running all eight CPU cores of my 9900K to 100% at 4.8GHz using this board.
drexnx - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
I can never tell if the lower part of the aorus logo is the lower jaw of the bird, or if it's a bird-man hybrid and it's doing a bicep curl.Cellar Door - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Neither - its the talon(claw). Just imagine an eagle/falcon swooping down to attack its prey.On a side note - Gigabyte doesn't cheap out on features (wifi, 1220 audio and solid vrm) but I do agree a wonky bios can ruin a positive user experience.
After reading about poor OC bios section - on their b450 and x470 Ryzen boards, in the end I went with Asus, even though I had to pay after %15.
Death666Angel - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
Seems weird that the talon is pointed the wrong way up? :)I've had pleasureable experiences with Gigabyte during the P55 era and have a nice little parallel port Atom ITX board. I'm currently running an MSI mainboard and have had great AsRock ones.
MDD1963 - Saturday, April 13, 2019 - link
So the talon hand is doing a biceps curl/posing routine? :)29a - Friday, April 12, 2019 - link
birdman for sure