Gigabyte's Q4 Product Blitz From GeForce RTX To Intel Z390
Gigabyte's Z390 Motherboard Lineup
We have seen a flurry of product launches over the past few months from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA. While we get to reap the rewards of technology’s ever steady march of progress, their partners have been hard at work ensuring their offerings can withstand the ever increasing demands of bleeding-end hardware, and appeal to consumers at the same time.
In this spirit, Gigabyte recently invited us to a launch event in Miami for its newest Aorus branded motherboards, graphics cards, and peripherals. Technically, everything Gigabyte showed us had already been announced, but the presentations did offer a glimpse into many of the engineering and marketing decisions the company has made in an effort to ease customers' purchasing decisions.
First, Gigabyte simplified its naming scheme. Its lineup is now roughly broken down into three categories: Aorus Enthusiast, Aorus Gaming, and Gigabyte Gaming. Broadly speaking for its Z390 motherboard lineup, the Aorus Enthusiast boards are targeted at Core i9 systems, the Aorus Gaming boards for Core i7 systems, and Gigabyte Gaming for Core i5 systems. We will point out that this is hardly a rule, but Gigabyte has tuned the offerings of each to the needs a builder at each level is likely to need.
Gigabyte has axed implied rankings from its model names to reduce confusion. Gigabyte says it never intended, using the Gaming 3 and Gaming 5 models as an example, to infer better performance for one than another by using a bigger number. Gigabyte is now being more explicit using the above categories. For instance, every ATX board in the Aorus Gaming category – Ultra, Pro, and Elite – features the same 12+1 phase digital VRM solution, but vary in the number of M.2 and PCIe slots, Type-C ports, and on-board Wi-Fi capability. Meanwhile, the Aorus Enthusiasts boards sport more robust VRM solutions, up to the 16 Phase VRM solution in the Z390 Aorus Xtreme.
Part of Gigabyte's show and tell included the stripped-down Z390 Aorus Xtreme above. While it certainly looks vulnerable without its various heatsinks and thermal pads, the army of MOSFETs, chokes, and capacitors flanking the CPU socket is no joke. If you are obsessed with extracting every last drop of performance from your ninth-generation Core i9 processor, the Aorus Z390 Xtreme should be worthy of your consideration.
While Aorus Z390 motherboards headlined the event, Gigabyte also dedicated some attention to its GeForce RTX developments...
In this spirit, Gigabyte recently invited us to a launch event in Miami for its newest Aorus branded motherboards, graphics cards, and peripherals. Technically, everything Gigabyte showed us had already been announced, but the presentations did offer a glimpse into many of the engineering and marketing decisions the company has made in an effort to ease customers' purchasing decisions.
First, Gigabyte simplified its naming scheme. Its lineup is now roughly broken down into three categories: Aorus Enthusiast, Aorus Gaming, and Gigabyte Gaming. Broadly speaking for its Z390 motherboard lineup, the Aorus Enthusiast boards are targeted at Core i9 systems, the Aorus Gaming boards for Core i7 systems, and Gigabyte Gaming for Core i5 systems. We will point out that this is hardly a rule, but Gigabyte has tuned the offerings of each to the needs a builder at each level is likely to need.
Gigabyte has axed implied rankings from its model names to reduce confusion. Gigabyte says it never intended, using the Gaming 3 and Gaming 5 models as an example, to infer better performance for one than another by using a bigger number. Gigabyte is now being more explicit using the above categories. For instance, every ATX board in the Aorus Gaming category – Ultra, Pro, and Elite – features the same 12+1 phase digital VRM solution, but vary in the number of M.2 and PCIe slots, Type-C ports, and on-board Wi-Fi capability. Meanwhile, the Aorus Enthusiasts boards sport more robust VRM solutions, up to the 16 Phase VRM solution in the Z390 Aorus Xtreme.
Part of Gigabyte's show and tell included the stripped-down Z390 Aorus Xtreme above. While it certainly looks vulnerable without its various heatsinks and thermal pads, the army of MOSFETs, chokes, and capacitors flanking the CPU socket is no joke. If you are obsessed with extracting every last drop of performance from your ninth-generation Core i9 processor, the Aorus Z390 Xtreme should be worthy of your consideration.
While Aorus Z390 motherboards headlined the event, Gigabyte also dedicated some attention to its GeForce RTX developments...
