The motherboard arrives in a box in a dominant black, here no visual of the motherboard, only the Aorus logo, which is a falcon. We have blue and orange colors, the historic color of the brand. The only technical mentions are the presence of DDR4, support for the 12th generation and the presence of the B660 chipset.
Read more @ HardwareCooking (French)
In testing, the Ultra DDR4 performed quite well. We did see some decrease in performance, likely due to the use of DDR4 over the DDR5 we have tested previous boards with. That said, performance loss was minimal, around 100 points in both 1t and nT R23, while other benchmarks such as PCMark and 3DMark showed no loss at all. Storage performance was slightly lower than we typically see, peaking at 420MB/s in 3DMark Storage but again not too far off the average.
Read more @ TweakTown
While the Tachyon isn’t necessarily considered a gamers board, this platform is built ground up for you for those who enjoy the tweaking aspect of overclocking. Adding to this solid enough connectivity with USB 3.2 and enough ports between the rear I/O and internal chassis expansion to handle all your peripheral needs.
We should mention its ability to expand into Thunderbolt 4 territory with a likely upcoming AIC and a solid network stack between the Intel 2.5Gbe and WiFi6e to make this a board certainly worth looking at.
Read more @ TweakTown
As we have already indicated, the B660 chipset does not allow overclocking processors, even non-K. Also, and even if the bios allows to indicate a ratio different from the original one, it is only applied on a single heart. We tested with our i6-12600K, on the P-Core side, the maximum ratio is 49. But whatever happens, the frequency is stuck at 4500 MHz for the P-Core and 3400 MHz for the E-Core.
Read more @ Pause Hardware (French)
Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce is the most that is the top representative of the Aorus series with the appropriate price. It offers 21 USB ports, including 12 USB 3.2 Gen2, including two Thunderbolt 4, as well as one USB 3.2 Gen2×2. There are also 3 PCIe x16 slots. For drives there are 4 slots M.2 and 4 SATA ports. This model is equipped with 10 fan connectors, as well as a huge waterblock connected to a custom water supply, while the waterblock covers every potentially heated element, including the CPU VRM, drives in M.2 slots and a high-speed Marvel network controller.
Read more @ iXBT (Russian)
This card offers four slots for SSDs in M.2 format. All are plugged in PCIe 4.0, unfortunately, no PCIe 5.0 here since this standard will only be found on the two PCie x16 slots. In terms of connectivity , we can count on the presence of two Thunderbolt 4 ports. For the network part, we have a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port and a second 10 Gigabit via an Aquantia controller. We also have WiFi 6E 802.11ax. For the power stage , we have no less than 20+1+2 Renesas RAA22010540 105A phases with a Renesas RAA229131 controller configured in 20+0 (Direct mode). Obviously we have 8 PCB layers.
Read more @ HardwareCooking (French)
Gigabyte’s AORUS line of motherboards is known as their gaming line, but they also have many features enthusiasts will enjoy as well. For Z690 there are quite a lot of boards in the AORUS line including the Pro, Ultra, Elite, Tachyon, Master, and Extreme. Many of these have some of the same features so it all really depends on what features are the most important to you. Today we are taking a look at the Z690 AORUS Ultra which features a 19-phase power design with 105A power stages, support for DDR5, USB 3.2 gen 2×2, four M.2 slots, and an updated look over the previous generation. Is this the board you need for your Alder Lake build? Read on as we find out!
Read more @ ThinkComputers
Focusing on the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master motherboard, it’s the most premium of the company’s Z690 models, save its flagship Xtreme series duo, the Z690 Aorus Xtreme, and the water block inclusive Z690 Aorus Xtreme WaterForce. As the Master series is a premium model, it’s equipped with an equally premium-looking aesthetic, with waves of black heatsinks covering the all-black PCB, as well as multiple areas of integrated RGB LED lighting.
Read more @ AnandTech
The Gigabyte B660 Gaming X DDR4 follows the aesthetic line of the higher models with a robust style with double copper tracks on the PCB for power transport, and strong metal elements for cooling. The base color of the PCB is not very pretty, reminding us a bit of old and basic boards, but it is offset by a striking light gray skin that matches perfectly with the heatsinks.
Read more @ Professional Review (Spanish)
Despite being lower down in the Aorus range than many of their other Z690 offerings, the Pro is still an Aorus product and so it’s not a big surprise to find that you have all the connectivity options and high bandwidth devices we have come to expect from the latest generation of Intel hardware. There are also more than enough cooling options for all but the most dedicated airflow enthusiast, with eight headers and nine temperature monitoring points.
Read more @ OC3D