Hardware Motherboard Reviews

Aorus X299 Master review – Gigabyte's cool answer to Intel's hotheads

The overclocking of the CPU can be done manually in the BIOS manually by means of Turbo Core, however, one should be a little careful with the Intel Core i9-7980XE, that the load line is also set so that the board also delivers the maximum power at full load. All settings from "High" were in fact already optimal and the maximum is obtained from "Turbo". The "Extreme" preset is actually unnecessary.

If you would like it easier, you can get involved in the adventure "Auto Tuning", which is actually none at all, because it works almost perfectly. Of course, the preset set for this CPU is very rough to "capture" all CPUs regardless of the chip quality, but if you want it manually, you will have to finger around a little longer to get to 4.8 GHz in a stable way. Then you have to experiment with the voltages and the load line a little bit, should all really stay suitable for everyday use and rockstable.

The click kick is nice, with the gain apparently referring to the value previously set in the BIOS and not to the default settings. Because this difference is then much higher, as we shall see in a by now.

Even if I don't like the Cinebench R15 very much (the R20 version isn't really better in terms of consistency), the difference is noticeably bigger. First, the standard settings used by the board at first start:

If you overclock the CPU and the memory (see the following paragraph), then it all looks much friendlier.  Always a good 33% increase in the single-core benchmark and almost 37% in the Muli-Threaded benchmark are a decent house number!

 

Memory overclocking

I logically use 32GB quad channel and thus two 16GB kits (total 4×8) GB Patriot Viper Steel 4000 MHz (PVS416G400C9K). The interesting thing about this RAM is that it can be overclocked quite well even with 1.35 volts, dispenses with RGB and comes for it nicely slim and not too high. Cooling is also not an issue and so for me usability and stability count more than excessive bling bling

The XMP-2.0 profile runs with DDR4 3800 and CL18-22-22-40 after activating. This is not bad per se and quite acceptable, but you can also get significantly higher manually even without further encores.

Together with this RAM, the board also creates DDR4 4000 CL19-19-19-39, even workstation-stable. The longest run from Solidworks 2019 and Creo 3.0 lasted a total of 14 hours, in addition to various rendering tasks and two 4K videos. If you increase the voltage to 1.4 volts, there would be even significantly better timings in it – or clock speeds up to 4.2 GHz. However, out of respect for the product, I adhere to the respective specifications in the specs.

 

Intermediate conclusion

Easy Tune is a fixed and above all working software for the (automatic) overclocking, which also keeps what the name promises. The load line takes getting used to, because Gigabyte has set the default value so that you can protect the ignorant user very well from himself. From the RMA's point of view, this is even understandable and, if I should be honest – I even liked it. Overclocking the memory is easy and interesting to do in the BIOS even easier.

The actual UEFI BIOS is really intuitive to use, but annoying with extreme inertia, which make an operation with the mouse a real test of patience. Here you will surely get to your destination faster and more safely with the keyboard. The interception of boot errors by incorrect settings, especially with the OC, is well solved. Fits, albeit at a snail's pace.

A real point of criticism is the standard disabling of the ErP function for saving power when switched off. It's nice to be able to charge your smartphone even then, but the PC isn't powerless and it doesn't match ERP Lot6. What's the use of the best power supply if the motherboard keeps this functionality worthless?

 

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About the author

Igor Wallossek

Editor-in-chief and name-giver of igor'sLAB as the content successor of Tom's Hardware Germany, whose license was returned in June 2019 in order to better meet the qualitative demands of web content and challenges of new media such as YouTube with its own channel.

Computer nerd since 1983, audio freak since 1979 and pretty much open to anything with a plug or battery for over 50 years.

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