GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS ELITE AX (LGA 1200/ Intel Z590 ATX/ Triple M.2/ PCIe 4.0/ USB 3.2 Gen2X2 Type-C/ Intel WIFI 6/ 2.5GbE LAN/ Gaming Motherboard)

I have been using Gigabyte MBs since my Sandy Bridge build which is intel Gen 2. I paired this MB with an i7-11700K, 2 WD Black 1TB M.2 SSD drives, 1 WD Blue 1TB HDD, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 of memory and an EVGA SuperNNOVE 850W fully modular power supply. I installed Windows 11. I put this in a monster Thermaltake Core X71 case and finished with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition CPU cooler.The MB materials provided and the MB has all connection well idenitified and easy to install with this or any case. MB feels heavy and well built and was pretty solid when installing the RAM, GPU which is a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 Eagle OC 8GB, and the M.2 drives. Motherboard came with all necessary hardware to attached the M.2 drives and a few other cables.The BIOS is straightforward and I thought items were easy to find and change as needed. I had no issues at a hardware level with components being recognized. The only issue I had was with Windows 11 and the security features for installing. Windows 11 requires Secure Boot, and the use of TPM (Trusted Platform Module). Te BIOS hade which is a nice snapshot of what the board is doing along with CPU temps (mine is at 36 Celcious with the coller installed. Anyway, in the ADvanced BIOS settings is where changes are needed. The issue I had was that when also setting the "Intel Platform Trust Technology to "Enabled", which is a Windows 11 requirement, every time I saved my changes, the Intel PTT would revert back to disabled and I could not install Windows 11. I checked the Gigabyte site and found an updated BIOS that fixed this issue. There was one more release after that one, so I downloaded ans installed the latest version. Using the Q-Flash option in the BIOS, and a USB drive with the update firmware, the system updated without an issue and I installed Windows 11. I am sharing since this update and adjusting settings was really easy with this MB and I am up and running. I am now working on a second build and will use this MB again.

As being an AMD fan my whole computer building life this board was my first foray into Intel CPU's. I chose this board based on reviews and brand name since I've used Gigabyte with all my AMD builds. The first thing I instantly noticed with this board is how heavy it is, heavier than any other board I've ever used. I guess thats a good thing because this board has tons of aluminum heatsinks over the VRM's. The board seems very high quality and nothing soldered off center and all solder joints were shiny which means there is a very high quality soldering process. The board booted on first power button push and while it did restart itself several times it loaded into Windows just fine and I went to the manufacturers website to get all the latest drivers once Windows loaded its own. As a note to new users who might not be familiar with first start boots, most motherboads will restart themselves several times while the BIOS configures itself to all the onboard components. This could be scary for a new user because you’re not sure you did things right; but let it do its thing and once it loads into the OS you'll be fine.I do highly recommend this board. High quality components, heavy and well build. Oh, and built in AX wifi is great too!

It's fantastic, I'm using the nvme slots, one with a 980 PRO and getting 7k/5kgbs read/write (NOTE I originally got a 10th gen processor but turns out you need 11th gen to get the full power out of the pcie 4 nvme slot for some reason??) BUT DO NOT INSTALL the Gigabyte helper apps they push on you, they are cancer. There's one that has to do with special USB powering of some kind, and if installed and I plug my phone into my pc, it would just immediately freeze out and crash the PC. Took a day or so to figure out why. Maybe you can get away with installing the others (so you get get easier BIOS updates) but I don't trust them after the issue with the USB one. Also, their gigabyte server was basically down for the first month I had the motherboard, which made diagnosing issues and upgrading my BIOS manually very challenging. But hey, my PC rocks with it now.

I upgraded to this from an AORUS Elite Z490 board when I bought an 10700k to upgrade my 10100F I3.Solid board, love the solid VRM cooling and no messing with back plates.Wifi 6 is a nice upgrade over the Wifi 5 of my old board.Plenty of IO and plenty of NVME slots.I like the built in heatsinks for the NVME's that clean up the look of the board in my NZXT case.Only issue I have with this board *and also the Z490*, is the location of the 4 pin header nearest the top of the board *CPU* as it leaves nearly no access to plug in the wires due to being right on the edge of the PCB and next to the integrated back plate. With the NZXT H510, this plug is jammed right up against the top case fans, and actually required me getting creative to get it to fit.