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Review of Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI motherboard with Intel Core i7-9700K coffeelake processor
OCworkbench 19 Oct 2018
Today, Intel launch it’s 9th generation coffelake processors. Together with the launch is a new Z390 chipset. In this review, we will take a look at how the Intel Core i7-9700K which aims at the AMD Ryzen 2000 high end processors.
The Core i7-9700K is manufactured by 14 nm process. It has a TDP of 95W. It consists of 8 cores and 8 threads and it rated at 3.6 GHz and max turbo frequency at 4.90 GHz. It has 12 MB Smart Cache. It supports Dual Channel DDR4-2666 (officially).
For those who intend to use it as without an external graphics card, the processor comes with built in Intel UHD Graphics 630 that runs at 350 MHz and at a max of 1.2 GHz. It has 64 GB of graphics video memory. It supports up to 4K 4096×2304 using HDMI (24 Hz), DPI (60 Hz) or Integrated Flat Panel at 60 Hz.
We will be testing this processor on the Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI motherboard.
The Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI motheroard is based on the Intel Z390 Express chipset. So, what is the difference between this and the older Z370. Basically, the Z390 is the Z370 plus a Intel CNVI interface supporting 802.11a/b/g/n/ac at 2.4/5 GHz. It also supports 802.11ac at 160 MHz up to 1.73 Gbps data rate. Secondly, it supports up to 6x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports in addition to the 10x USB 3.1 Gen ports currently supported by the Z370 chipset.
The mainboard has 4 DIMM slots supporting up to 64 GB of system memory in dual channel memory architecture of up to DDR4-2666 (overclocking can go beyond spec. speed). The audio component use the Realtek ALC 1220-VB codec for HD Audio. Intel GbE LAN is supported on board.
Wireless communication module is something new on the Z390 board. Instead of using a separate WIFI chip, it is now integrated within the chipset. It supports Bluetooth 5, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac at 2.4/5 GHz and 802.11ac at 160 MHz up to 1.73 Gbps data rate.
The board comes with 3 PCIe full length slots which supports NVIDIA Quad GPU SLI and 2 way NVIDIA SLI. It also supports AMD Quad GPU CrossFire and 3/2 way AMD crossFire.
In terms of storage (via chipset), it supports 2 x M.2 Slot. One supports Intel Hybrid SSD support (M2M) while the other doesn’t (M2A) . There are also 6 SATA 6Gbps ports that supports RAID 0,1,5 and 10. The board also supports Intel Optane memory.
As for USB (via chipset), there is a 1 USB Type C port with USB 3.1 Gen 2 on the back panel and another Gen 1 through the on board USB connector. There are 2 USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type A ports (red) at the back panel and 5 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (3 ports on back panel, 2 ports through USB header). Through the USB 2.0 hub, there are 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports on board , 4 at the back panel and another 4 through USB headers.
What kind of voltages were you running when you had the 9700k at 5.1? I’m also quite curious as to what temps the vrm had during testing.