GIGABYTE Z790 UD AC

This motherboard did all intended purposes for my first build, it seats all of my components very well and as far as aesthetics go.. it’s fine.

The software for driver updates and RGB control is convenient and worked well with my fractal pop air case. Fan controls are also good, no problems there. Bios is functional and has decent tweaking options.

For someone building themselves especially the first time, everything is appropriately labeled and it is very easy to get running. The performance after benchmarking was excellent.

My only negatives about the motherboard are really the audio performance, the audio is just okay. If you’re someone who prioritizes audio and works with a lot of audio whether it’s through editing/streaming or gaming then you may be wanting more out of the audio. Not that it’s horrendously bad or anything but it’s just basic and something you would’ve expected a little more from out of an aorus elite model especially a z790.

Taking into account that you get DDR5 support on this; the price point is good. Some people like DDR5, some don’t, but if you do then you’ll be happy with this motherboard. You also get wifi 6 if you install the kit for that, I didn’t because the kit looks horrible (just my opinion) and if you’re looking for an aesthetic build then the wifi 6 kit will probably not be something you’ll want to install. You could probably hide most of the kit if your case is big enough but I’d be worried about the functionality if you don’t give the antenna enough space to do antenna things.

For the price point it’s definitely a good motherboard to consider, it supports all of the recent GPU/CPUs and DDR5. In retrospect I probably would’ve shelled out more $ to get something with better audio capabilities and a better looking wifi 6 kit if those were things I’d even considered when deciding on my build (If you didn’t consider them yet, consider them now!)

Not at all disappointed in my purchase, it’s doing its job and doing it well. But if you’re going to make a beefy build make sure the quality of all parts of it are just as high end.

UPDATE2: Got some new ram and tweaked it a bit and also using V11 Beta of the benchmark. Was able to get the 12000 score above at 6 GIG boost. Also, been playing more with the RGB Fusion which has been working great for controlling everything. Also, I was updating the BIOS on another Z690 and it would not boot up. I realized that I had reused the same USB stick from before and so it was flashing the backup BIOS instead of the new BIOS. Apparently when you flash the BIOS with the new version from the USB, it backs up your current BIOS to the USB. So in order to use the USB again, you have to put the new BIOS back on the USB thumbdrive.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I have been building PCs for over 30 years. I even used to sell them for about 10 years way in the past as well as full service or fix any ones pc. Just giving you some background. Anyway after many brands, I decided a long time ago that I liked Gigabyte boards the best. So I am already slightly biased. And for my own personal computer builds, I will only use Gigabyte. For price, quality, performance, features and layout, they are top in my opinion. I spend quite a bit of time doing research when I am upgrading. And, I happen to be upgrading from a Gigabyte Gaming X Z390 I59600k. After narrowing it down to a handful of Gigabyte boards I selected this one. This one stood out to me for the 4 NVME slots, as well as the number of USB 3.2 ports and it even came with a 20Gb/s USB C port, plus all the expansion slots can hold the longer internal cards. Plus this handles 12th and 13th gen processors after Bios upgrade. Which the Bios upgrade was super easy. I put the upgrade on a thumb drive, connected a PSU and held the upgrade button and it was upgraded without ever having to turn the computer on or even have a processor in it which I hadnt even selected at the time. The other big selling point was that this board supports DDR4 which I already had 64 gig of DDR4 on the system being replaced. The only thing that I had to get for this system build was the MB, processor and a cpu fan. So sort of a cheap upgrade overall. IMHO, this is the best MOBO at this price point and even better than other boards costing a lot more. The reason I didnt go with the DDR5 version is I already had 64 gig of DDR4. If or when I decide to jump to DDR5, it will probably be time for a new processor or I will just get the DDR5 model and put all my parts on the new MOBO. If interested, after researching processors, I ended up with the I7 13000k. After 2 air cooled cpu fans that worked great, I ended up with a liquid cooled option which was a lot quieter and actually did a better job. If using a 12th or 13th gen processor, make sure you have a good cpu cooling as those run pretty hot. BTW, I like that there are multiple temp sensors on this board that you can monitor. As time and money permit, I will upgrade to NVME 4 and a better graphics card. The BIOS has both an easy and advanced mode as well as some custom Gigabyte features like the Instant 6 MHZ which does some auto overclocking for you. The bios also has a lot of overclocking features if you are into that for gaming. The 9331 score was achieved on initial boot and the higher 9520 was achieved after some minor tweaks. The 9979 was today using my secondary drive and not performing minor tweaks. I also realized and double checked that my old Graphics card actually performs better on this new motherboard by over 1000 points. BONUS! You can spend a lot more money on a lot of other boards, but this one provides the best performance for the dollar at least in my humble opinion.
UPDATE: I had to update my case because the only place I could put the AIO was on the bottom with reduced airflow and I had to raise the case up with more fans.. Did not like that set up at all. So I had to rebuild my system again. Normally I just tie back the cables out of the way of fans and everything is hidden behind the case panel. But, the new case had a window as well as better cable management so I spent way more time on the second build. I included some before and after pictures of the Motherboard update which I think does look quite a bit better. I never have really cared about the RGB fans, but now I am exploring the various headers on the MOBO. I like that there are 2 ARGB ports as well as 2 RGB ports on here. And for fun, I did some simple overclocking on the GPU with the standard utilities and enabled the 6Ghz boost mode in the MOBO bios to get the 10351 Bench. I also have been watching board temps as I like things to run cool and now my VRM MOS is down 5 degrees and other sensors are down a few Wish my case had more bays so I could plug more stuff into the motherboard. I love this board

motherboard. i have one. get one

Bios for this board is awful. Do yourself a favour, buy a better board