Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ULTRA Review: VRM, Overclocking and Value Tested

I've been building PCs long enough to know that a motherboard's marketing page and its actual behaviour under a sustained Prime95 load are two very different conversations. Manufacturers are brilliant at making a board look premium on paper. Beautiful renders, impressive-sounding phase counts, RGB heatsinks that photograph wonderfully. But put a power-hungry 9th-gen Intel chip on it, crank the all-core overclock, and leave it running for a few hours? That's when you find out what you actually bought. Thermal images, VRM temperatures, and real-world stability tell the truth that spec sheets simply won't.

The Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ULTRA sits in what I'd call the "serious enthusiast" tier of the Z390 lineup. It's not the entry-level AORUS PRO, and it's not the absolutely bonkers AORUS MASTER or XTREME. It's the board aimed squarely at people who want proper overclocking headroom, decent connectivity, and build quality that doesn't feel like a compromise, without spending quite as much as the flagship demands. I've had one of these in a test rig for about a month now, paired with an i9-9900K, and I've got thoughts. Quite a few of them.

What I want to know with any board at this price point is simple: does it actually deliver on the promise, or is it just a prettier version of something cheaper? So let's get into it properly.

The full rear I/O includes DisplayPort and HDMI outputs for Intel's integrated graphics, which is handy if you're doing a build that needs iGPU output for troubleshooting or media tasks. Audio is handled by a Realtek ALC1220-VB codec with dedicated ESS SABRE DAC for the headphone output, which is a step above what you'd find on cheaper boards. There's also a dedicated Clear CMOS button on the rear I/O panel, something I genuinely appreciate because it saves you from fishing around inside the case when an overclock goes sideways.

The price fluctuates, so check the current figure below, but this board has historically sat in the upper-mid range of Z390 offerings. Whether that's justified is what the rest of this review is about.

One thing worth being clear about: this board does not support 10th or 11th generation Intel processors. Those moved to LGA1200. The LGA1151 socket looks physically similar but is electrically incompatible with Comet Lake and Rocket Lake chips, so there's no upgrade path beyond 9th gen here. If you're building new today, that's a significant consideration. But if you're picking this up second-hand to build around a 9900K you already own, or you're upgrading from an older Z370 system, it makes complete sense. The 9900K is still a genuinely capable chip for gaming and productivity in 2024, and boards like this one let you extract everything it has to offer.

No BIOS update is required to run 9th gen chips on this board, which is a relief. The Z390 chipset was designed alongside 9th gen, so out of the box you're good to go. 8th gen chips work fine too without any fuss. Just slot in your CPU, connect your cooler, and you're sorted. I ran an i9-9900K on this board from day one without touching the BIOS version, and it posted first time without complaint.

In terms of raw lane allocation, the Z390 provides up to 24 High Speed I/O lanes from the chipset itself, in addition to the CPU's direct PCIe lanes. This is how boards like the AORUS ULTRA can offer three M.2 slots, six SATA ports, and multiple USB 3.1 controllers simultaneously without running out of bandwidth. There are trade-offs and lane-sharing situations (more on that in the storage section), but the chipset itself has enough headroom to make a well-designed board genuinely versatile. Gigabyte has used that headroom reasonably well here.

USB support from the chipset includes up to six USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, ten USB 3.0 ports, and fourteen USB 2.0 ports, though individual boards implement different subsets of those maximums. The Z390 also supports Intel's CNVi wireless interface, which is how the AORUS ULTRA integrates its Wireless-AC 9560 module without needing a separate PCIe slot. RAID support covers SATA in RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 configurations, and Intel Optane memory is supported if that's something you're interested in, though it's largely irrelevant for most enthusiast builds.

The heatsinks covering the VRM area are substantial. Two large aluminium blocks connected by a heatpipe, with decent surface area and reasonable contact with the MOSFETs underneath. During my testing with the i9-9900K running an all-core 5.0GHz overclock at 1.35V, I measured VRM temperatures peaking around 68 to 72 degrees Celsius under sustained Prime95 small FFT load. That's warm, but it's not dangerous, and it's well within what these components are rated for. With a case that has decent airflow, you'll likely see lower figures. I was testing in a mid-tower with two 120mm case fans, nothing exotic.

Compare that to some cheaper Z390 boards I've tested where the VRM heatsinks are basically decorative and the MOSFETs are throttling at anything above a 4.7GHz all-core. The AORUS ULTRA doesn't have that problem. You can run a 9900K at a proper overclock without the board becoming the bottleneck. That's exactly what you want from a board at this price point, and frankly it's the minimum I'd expect. The 8-pin plus 4-pin CPU power connectors are both present, and I'd recommend using both if you're overclocking seriously. The board will work with just the 8-pin, but give it the extra connector if your PSU supports it.

If you want to push beyond XMP and manually tune your memory timings, the BIOS gives you access to all the primary and secondary timings you'd want to adjust. I spent a bit of time tightening timings on my 3200MHz kit and managed to get stable operation at CL14 with some manual sub-timing adjustments. It's not the most intuitive process in the world (the BIOS interface has its quirks, which I'll get to), but the capability is there if you want it. For most people, loading an XMP profile and leaving it alone is the right call.

One thing to be aware of: running four DIMMs at high speeds is harder than running two. If you're planning to fill all four slots with high-speed memory, you may need to drop the frequency slightly or spend more time tuning. This is a Z390 platform limitation as much as a board-specific one, but it's worth knowing going in. Two sticks of 16GB at 3200MHz or 3600MHz is the sweet spot for this platform. Four sticks of 8GB works fine too, but expect to potentially back off the speed a little.

There are lane-sharing considerations to be aware of. When you populate the M2M slot (the middle one), it shares bandwidth with some of the SATA ports. Specifically, installing an M.2 SATA drive in that slot disables two of the six SATA ports. If you're running an NVMe drive in that slot, the SATA ports remain unaffected. It's the kind of thing that catches people out if they don't read the manual, so I'm flagging it here. The manual does document this clearly, to Gigabyte's credit, but nobody reads manuals until something stops working.

The six SATA 6Gb/s ports are arranged in a right-angle configuration along the board edge, which makes cable management easier in most cases. RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 are all supported across the SATA ports. For most enthusiast builds, you're probably looking at one or two NVMe drives in the M.2 slots and maybe a couple of SATA SSDs or HDDs for bulk storage. This board handles that configuration without any issues. I ran a Samsung 970 EVO in the top M.2 slot and a pair of SATA SSDs alongside it for about a month without a single storage-related problem.

The primary PCIe x16 slot has Gigabyte's metal reinforcement, which they call Ultra Durable PCIe Armour. It's a steel-reinforced slot that prevents the GPU from physically deforming the slot over time, particularly relevant with heavier modern graphics cards. The second x16 slot is also reinforced. The third x16 slot and the x1 slots are standard. Given how heavy some current-gen GPUs are, the reinforcement on the primary slot is genuinely useful rather than just a marketing feature.

The three PCIe x1 slots give you room for sound cards, network cards, USB expansion cards, or whatever else you might need. In practice, most enthusiast builds won't use all of them, but having the option is nice. The slot positioning is reasonable, though the bottom x1 slot can be partially obscured by a large GPU with a thick cooler. Worth checking your GPU dimensions before assuming you can use all three x1 slots simultaneously.

Video outputs include one HDMI and one DisplayPort, both for Intel's integrated graphics. These are only useful if you're using a CPU with integrated graphics (which the 9900K has) and you either don't have a discrete GPU or you want to use the iGPU for a secondary display. Most enthusiast builds will have a discrete GPU and won't use these, but they're handy for initial setup or troubleshooting. The Clear CMOS button on the rear I/O is something I've already mentioned, but I'll say it again because it's saved me time more than once: having it on the rear panel rather than requiring you to open the case is a proper quality-of-life feature.

Internal headers are plentiful. You get two USB 3.1 Gen 1 headers (for front-panel USB 3.0 ports), one USB 2.0 header, two RGB headers, two addressable RGB headers, and the standard array of fan headers. There are five fan headers in total, all controllable via the BIOS or Gigabyte's SIV software. The audio is handled by a shielded audio PCB section with the Realtek ALC1220-VB codec and the ESS SABRE DAC for the headphone output. Honestly, for onboard audio, it's better than most. I tested it with a pair of open-back headphones and it was perfectly listenable, though dedicated DAC/amp users will still want their own hardware.

Wireless is provided by the Intel Wireless-AC 9560 module, integrated via Intel's CNVi interface. This supports 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) with 2x2 MU-MIMO and Bluetooth 5.0. The antennas attach to the rear I/O panel connectors, and Gigabyte includes them in the box. Wi-Fi 5 is perfectly adequate for most use cases, though if you're building in 2024 and wireless performance is critical to you, you might wish this was Wi-Fi 6. That said, for a board designed around a chipset from 2018, Wi-Fi 5 was the current standard at launch and it's still more than fast enough for gaming and general use.

Bluetooth 5.0 works well for connecting peripherals. I paired a wireless headset and a controller during testing without any issues. The range is decent and the connection was stable throughout. If you're in a particularly RF-congested environment (lots of 2.4GHz devices nearby), you might see some interference, but that's a general wireless issue rather than anything specific to this board. For a wired-first enthusiast build, the wireless is a nice bonus rather than a primary feature.

That said, the overclocking functionality itself is solid. All the controls you need are there: CPU ratio, per-core ratio control, voltage settings (Vcore, VCCIO, VCCSA, DRAM voltage), load-line calibration levels, power limits, and full memory timing control. The MIT (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker) section is where all the OC settings live, and once you know where everything is, it's workable. I managed to get my i9-9900K stable at 5.0GHz all-core with 1.35V Vcore, LLC Level 5, and power limits removed. That's a solid result and the board handled it without complaint.

Fan control is decent. Five fan headers, all configurable with custom curves in the BIOS. You can set temperature source, minimum and maximum speeds, and the curve shape. It's not as polished as some competitors, but it does the job. There's no Q-Code display on this board (that's reserved for the higher-tier AORUS MASTER and XTREME), but there is a debug LED indicator that cycles through POST codes and stays lit on the relevant section if something fails. It's less informative than a proper two-digit display, but better than nothing. One thing I genuinely appreciate: the BIOS saves your last-used settings even after a CMOS clear, which saves time when you're iterating through overclock attempts.

PCB quality feels solid. The board has a good weight to it, the capacitors and other components are neatly placed, and the overall build doesn't feel like corners were cut. The M.2 heatsinks (there are covers for the M.2 slots) are a nice touch, keeping your NVMe drives cooler under sustained load. I measured my 970 EVO running about 5 to 8 degrees cooler with the M.2 heatsink installed compared to without, which is meaningful for sustained sequential write performance.

The I/O shield is pre-installed on the board, which is a small thing but genuinely appreciated. Anyone who's ever tried to install a separate I/O shield in a tight case while holding the motherboard knows exactly why this matters. The overall fit and finish is good throughout. Screw holes are properly positioned, the PCIe slot reinforcement feels solid, and the DIMM slots have a single-sided latch design on the secondary slots (the primary slots have dual latches) which makes installing memory easier when a GPU is already installed. These are the kinds of details that show a board has been thought through properly.

The ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-E Gaming has a better BIOS interface in my opinion. ASUS's UEFI is more polished and easier to navigate, particularly for memory overclocking. However, the STRIX-E has a slightly less impressive VRM setup compared to the AORUS ULTRA, with a 12-phase design using lower-rated MOSFETs. For moderate overclocking it's fine, but if you're pushing a 9900K hard, the AORUS ULTRA's power delivery gives you more headroom. The MSI MEG Z390 ACE is arguably the strongest competitor, with excellent VRM quality and a good BIOS, but it typically commands a higher price and has less M.2 storage flexibility.

Where the AORUS ULTRA wins is the combination of three M.2 slots, strong VRM quality, and integrated Wi-Fi at its price point. The STRIX-E only has two M.2 slots, which matters if you're planning a storage-heavy build. The MEG ACE is the better board overall if budget isn't a concern, but the AORUS ULTRA holds its own and offers better value for most use cases. If BIOS usability is your top priority, the STRIX-E edges it. If raw overclocking headroom and storage flexibility matter more, the AORUS ULTRA is the stronger choice.

The pre-installed I/O shield I mentioned earlier makes case installation smoother. The board lined up with my case standoffs without any drama, and all the case connectors (front panel audio, USB 3.0, front panel buttons and LEDs) are clearly labelled and in sensible positions. The front panel header area has a small printed guide on the PCB itself showing which pins are which, which is the kind of thoughtful detail that saves you from squinting at the manual with a torch at midnight.

One minor gripe: the ARGB headers are positioned near the bottom of the board, which means running ARGB cables from top-mounted fans or a CPU cooler with ARGB lighting requires longer cables or careful cable management. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's slightly less convenient than having at least one header near the top of the board. Also, the M.2 heatsink screws are small and fiddly, and I stripped one slightly during installation. Use a proper screwdriver, not whatever's closest to hand.

The complaints that come up repeatedly are worth paying attention to. The BIOS interface gets criticism for being less intuitive than ASUS's equivalent, which aligns with my own experience. A handful of buyers have reported memory compatibility issues with certain kits at high XMP speeds, though this is a Z390 platform issue as much as a board-specific one. There are also occasional mentions of RGB software being temperamental, which is... honestly true of most RGB software from every manufacturer. It's not uniquely bad here, just not uniquely good either.

One thing that comes up in longer-term ownership feedback is reliability. People who've had this board for two or three years report it holding up well, with no capacitor issues or VRM failures even in systems that run 24/7. That's reassuring, because a board that works brilliantly for six months and then develops problems is worse than a board that's merely good but lasts five years. The AORUS ULTRA seems to be in the "lasts properly" category, which matters more to me than any benchmark number. ★★★★½ (4.5) 1,301

Where the value calculation gets interesting is when you compare it to the tier above. The AORUS MASTER and XTREME add features like a Q-Code display, even more robust VRM designs, and premium audio implementations, but they cost significantly more. For most enthusiast builders, the AORUS ULTRA hits a sweet spot where you're getting 90% of the capability for meaningfully less money. The 10% you're missing is mostly things like the debug display and marginal improvements in VRM headroom that only matter if you're pushing extreme overclocks beyond 5.0GHz all-core.

It's also worth considering the second-hand market context. Z390 boards are no longer being manufactured, and the platform has a defined ceiling (9th gen Intel is as far as it goes). If you're buying this new, you're investing in a platform with no CPU upgrade path beyond what's already available. If you're buying second-hand to pair with a 9900K you already own, or you're finding this board at a significant discount, the value proposition is much stronger. The board itself is excellent quality; the platform age is the main consideration.

The BIOS is my main frustration. It works, it has all the controls you need, but it's less pleasant to use than ASUS's equivalent and requires more patience to navigate. If you're the kind of person who spends hours fine-tuning memory timings and dialling in per-core overclocks, you'll find it workable but occasionally annoying. If you load an XMP profile and leave it alone, you'll barely notice. The lack of a proper Q-Code display is a minor annoyance for troubleshooting, but the debug LED covers the basics.

Who should buy this? If you have a 9900K or 9700K and you want a board that can handle a proper overclock reliably, with enough storage and connectivity for a serious enthusiast build, the AORUS ULTRA is a strong choice. If you're building new today and considering this platform, think carefully about the upgrade ceiling. But if you're getting into Z390 at a good price, either new or second-hand, this is one of the better boards the platform has to offer. I'd give it a solid 8.5 out of 10. The VRM quality and storage flexibility earn that score; the BIOS interface stops it going higher.

If you specifically want a Z390 board but the AORUS ULTRA is outside your budget, the Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO is worth considering. It steps down the VRM slightly and loses one M.2 slot, but it's a capable board for moderate overclocking at a lower price. The ASUS PRIME Z390-A is another solid mid-range option with a better BIOS experience at the cost of some premium features.

If budget genuinely isn't a concern and you want the absolute best Z390 board for extreme overclocking, the Gigabyte Z390 AORUS MASTER is the step up from here. Better VRM, Q-Code display, premium audio, and a more refined overall package. It costs more, but if you're pushing a 9900KS to its absolute limits, the extra investment in the board makes sense. For most people, though, the AORUS ULTRA is the right level of board for the platform.

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