With Intel Z270 now in full swing, by now it’s fairly obvious what to expect from this new chipset. Entering the foray today is the very best… of the best. AORUS is GIGABYTE’s premium series and this Gaming 9 is the finest that AORUS has to offer.

Being a flagship product means we expect no compromises and there is no denying how feature-rich our Z270X-Gaming 9 is. Those wanting to squeeze the absolute maximum from Intel Kaby Lake will be well advised to consider this motherboard as it has all the performance-based overclocking features you could really wish for. The EKWB Hybrid water cooling support is a nice touch for overclockers wanting to marry the board up to a water cooling configuration, EKWB has a solid reputation in the world of water cooling so we’re assured of a quality product. Bearing a 22-phase design is testament to the calibre of this motherboard and once again will emphasise Gaming 9’s capabilities for overclocking but including such a feature as well as the PLX chip for dual x16 mode pushes the cost right up and as such this board doesn’t come cheap.

The assortment of features aren’t restricted to just the socket and overclocking – there are four different storage standards supported on Gaming 9 and this includes dual-M.2 which will come in handy for users wanting super-fast transfer rates from NVMe. GIGABYTE are keen to get behind Thunderbolt 3 and they’ve provided support for this standard courtesy of the USB 3.1 Gen2 Type C port on the back panel – Thunderbolt 3 is capable of up to 40GB/s which is astounding!


Gone are the days when a dedicated sound card was an essential piece of kit to factor into a new system build; Gaming 9 boasts a strong audio solution by way of Creative’s Sound Core3D. Creative are another brand who have a solid reputation for offering premium audio solutions and the catalogue of components included for sound are superb, even offering triple OP-AMPs.

Although we didn’t demonstrate the RGB LEDs on Gaming 9, they are exactly the same configuration which have been employed on the Gaming 7 – across the board there are numerous zones which are all manageable via RGB Fusion software. Anyone wanting to know how this looks should check out our video of the Z270X-Gaming 7.

A premium motherboard unfortunately arrives with a premium price-tag and Gaming 9 will cost £450-500 in the UK and $500 in the US. As we mentioned earlier, the implementation of the 22-phase power and such features dual x16 mode for the graphics card means that a PLX chip is required – all of which push the price up. Choosing this board over the Gaming 7 will boil down to those advanced features which point towards overclockers and individuals who have the objective to break records and push the limit of their hardware.

The AORUS Z270X-Gaming 9 is laden with features which will satisfy performance hungry enthusiasts. If you demand the very best, look no further!


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