GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS PRO AX Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅29-05-20
Conclusion

Against other motherboards in its segment, the PRO AX is a superb choice.

This particular board adopts a subtle approach to styling – choosing to reduce the integrated RGB lighting and instead settle for an all-black livery which seems to be an avenue that a few manufacturers are introducing. It’s nice to have this option, not everyone favours an all-singing, all-dancing light show!

Looking at PRO AX purely on the feature-set, it has a lot to offer. Across this board we have a plethora of fan headers and temperature sensors and even some extras like the Q-FLASH function, allowing you to update the BIOS without the presence of any core components such as CPU, memory or graphics card. PRO AX also supports up to 5000MHz DDR4 – the highest frequency we’ve yet come across, while this won’t be a necessity for most, it’s great to know that it is capable of such a feat.

Just like other Intel Z490 motherboards, PRO AX has the hardware support for PCIe 4.0, even though 10th Gen doesn’t provide it. This means that if there is a future CPU release which supplies PCIe 4.0, this model is able to take advantage.


While we do get a nice assortment of USB functionality, we were slightly disappointed to discover just USB 3.1 Gen 1 for the front panel connectivity. Likewise, the back panel has a row of USB 2.0 ports which manufacturers are beginning to phase out – GIGABYTE should have utilised the space in a better way by laying out USB 3.2 instead.

PRO AX is a great performer when placed into varying scenarios and in particular we were able to apply a 5.3GHz overclock to all 10-cores on the 10900K. We did need some extra voltage, which in turn resulted in high temperatures, but this is still a brilliant achievement.

Pricing sees this specific model appear on shelves at GBP £295 | USD $269| AUD $500 which places it into a mid-range slot. We believe it offers good value for money in its segment!

Offering stealthy aesthetics and a good blend of features, the PRO AX is one of our recommendations for the mid-range division.



Pros
+ Sleek, clean visual appearance
+ Can overclock well
+ Offers great performance
+ Loaded with fan headers and sensors
+ Includes Q-FLASH functionality
+ Has future support for PCIe 4.0
+ Uses strengthened PCI Express slots
+ Offers triple M.2 slots

Cons
- Numerous USB 2.0 ports on back panel
- No USB 3.2 Gen 2 front panel header

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