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Gigabyte x570 Aorus Ultra – one of the best options for around 300 us dollars. This x570 chipset motherboard features 12+2 Phase VRM, high-quality audio, three m.2 slots, and a wifi 6. But let’s dive deeper and find out if this is a motherboard for your build.
Unboxing
First of all, let’s do a quick unboxing and see what’s included with this motherboard:
- You get plenty of stickers.
- Quick installation guide.
- A disk with drivers, but as I always mention, please download the latest ones online.
- And the best friend for any PC builder – users manual.
Also, there are quite a few accessories included:
- Four SATA cables for your drives.
- A few temperature sensors.
- RGB extension cable.
- A few velcro-straps for your cable management.
- This is one of those things I really like about Gigabyte motherboards – G Connector.
- Then we have a wifi antenna.
- And a few m.2 standoffs and m.2 screws.
Board looks nice, with a few shiny surfaces and so I had to do lots of, looooots of peeling. Gigabyte is using quite a lot of plastic, especially on heatsinks.
In some cases, this might affect VRM thermals, but this board has decent temps, so nothing to worry about.
Features
I will run through the main features of this board:
- Decent RAM overclocking – x570 Aorus Ultra has 4 DIMM slots that support over 5100 MHz memory. So there should be some room for playing with RAM overclocking if that’s your thing.
- Three m.2 slots – all of them covered with nice-looking heatsinks and support super fast gen 4 NVME drives. So many m.2 slots is definitely an advantage, especially for someone that needs quite a few NVME drives.
For example content creator. - Really fast integrated WiFi – You get the latest and greatest Wifi 6 and that’s where an included antenna comes into play, so you could get a strong signal.
- High-quality audio – this motherboard features ALC1220 audio codec with some enhancements from a gigabyte.
And that’s pretty much the best codec you can have today, having in mind it’s an integrated audio solution. - Easy BIOS update – with a Q-Flash Plus Button you can easily update your BIOS from a USB stick and you do not need CPU, memory, or a graphics card in order to do so.
- Thunderbolt Add-in Card internal header – unfortunatelly, this motherboard doesn’t have a built-in thunderbolt connector. But since a board supports Thunderbolt Add-in cards, you can get it separately if needed.
This is probably not for a casual pc owner, but I thought I need to mention such an interesting feature. - 12 + 2 Phase VRM – nothing too impressive here, as you can find similar VRMs in cheaper $200 us dollars boards like Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS.
But Aorus Ultra has quite decent heatsinks, so the temperature will more likely be cooler than on a cheaper board. - USB Type-C support – You can find a rear type-c connector as well as a type-c internal header for connecting the PC case front panel.
Aorus Ultra supports quite a few fans as it has 7 fan headers. all of them are 4pin meaning PWM controlled.
Also, you will be able to connect quite a few RGB fans or LED strips as the board has three RGB and two addressable RGB headers.
That’s definitely not all the features of this board, but more or less the more important ones.
I/O Panel
Let have a look at what kind of IO we have on this motherboard:
- In total we have 10 USB ports: 4 of them are USB 2.0 ports, then we have a few USB 3.2 Gen 1, two USB 3.2 Gen 2, and one USB Type-C port.
- Connectors for a Wifi antenna.
- HDMI port in case you have an integrated GPU.
- Intel Gigabit LAN.
- And 7.1 digital audio.
Alternatives
In general, this is a good x570 board when compared to other x570 motherboards at this price range. But as always, there are some things to consider or could be better. For example, I would like to see not 1 but 2.5 Gigabit LAN or a postcode panel instead of debug LEDs.
So what are the alternative motherboards to consider?
First of all, Gigabyte X570 Aorus PRO WiFi should be on your list. Basically, it’s a very similar board with minor differences, but you can find it 40 dollars cheaper. The main difference, Aorus PRO has two m.2 slots instead of three. But for a casual PC builder, it’s really enough.
Asrock X570 Taichi has the same MSRP price as Aorus Ultra and is also one of the best boards for around $300.
It has fewer USB ports but features a postcode panel, onboard reset and power buttons, and better VRM temperature under heavy loads. So when compared to x570 Aorus Ultra this board is better equipped for overclocking.
B550 or X570
But do you really need x570 board? This is a question I often ask many people. There are really great and much cheaper B550 alternatives. And the main difference between B550 and x570 is that B550 supports one NVME Gen 4 SSD while x570 supports gen 4 on all of its m.2 slots.
Sure, in case you are a content creator and you build a high-end video editing system, you might want to go for x570. But in most cases, people think B550 is a lower-tier chipset and so are these motherboards.
And it’s not the case. B550 was released after x570 and in some cases, cheaper B550 boards have the same or even better VRMs than x570.
To name a few high-end B550 boards – MSI B550 Gaming Edge WiFi, Asus B550-F Gaming, or Gigabyte B550 Aorus PRO AC. They cost $50 to $100 less than x570 Aorus Ultra.
Actually even sub $200 B550 boards are really good in terms of running high core count CPUs, but they have fewer features.
Outro
To sum up, Gigabyte x570 Aorus Ultra is a good board, but before going x570, be sure you really need it. There are some good B550 boards that perform well and are less expensive.
Also, in case you do not need three m.2 slots you should definitely go for x570 Aorus PRO WiFi.
But in case you are planning to build a serious pc build, you can book a dedicated time with me and I can help with making a personal PC parts list for a certain budget, guide you towards the best value and quality pc parts in your country, and adapt for your specific use case. So if you are interested, you can do it by messaging Epic Game Tech on Instragam or Facebook page.
Also, you can watch a video (YouTube) version of this overview and definitely check other motherboard overviews right here.
Links to Amazon
Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra – https://geni.us/K5dcAP
Gigabyte X570 Aorus PRO WiFi – https://geni.us/dnUEP4
ASRock X570 Taichi – https://geni.us/PSyjD
MSI B550 Gaming Edge WiFi – https://geni.us/Cyip2
ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming – https://geni.us/DFO9Jx
Gigabyte B550 Aorus PRO AC – https://geni.us/8Vrny
Disclosure: EpicGameTech gets a small commission when you purchase something via our Amazon links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra since that comes from Amazon’s end. So, please be aware, the links provided to Amazon are affiliate links.
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