Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Xtreme Flagship 9th Gen Core i9 Motherboard Bathes In RGB Glory

Forget about overclocking, if you really want to make your shiny new processor run faster, you need RGB lighting on your motherboard! We're kidding, of course, though if RGB lighting is your thing, you will find it in abundance on Gigabyte's new Z390 Aorus Xtreme for Intel's brand-spanking-new 9th generation Core processors.

You don't actually have to forget about overclocking, either. The Z390 Aorus Xtreme is a high end 8-layer PCB with a 16-phase power design and an "extreme thermal design," which is Gigabyte's fancy way of saying there are plenty of heatsinks scattered about to the board. It also features a fixed I/O shield, which we think should be a standard amenity on every motherboard.

Let's get the standard stuff out of the way. This is an LGA 1151 socket motherboard with support for Intel's 9th and 8th generation chips, based on Intel's new Z390 chipset. It has four DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 64GB of memory, three reinforced PCI Express x16 slots, two PCIe x1 slots, six SATA 6Gbps ports, and three M.2 connectors for those gum stick-sized SSDs (plus another M.2 socket specifically for an Intel CNVi wireless module).

For network connectivity, it has built-in 802.11ac (Wireless-6) Wi-Fi, an Intel GbE LAN port, and an Aquantia 10-gigabit Base-T LAN port, the latter of which is something you don't find very often.

The Z390 Aorus Xtreme is built for overclocking. It has an OC touch connector, clear CMOS and OC buttons (plus power and reset buttons), two temperature sensor headers, and dual BIOSes. Of course, overclocking results will depend on the processor and the experience of the end user, but for those who like to push their CPU past stock speeds, it looks like the Z390 Aorus Xtreme is up to the task.

There is no word yet on when this motherboard will be available or how much it will cost.