Review on Motherboard GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS XTREME WATERFORCE (rev. 1.x) by Micha Dbrowski ᠌

Name: Motherboard GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS XTREME WATERFORCE (rev. 1.x)
Item: Motherboard GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS XTREME WATERFORCE (rev. 1.x)
Rating: 5

May 24, 2023

Great value for the money, definitely recommended!

Surprisingly, there was no problem with the leakage sensor, on the contrary - if I unscrewed the screw from this sensor, the motherboard would not start.
Faced several situations when installing a video card:
1. I installed an MSI RTX 3060Ti video card, not an OS, and tried to output an image through the video card when the board was started - there was no image (neither through RTX, nor through the built-in one) until I installed the OS. Now I understand that the reason is obvious, you should not worry about this);
2. After some time after installing the drivers (including for the video card), the fans (coolers) on the video card stopped spinning, and the video card itself reached a temperature of 50-55 degrees. I decided to install MSI Afterburner to understand the reason. I set up my schedule for the fans (coolers), everything worked as expected initially. Apparently, fans (coolers) only work when a certain temperature is reached, you need to take into account.

Pros

A lot of connectors and functions, convenient ports for connecting power, peripherals. Very rich equipment - almost for every taste and need. One large (heavy, because copper - must be taken into account when choosing a water block for cooling) water block for the entire board. Using this water block, a 3500 RPM CBO pump, distilled water and a copper radiator with 3 120 mm fans, the temperature of the i9 10850K processor did not rise above 45+-3 degrees while installing many games and programs. Very convenient BIOS interface - all field values are clear (in EasyMode). I wrote about all the nuances in the comments, I will supplement the review, because I have found very little information on the Internet about my questions. Taking into account all the nuances and the first impression, for now I recommend the board for purchase.

Cons

Inconvenient connection of the LED backlight of the water block (mb feature, not a drawback). Heavy dismantling of the water block from the motherboard if necessary (although MB is necessary for the reliability of installation). When mounting the motherboard in the case and mounting the water block on the motherboard, we face a dilemma: 1. first mount the water block on the motherboard - then some of the holes on the motherboard for mounting to the case (and ground, as far as I understand) are not available for use; 2. First, mount the motherboard into the case - then some of the holes for mounting the water block to the motherboard are inaccessible. I decided to go for step 2 At the first start with the SSD installed in the 2 lower slots, the processor and the RAM, it fell out cyclically into the C1 POST code (many other rapidly changing ones appeared before it) with a reboot - and so on in a circle. I wrote to support, I'm waiting for an answer. So far, I haven't been able to try it out. When the problem is solved, I will add a review. : the solution turned out to be banal - you need to fully insert the RAM bar into the slot (I have not encountered DDR4 before). I inserted the strips to the end - everything worked. Despite my actions (clear CMOS several times, including after flashing the BIOS via QFlash +), the motherboard ated the BIOS at startup and offered to restore its state. Now everything is working stably, incl. illumination via AORUS RGB Commander.