Review on GIGABYTE Z690 Gaming DDR4 Motherboard by Wiktor Iwanski ᠌

I bought the motherboard in March 2022, assembled the computer in May. Version 1.0, released at the end of 2022. The mother impresses with its design - massive radiators of the same color cover almost half of the surface, a built-in rear panel with a fairly significant amount of USB. Good power allows you to put top-end processors on it. Competent distance between PCI-E 16 - you can insert 2 video cards (although who needs it now, but still). At first there were big problems with the Bios - overclocking the memory was a gigantic task, because. mother substituted wild timings automatically, and simply raising the voltage, raising the frequency, raising the primary timings to heaven - did not work. It was necessary to immediately put the secondary-tertiary hands. And since I'm not a pro, it was quite problematic to do this. Starting from the f8 bios, there were fewer problems, it became easier to overclock the memory. I overclocked the memory 3000 cl15 to 3600 cl16, it works stably. And up to 3800. I'm attaching screenshots. The processor installed i7 12700kf, it keeps moderate overclocking, it goes smoothly at full load for 200w, 8-pin power supply is enough. Only 240 SJO is already hard to cope with. There were also problems with the backlight and its synchronization. Also, the keyboard cursor disappeared when typing and sometimes the sound through the optics for 2-4 seconds. In the warranty workshop they wrote that they flashed BIOS f8 and everything became normal. This is strange, because I sewed it many times and it did not help. Well, okay, now everything works, and it's good. I removed the heatsink from the VRM area. Thermal pads do not all fit snugly to the mosfets, they regretted the thickness of the pads (!) This can be seen in the photo by the absence of traces in the center of the dark pad. And given that they are not the best anyway (5 wmk) - they are recommended for replacement. In addition, the heatsinks here are massive, but without a heat pipe and aluminum fins, and they are not as efficient as they seem. Opening does not void the warranty, there are no seals. In general, and as a result of many months of use, the mother liked it after Giga began to make normal BIOSes from the end of summer 2022.