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Gigabyte offers this year beside the RTX graphics cards with the Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce also a mainboard with integrated water block and RGB.

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce: absolute high-end with water cooling

The motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte has introduced a new motherboard. The Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce is the new flagship of the Aorus mainboard series. The company not only relies on an extremely stylish look, but also on high-quality technology. The mainboard resembles its brother Z390 Aorus Xtreme. The Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce also has 16 digital VRM phases built in by Gigabyte. Technically, 16 TDA21462 MOSFETs with 60 amps and eight IR3599 phase doublers are used. The mainboard draws its power from two 8-pin EPS connectors.

On the connector side there is pretty much everything you can imagine. Gigabyte integrates Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2, three fully connected M.2 interfaces, AC WiFi with the Intel CNVI 802.11ac and even a 10 Gigabit Ethernet interface via an Aquantia add-on chip. On the PCIe side, there are otherwise three full PCIe 3.0 x16 ports, which share the bandwidth with each other. The form factor of the motherboard is E-ATX.

The most conspicuous detail on the whole motherboard and also its unique selling point is probably the monoblock. Asus recently installed such a monoblock as standard on the Maximus X Extreme mainboard. Gigabyte goes one step further. The monoblock cools the CPU and the VRMs on the one hand, but also extends to the Z390 chipset, which is also cooled with it. Only the M.2 SSDs are left out empty regarding the water cooling. However, the complete monoblock has three passive coolers specially integrated for the M.2 SSDs. The monoblock also has another benefit: RGB, and not too scarce.

Large-area RGB effects

Gigabyte has also integrated a very eye-catching RGB lighting into the monoblock. The Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce doesn’t really look like a mainboard at first glance with its multi-layer monoblock. The iconic Aorus eagle can be found on the acrylic glass at the height of the CPUs and voltage converters. The cooling area for the chipset shows the Aorus signature. The edge of the monoblock is matt polished and equipped with the eye-catching RGB lighting, which can be controlled directly via the mainboard.

Also on the left side below the mainboard there is an eye-catching RGB lighting, which can of course also be controlled. On the left side there is an additional lettering with the model of the sound chip, an ESS ES9018K2M, which of course is also RGB-illuminated. Gigabyte also has a pre-installed I/O shield on the Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce. And here, too, there is no lack of adjustable RGB backlighting.

When the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce will be launched is still unknown. Also the price the manufacturer estimates for the absolute high-end model of the Aorus series has not yet been mentioned. With regard to the Z390 Aorus Xtreme, however, it should be beyond the 600 bucks.