The Gigabyte Z490 AORUS Master is a great looking motherboard. The AORUS theme of black and gray is not as flashy as some designs, but there is excellent attention to detail. Additionally, the neutral color tones will make the Master a great platform for a wide variety of builds. Premium features like double-sided M.2 heatsinks and DUAL BIOS are rare inclusions and a welcome addition. The RGB LEDs are the best I have seen on a Gigabyte board, with great brightness and diffusion. While the implementation lags behind some other boards in terms of complexity and customization, it is a big step forward.

Out of the box performance was excellent for the Gigabyte Z490 AORUS Master. Memory overclocking was good as well, as I reached 3900 MHz CL16 stable with my Trident Z Neo kit. For CPU overclocking, I was able to achieve 5.2 GHz on all cores. The largest limitation to overclocking with Z490 is going to come down to dealing with the heat produced by the incredibly dense Intel Core i9-10900K. VRM thermals were very good as well, barely exceeding 75 °C during even my VRM torture testing. Given I test on an open bench with no airflow for the finned heatsink to take advantage of, this is a great result.

The Gigabyte Z490 AORUS Master is a well-rounded board with high-end features and good aesthetics, performance, and overclocking. If you are in the market for a high-end Z490 motherboard and don't mind the lack of dual LAN or PCIe x1 slots, the Gigabyte Z490 AORUS Master is a great choice.