The Gigabyte Z490I AORUS Ultra is a well built, practical board with great features, including 2.5 Gb/s LAN, a top-shelf VRM, and an integrated I/O shield. When it comes to looks, the Gigabyte Z490I AORUS Ultra may not turn heads like some more flashy designs, but the neutral gray and black theme of the B550 AORUS Pro has an appeal all of its own that easily fits almost any build.

Out of the box, performance was excellent for the Gigabyte Z490I AORUS Ultra. Memory overclocking was very good as well, as I reached 4000 MHz CL16 stable with my Trident Z Neo kit. For CPU overclocking, I was able to achieve 5.3 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 good as well, barely exceeding 85 °C during even my VRM torture testing. While the other Z490 ITX boards I have tested managed slightly better temperatures, they utilized active cooling to do so. Given the space constraints of ITX motherboards, I think this is a valid approach and something Gigabyte may wish to consider in the future if CPU power draw continues to increase.

The Gigabyte Z490I AORUS Ultra 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 ITX Z490 motherboard, the Gigabyte Z490I AORUS Ultra is worth checking out.