The Gigabyte Z590I 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 Z590I AORUS Ultra may not turn heads like some more flashy designs, but the neutral gray and black theme of the Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra has an appeal all of its own that easily fits almost any build.

Out of the box, performance was excellent for the Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra. Memory overclocking was good as well, as I reached 3900 MHz CL16 stable with my Trident Z Neo kit using my i9-10900K, and 4000 MHz on my i9-11900K sample. For CPU overclocking, I was able to achieve 5.2 GHz on all cores with both samples. The largest limitation to overclocking with Z590 is going to come down to dealing with the heat produced by the incredibly dense Intel Core i9 Processors.

VRM thermals were good as well, reaching just 83 °C during even my VRM torture testing. While the other Z590 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 Z590I AORUS Ultra is a well-rounded board with high-end features and meaningful improvements over its Z490 counterpart. If you are in the market for a high-end ITX Z590 motherboard, the Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra is worth checking out.