Board Layout

Gigabyte has given the AORUS Tachyon a face-lift from the last generation's Z590 motherboard. For the most part, things are still in their respected location, though changes have been made to VRM heatsink and EPS connector placements. For those unfamiliar with previous renditions, the AORUS Tachyon is a Gigabyte overclocking motherboard that has a section devoted to voltage readouts, dip switches, and buttons related to quality-of-life functions that will alleviate frustrations from long overclocking sessions.


Viewing the Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Tachyon at a lower angle gives us a wider perspective of potential installation hazards. In the case of the LGA 1700 socket for the Z690, new and old CPU coolers will need a new retention bracket if the mounting holes do not line up. The socket is clear of standing capacitors, which have been replaced with tantalum polymer capacitors instead. This is great news for waterblocks and LN2 pots as nothing will be in the way.


The Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Tachyon offers two PCI Express x16 slots, with the top two reinforced for extra stress support. PCIe slot one and two are PCIe Gen5 with a total of x16 lanes coming from the CPU. Slot one can either operate at x16 or x8. Slot 2 is wired for PCIe Gen5 x8 and will split the available lanes with the first slot if populated. These are all backwards compatible, allowing older PCIe devices to work without issue. The third slot is wired internally for PCIe Gen3 x4, but physically a x16 PCIe slot as well.


There are four Gen4 x4 M.2 sockets on the Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Tachyon; all of them feature full-coverage heatsinks and thermal pads on the motherboard.


The Z690 AORUS Tachyon includes a dual-BIOS with a toggle switch. A nice feature when using an XOC BIOS along with the standard BIOS, it makes switching back and forth easy.


Beside a debug display and post LEDs, Gigabyte has a whole host of features directed towards CPU overclocking. First, numerous voltage read points for a multimeter. Below, depending on the viewpoint, are buttons for the real-time CPU multiplier, or control the BLCK clock after switching functions in the BIOS. Next to that are clear CMOS and restart buttons.

Moving on, we have a few quality-of-life overclocking features that are actually useful. LIMP_Mode will boot directly into the BIOS while keeping your existing settings. RST_SW is similar to the standard restart, but acts as a cold boot and will not retrain the memory, just like booting a computer from the power-off state. The last two are toggle switches labeled TGR and RSV_SW. TGR will drop the CPU clocks and voltage regardless of your current overclock. This in turns allows for a "cool down" period right before pumping in voltage and going for a CPU record. RSV_SW is currently not in use, though the XOC BIOS might have a function for it now or in the future.


The Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Tachyon has one USB 3.2 Gen1 and two USB 2.0 headers. An internal USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-E header is included near the overclocking section.


Gigabyte includes two 12v RGB and addressable RGB headers. One in each area. D_LED is 5v while LED_C is the 12v. This is also distinguished visually as the 12v has 4-pins.


The Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Tachyon uses an Intel I225-V 2.5 Gbps LAN controller for its network ports.


This motherboard also features dual 8-pin EPS connectors to make sure power delivery is never an issue when it comes to overclocking the CPU.


The board has a total of six SATA 6 Gb/s ports on the side, angled 90 degrees from the board. Four of the ports draw their bandwidth from the Z690 chipset, while the other two, labeled SATA A and SATA B, go to a separate ASM 1061 SATA controller.


When it comes to external connectivity, the Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Tachyon has overclocking in mind. The trade-off is one less USB 3.2 Type-A 10 Gbps ports. PS/2 ports may be a thing of the past, but some overclocking records still are preformed using Windows XP. Besides the standard assortment of USB Type-A ports is a BIOS Flashback (Q-Flash Plus) button and OC Ignition. This OC Ignition button can be misleading as it has nothing to do with overclocking. Instead, it is used to update firmware without the CPU installed and keep system fans going to pre-test watercooling setups. Basically, it is to check if the motherboard powers on before installing everything and finding out later the motherboard is DOA.

• 2x Antenna ports
• HDMI port
• DisplayPort 1.4
• Optical SPDIF Out port
• 4x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports (10 Gb/s)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports (5 Gb/s)
• USB4/Thunderbolt™ 4 Type-C port
• RJ-45 LAN port with LED
• Clear CMOS button
• 5x HD audio jacks