Gigabyte Z690I AORUS Ultra Plus DDR4 Review

Name: Gigabyte Z690I AORUS Ultra Plus DDR4
Brand: GIGABYTE
Price: 300 USD

ir_cow

on Sep 9th, 2022,

in Motherboards.

Manufacturer: GIGABYTE

Board Software »

BIOS Overview

Clocks	Range	Interval
BCLK Frequency:	80 MHz - 500 MHz	0.010 MHz
CPU P-Core Ratio:	8–127	1
CPU E-Core Ratio:	8–60	1
CPU Cache Ratio:	8–85	1
DRAM Frequency:	DDR4-800 - DDR4-8400	N/A
CPU Voltages	Range	Interval
CPU Voltage:	1.1–1.8 V	0.005 V
CPU Input Voltage:	1.6–2.1 V	0.010 V
VCCSA Voltage:	0.8-1.5	0.010
DRAM Vdd/VddQ:	0.900-1.800 V	0.005

The Gigabyte Z690I AORUS Ultra Plus DDR4 follows the standard BIOS layout found on other Gigabyte Z690 motherboards. Upon first boot into the BIOS, you will be greeted with the default landing page, named "Easy Mode." It gives you the ability to set the memory XMP profile, drive boot priority and fan control without digging more deeply into the sub-menus. On the right side is the list of sub-menus that can be accessed by pressing the corresponding F-key or using the mouse. I complain about this every time that Gigabyte doesn't advertise the search function, that continues here as well. This search feature can be brought up anytime by pressing ALT+F. This is a helpful tool, as the BIOS GUI isn't always intuitive to navigate when looking for a specific setting.

Switching over to Advanced Mode, the first tab will always be the Favorites menu. This allows for the addition and subtraction of commonly used settings for future convenience. No major complaints about the missing settings this time for Gigabyte, since everything related to CPU overclocking is accounted for. Even Load Line Calibration control, missing on other Gigabyte motherboards, makes a return here.

I did come across two problems. The first is minor, due to how well the motherboard auto settings handled the memory's XMP profile. However, if you had to make manual adjustments The VDDQ_TX voltage that supports DRAM is tied to the DRAM voltage. On the DDR5 version, this voltage can be separated if you manually enter the DDR5 voltage on a separate sub-menu. At that point, "DRAM Vdd/VddQ" becomes the VDDQ_TX voltage instead of what it is named for, DRAM voltage. The DDR4 motherboard used in this review, seems to have a separate line for the DRAM, but the VDDQ_TX is incorrectly named Vdd/VddQ.

The second problem is that the Vdroop is always under or over by a large margin. Manually setting the Load Line Calibration (LLC) from Auto all the way to Extreme doesn't correlate well to the expected Vdroop. If you are heavily into CPU overclocking, you will need to play with this setting a bit to find a middle ground. Otherwise, you could be overvolting, causing CPU damage or undervolting and the system just crashes under load.