Features and Motherboard Layout
Features
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
Intel X299 Gaming motherboard with RGB Fusion, Digital LED strip support, Dual M.2, 120dB SNR ALC1220, Intel Gaming LAN, USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C/A
- Supports Intel® Core™ X-series Processor Family
- Quad Channel Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4, 8 DIMMs, DDR4333+(OC)
- Intel® Optane™ Memory Ready
- ASMedia 3142 USB 3.1 Gen 2 with USB Type-C™ and Type-A
- 3-Way Graphics Support with Dual Armor and Ultra Durable™ Design
- Server-Class Digital Power Design
- ALC1220 120dB SNR HD Audio with Smart Headphone AMP and WIMA audio capacitor
- RGB FUSION supports Digital LED and RGBW Light Strips
- Smart Fan 5 features Multiple Temperature Sensors and Hybrid Fan Headers with FAN STOP
- Dual Ultra-Fast M.2 with PCIe Gen3 x4 interface
- NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 U.2 support by optional adaptor
- Intel® GbE LAN Gaming Network with cFosSpeed Internet Accelerator Software
- Anti-Sulfur Resistor Design
- Ultra Durable™ 25KV ESD and 15KV Surge LAN Protection
- Lightning-Fast Intel® Thunderbolt™ 3 AIC Support
- GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™
- APP Center Including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ Utilities
Motherboard Layout
The X299 AORUS Gaming 3 motherboard features a black colored PCB with black colored heat sinks cooling various on board components and black plastic overlays accenting the rear panel shroud, the VRM heat heat sink, and X299 chipset cooler. The AORUS series logo is emblazoned on a chrome and black plate covering the chipset heat sink with an additional board series logo on the rear panel cover. The board was designed with an ATX form factor for compatibility with most standard-sized enclosures, while providing more than enough surface area for its integrated components.
GIGABYTE designed the X299 AORUS Gaming 3 with a total of 9 digital power phases for the CPU power system, providing sufficient power for any compute tasks thrown its way.. The CPU VRMs are cooled by a large cooler to the right of the socket.
The board supports a total of two PCIe x4 M.2 slots, one to the sandwiched in between the CPU socket and the primary PCIe x16 slot, and the other in between the primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots. The M.2 slot by the CPU supports M.2 cards up to 80mm in length, while the other supports cards up to 110mm in length. Both M.2 ports a keyed with an M-key slot devices with standard SSD, PCIe x2, and PCIe x4 type M.2 drives supported. Notice how GIGABYTE placed the CMOS battery directly underneath the M.2 slot located in the PCIe slot area, conserving space so that the board remains uncrowded in other areas. However, the placement of this M.2 slot and the battery can become challenging should you need to access either with a card seated in the primary PCIe x16 slot. Note that the secondary M.2 port (by the CPU socket) and SATA ports 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 all share bandwidth. The named SATA ports are all disabled with an M.2 drive seated in that port.
The board houses a otal of eight DIMM slots, split into dual sets of four above and below the CPU socket. All DIMM slots where designed with metal reinforcement brackets to better secure the DIMMs in place. Quad Channel memory mode is active with modules placed in slots 1 / 3 or 2 / 4 in both the upper and lower slot sets. The primary slots in both sets are DIMM slots 1 / 3. There are two USB 3.0 headers to the lower left of the lower DIMM slots.
The Intel X299 chipset is covered by a low profile black heat sink with an overlay stamped with the AORUS brand logo. Just below the chipset heat sink and to the left of the SATA port block are the Thunderbolt header and the Intel VROC header. An Intel VROC Key can be plugged into the VROC header to unlock the chipset's VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) functionality. The Intel VROC function allows for RAIDing of M.2 drives sitting on the board's PCIe bus – installed in the three integrated ports as well as those installed to PCIe M.2-capable add-in cards; In addition to the to PCIe x4 M.2 slots, the board was designed with eight SATA III ports. Several of the SATA ports and the secondary M.2 port share bandwidth. As a result, the left side SATA ports (SATA ports 4 / 5 / 6 / 7) are automatically disabled with any M.2 device seated into the secondary M.2 slot (located by the CPU socket).
The board contains a total of five PCIe slots – five PCIe x16 slots. The PCIe x16 slots support the following bandwidth configurations depending on the processor in use:
- 44-lane processor – PCIe x16 slots 1 / 3 / 5 support x16, x16 / x16, or x16 / x16 / x8. PCIe x16 slot 2 supports an x4 maximum.
- 28-lane processor – PCIe x16 slots 1 / 3 support x16, x16 / x8. PCIe x16 slot 2 supports an x4 maximum. PCIe x16 slot 5 is disabled.
- 16-lane processor – PCIe x16 slots 1 / 3 support x16, x16 / x4. PCIe x16 slots 2 / 5 are disabled
With this board, GIGABYTE offers support for connecting multiple RGB and RGBW LED strips to the board using either of the RGBW 12V headers located to the upper left of the fourth PCIe x16 slot. Additionally, GIGABYTE provided an RGB LED connection just below the ATX12V power connector and to the upper right of the lower DIMM slot set. Connecting an RGB / RGBW LED strip to the RGBW 12V header synchronizes the LED strip color and activity with that of the motherboard's integrated LEDs. In the screencap, an RGB cable is connected to the RGBW 12V header. Notice that the board has four integrated RGB zones (in addition to the RGB headers) – integrated into the rear panel cover, lining PCIe x16 slots 1 and 3, integrated into the underside of the boards audio separator line, and underneath the AORUS logo integrated into the chipset heat sink.
The X299 AORUS Gaming 3 board contains the following ports integrated into its rear panel: a PS/2 hybrid keyboard / mouse port, sox USB 3.0 ports (blue), two USB 3.1 10Gbps ports (red) – one Type A and one Type c, an Intel I219-V GigE RJ-45 port, and six analogue audio outputs.
Why is CPU-Z showing 1.92
Why is CPU-Z showing 1.92 vcore @4601MHz – this can’t be accurate. What gives?
CPU-Z is having issues with
CPU-Z is having issues with reading the correct vcore for SKY-X. It is instead reading VccIN which is fed to the FIVR (fully integrated voltage regulator) and will translate into the correct set vcore.
KBL-X doesn’t have FIVR so vcore will be fed directly to the cpu. This is how the switch works between the two vastly different cpus.
HWInfo v554 works well for
HWInfo v554 works well for giving actual voltages and other info. Can be found here:
https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php
I would be leary of this
I would be leary of this board with it’s single 8 pin CPU power as the warning about such boards applies here. My question then though, is that I’ve seen several X299 boards with the 8 pin + 4 pin CPU power and wonder if that’s enough juice to run the VRMs at acceptable temperatures?
They fixed the VRM heat on
They fixed the VRM heat on this model ?
Those CPU seem to require hefty custom liquid cooling, and this eliminate airflow around the socket.
Where the VRM are under heavy stress, and covered with a “heat shield” vs heat sink.
I have a feeling that if you run this board in a closed case overnight running prime95 (small) the PCB will start to degrade around the VRM
All the new X299 mobos have
All the new X299 mobos have the “heat insluator” VRM heatsink issue right now.
Give it a few months and I’d expect it to be sorted.
Fixing the 8 pin connector overheating issues will be harder and take longer I’d expect but is addressable by the end user with a fan or just good case airflow. Still it’d piss me off HAVING to do that stuff on a platform this expensive.
I don’t think it makes much sense at all to buy X299 right now unless you’re rich enough that $300+ is pocket change for you and can easily afford to re-buy parts with fixed issues as they’re released.
Even if you hate AMD and really want X299 now it makes more sense for Threadripper to show up since maybe it’ll end up causing Intel to drops prices some.
As long as you have active
As long as you have active airflow over the VRM sink, you should be ok. That's what I found at least. It doesn't take much airflow either.
Yes I’ve seen other such
Yes I’ve seen other such commentary saying essentially the same thing too but that seems rather half assed to do by default on something as expensive as this platform is. Its the straw breaking this particular camel’s back.
Why be a for-pay beta testing early adopter on a expensive platform now when you can wait a few months and any issues will be fixed for possibly less too?
If Intel had kept the prices down more in general on the chips, done a better IHS, and done some more sane “entry level” X299 CPU’s I’d be forgiving, price and implementation quality matter a whole lot I think, but they half assed all of that so I don’t see why I or anyone should try and meet them half way here.
If it naturally gets that hot
If it naturally gets that hot because of inadequate design, superficially cooling it with fans likely wont be a good long term solution. It would more than likely still fail prematurely.
Not a EE here but all
Not a EE here but all commentary by people who know their stuff suggests the VRM design isn’t bad per se its just the cooling for it was implemented in a piss poor manner that emphasized cosmetics over effectiveness.
Personally I wouldn’t mind going back to the days when mobos only had stuff like colored slots or a non green colored PCB instead of all these LEDs if it meant getting better VRM cooling.
Something like you used to see on the GIGABYTE P35T-DQ6 would be nice to have today now that VRM space is getting cramped due to the large sockets and number of DIMMs on these boards taking up valuable near socket real estate.
Just too much stuff in too small a space putting out too much heat to deal with in the same old crappy manner that they used to be able to get away with on X99 or 270 mobos.
Why are the BIOS settings
Why are the BIOS settings screenshots showing widely off settings? Would’ve been really helpful to show the actual settings used to achieve the overclock – because I’m struggling to get it to work on my Aorus G9 and this might have helped.
For UEFI, I show the max
For UEFI, I show the max settings available in the screencaps.
For the OC, I used the following settings with my 7900X proc:
47 multiplier (CPU)
47 multiplier (Turbo per core)
30 multiplier (Mesh)
100 base clock speed
Mem speed 3000MHz (wouldn't go above that and remain stable)
AVX offset set to 1
VRin – 1.9V
CPU Voltage – 1.26V
Memory Voltage – 1.355V
Mesh Voltage – 1.20V
Enhanced Multicore Performance Enabled
All other settings auto
Hope that helps…
I love you, Morry.
I love you, Morry.
Disappointed they have
Disappointed they have removed the Optical SPDIF output from this $300 motherboard. There is probably a SPDIF header on the motherboard at some location but this will require another card to provide this functionality. There probably arent enough people who use this output to a receiver but its nice to have nonetheless and kind of a cheap move to not include it.
How come he doesn’t mention
How come he doesn’t mention temperatures or power draw? He blames AVX for overclocking problems: “the CPU speed was downclocked to 4.4-4.5GHz with AIDA64 running because of a bug with the AVX code in the BIOS version used for testing.” So why would AVX cause it to downclock? I have read that the AVX circuits are a tremendous heat generator.
We are not getting the full story.
The oc problem was an AVX
The oc problem was an AVX issue with the BIOS. The BIOS would auto downclock the core speed with AVX instructions activer (such as those that run during my AIDA stress testing run). GIGABYTE confirmed this behavior and I have been working with them for a solution. I have not seen this behavior on other X299 boards (like the MSI X299 Gaming M7 ACK that I'm in the process of testing). On the MSI board, all cores run at the same speed while overclocked no matter what stress app I throw at it.
I included HWInfo in the full screen cap of the overclock so that you could see the per core speed vs the core speed that CPUz reports.
Thanks…
279$ no thanks.. ill stick
279$ no thanks.. ill stick with 270 chipset.