AORUS Z270X Gaming 8
RRP : $ 459.99 | Website : www . aorus . com
Test Machine
• INTEL Core i7 7700K
• G . SKILL TRIDENT X DDR4 3200 C14
• EVGA GTX 780Ti K | NGP | N Edition
• SAMSUNG PX941 512GB
• CORSAIR AX1500i
• Windows 10 x64 ( F4h BIOS )
In this day and age , where computers in the home are by and large used almost exclusively for games . It is going to get increasingly difficult for vendors to differentiate their products . Not only within the same vendor ’ s offerings , but of course against the competition . It is a game of millimeters and what makes or breaks a motherboard is right here in the details . The AORUS Gaming 8 is one such board . Long gone are the days of motherboard located caches
22 The OverClocker Issue 40 | 2017 which could dramatically affect performance , be it for the good or the bad . With a chipset , such as the Z270 for instance ; it has everything one could possibly need without resorting to a 3rd party vendor . So much so that if you take a smaller vendor ’ s cheapest Z270 offering and compare it with what AOURS ( OK , let ’ s just say GIGABYTE from here on in ) has . In general terms , there are no differences in the memory supported , the CPU , coolers , storage etc . The thing is that the lesser board is $ 120 while this one is a cool $ 460 or so . Nearly four times the price and selling that price discrepancy , is next to impossible .
Having said that , it is apparent that the GAMING 8 is expensive , perhaps even more so than it should be . At $ 399 it is significantly more attractive , but as one has observed . When you ’ ve already committed to paying $ 400 for a motherboard , that extra $ 50 isn ’ t a stretch . The question instead is , would you rather put that $ 50 towards a graphics card , storage etc . or pour it into a motherboard ?
The GAMING 8 , unlike it ’ s even more expensive stable mate the GAMING 9 , makes a more plausible case for itself . For instance , it is for the most part just as feature rich . In fact , the differences between the Gaming 7 right through to the 9 is just excess in any one feature .
Nobody really believes you need two GIGABIT LAN ports , and even if by some miracle , you do . There ’ s nothing that necessitates that they are both using the latest Atheros KILLER ETHERNET 2500 NIC , which is the case with the GAMING 9 , but not so with the GAMING 7 and 8 . As far as functionality goes , you ’ ve lost