Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top impressions: A beautiful motherboard with a matching price tag

At Computex 2024 earlier this year, Gigabyte revealed its full range of motherboards based on Intel’s Z890 chipset but it was one that really caught my eyes – the flagship Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top.

As far as flagship motherboards go, the very premium Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top is a beast of a board. I mean, it even comes with a dual-fan cooler attachment that covers all of its four DIMM slots. And I’ve not even talked about the giant screen on the I/O zone that shows off very nice-looking lighting effects. In short, this board has everything you’ll ever need (and also not need) right out of the box.

For the Z890 generation, Gigabyte has up to 18 different Z890-based motherboards (I won’t list them all here) and the Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top sits right at the top. Curiously, I have not seen this board being sold at local retailers but probably for a good reason – it’s very, very expensive. A quick search on Newegg.com revealed a US$1,929 price tag. ROG’s own Z890 equivalent flagship, the Maximus Z890 Extreme, isn’t exactly cheap either but its retail pricing of S$1,699 (from Techyard) certainly makes it more palatable.

But price aside, what makes the Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top so…extreme? Let’s take a look.

For starters, the Gigabyte board comes with literally the latest bells and whistles. The key ones include dual Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports, dual 10G LAN ports and Wi-Fi 7 with an ARGB antenna. Thunderbolt 5 (TB5) is the biggest deal, in my opinion. Not only is it backward compatible with existing Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 devices, but TB5 allows for bidirectional bandwidth of up to 80Gbps – great if you’re a content creator that needs to transfer huge amounts of files between devices quickly. The TB5 ports will also allow this board to hook up to two 8K monitors too, while Wi-Fi 7 not only ensures networking longevity but also a faster and more secure connection with the board.

Elsewhere, Gigabyte has added an impressive 10 USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A ports, which should be more than enough for most of us mortals. For storage, the Z890 Aorus Extreme AI Top comes with one PCIe 5.0 M.2 and three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots. Speaking of PCIe, while there are two PCIe x16 slots, only the primary slot works at x16 while the second runs at x8 if a second GPU is installed.

As with almost all of the latest motherboards today, the Gigabyte board is extremely easy to work with, especially for DIY beginners. These include the tool-less M.2 EZ-Latch Click, M.2 EZ-Latch Plus and the PCIe EZ-Latch Plus. These are not unique to Gigabyte’s motherboards, as brands like ASUS and even MSI also have similar features. The PCIe EZ-Latch Plus, for example, makes removing your graphics card a lot less fiddly – especially useful with the latest GeForce RTX 40 series (and the upcoming RTX 50 series, no doubt) graphics cards that are not only getting larger but also heavier. But I still prefer ROG’s method of “tugging” the GPU to detach it, without the need for a button or lever to unlock it.

Gigabyte has also added some exotic material to reinforce the Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top’s structural integrity. For instance, the primary PCIe 5.0 slot is covered with titanium (yes, that same rare and precious high-strength metal) while an inner lining rubber strip helps to safeguard your graphics card’s PCB against potential damage. There’s even a metal reinforcement plate at the back to provide better stability and durability to support large – and heavier – graphics cards.  It is quite “xtreme”, but at least you know where your money goes to in the board.

Visually, the Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top is stunning with neon Tron-like lighting and effects appearing on the “Aorus” brand that stretches from the top left to the bottom right of the board, the primary M.2 heatsink and the dual-fan cooler attachment when powered up. It’s really quite the complete motherboard from Gigabyte, if I may say so myelf. That price tag, though. Wow.

The Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Xtreme AI Top motherboard is available at select online stores (such as Newegg). It is not available in Singapore yet.

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