Z270 Motherboard Preview Roundup

Gigabyte

Gigabyte will be refocussing its efforts across the spectrum for its Z270 lineup, and we've seen some very interesting items from some early slides too. However, like Asus, the company has had a shake-up with its branding, and its high-end boards are now dangling under the Aorus brand - the same as its laptops and peripherals. That said, the boards appear to be roughly the same, with the Gaming 3, 5 and 9 hitting the shelves with some advanced audio and water blocks from EKWB dealing with the VRM heatsinks too on the Gaming 9.

There's also a Z270-Gaming 8 this time round, with a black colour scheme and Bitspower as opposed to EKWB for the water-cooling parts. Our testing so far shows that Gigabyte's lighting is much improved and even supports RGBW LED strips, which sport dedicated white LEDs for brighter and more vibrant colours. Its boards are also just as capable as those from MSI and Asus when it comes to getting the most out of Intel's new CPUs. We've been particularly impressed with the Creative Sound Core audio on the Gaming 7, plus the fact it offers Thunderbolt 3 support and Intel-powered USB 3.1 ports for a very competitive price.

Its Windows-based software has been improved too with some serious tweaking now possible outside of the EFI from overclocking to fan control. We haven't seen much information on its other boards, but we'll be following up today with reviews of two from different ends of the budget spectrum, so stay tuned.

Mini-ITX

Micro-ATX

ATX