Let’s start by thanking Gigabyte for allowing us to preview the Aorus Z270X-Gaming9 motherboard , which will be officially presented in a couple of days at the most important technology fair in the world: CES 2017. This looks like a class mobo. flagship with E-ATX form factor, also featuring a chipset suitable for Intel Kaby Lake architectures with LGA1151 socket.

The Z270X-Gaming 9 looks like an imposing mobo, with attention to every detail and with a series of features that place it at the top of its category . The white of the various covers, on which the word AORUS is shown, goes perfectly with various dissipative elements that are satin-finished. Among these , the Water Block powered by EKWB immediately stands out, one of the main features of the Gaming 9, which will allow us to definitely keep the temperature of the entire area surrounding the processor at bay. The G-Frost Hybrid Water Block, renamed in this way, is undoubtedly a gem that immediately gives us the idea of ​​how this product is designed for the most demanding gamers, and that will undoubtedly be welcomed with pleasure by all modding enthusiasts and geeks in the field of overclocking.

The customization at the aesthetic level of this motherboard is really impressive with the use of the RGB Fusion software we will be able to adjust six different lighting zones, each in a completely independent way. Basically eight plays of light are available, and always within the software we find a section dedicated to advanced options, thanks to which we can manage the various transition effects between one color and another or even synchronize our LEDs in time. music!
As usual nowadays for all high-end GIGABYTE cards, there is also in this case the steel finishes on the PCIe slots and the RAM slots. Speaking of PCIe slots, there are 4 of them equally spaced, on which we can connect up to four graphics cards in parallel (NVIDIA and AMD). To the right of the processor there are four slots for Non-ECC DDR4 RAM, able to reach a frequency of 4000MHz OC thanks to the support of XMP profiles!
Speaking instead of slots for the various storage media, also in this case the Gaming 9 offers the user a possibility of solutions that we have rarely seen on a mobo with LGA 1151 socket, alongside the 12 SATA inputs , there are two ports U.2 and two M2 connections, with the possibility of connecting up to three SSDs in RAID 0 using the PCIe interface.
As for the Gaming 7, also in this case the sectoraudio has been entrusted to Creative, the card that integrates the Aorus Gaming 9 is a Sound Blaster ZxRi that boasts a signal-to-noise ratio of 120db . It will therefore not be difficult to expect performance close to what we would have using a high-end dedicated sound card.
The level of connectivity is left nothing to chance, since the following are certainly noteworthy: the presence of a USB 3.1 Type C mail, with support for Thunderbolt 3 certification, thanks to which it will be possible to reach a data transfer speed of 40 Gb / s; an HDM1 2.0 output, the two ethernet ports with integrated E2500 chip. In this case, moreover, always bundled with the card, we are provided with an antenna for the wi-fi connection.