I bought one of these boards. I had to return it. The board would power up, but would not POST, giving the five-beep error code and a VGA light. I changed processors, video cards, HDMI cables, RAM, monitors (and made sure the monitors were on when I attempted to boot up), and power supplies. I double and triple-checked all of my connectors and reseated everything. I reset the CMOS. No change. I am frustrated beyond belief. After more troubleshooting, I discovered that many, if not all, of the socket 1700 motherboards are shipping with Secure Boot enabled and CSM disabled. This is causing issues with older video cards and preventing the systems from ever reaching the UEFI/BIOS screen. My GTX 970 would not work in this motherboard because of these settings.
Be interesting to watch the next videos with this board and your overall take on it! Worth noting that Gigabyte have released a bunch of BIOS updates since release and the current F6 consolidates all those interim updates into one, power levels were adjusted in one of those releases amongst other fixes. My new build upgrade from 6700K on a Gigabyte Z170 X Gaming-5 was with this Gaming-X DDR4 board and a 12700KF. I had an RTX 2070 Super for a few weeks before being able to get a 3080 Ti FE at nVidia's MSRP. On the 2070 Super I had no problems but once I was up and running with the 3080 Ti, around the same time I also upgraded the RAM from 32GB 3600 to 64GB 3600 and in games I was getting a straight crash to desktop, no errors or anything, just quits to desktop in most games that were demanding, like Cyberpunk, Forza Horizon 5 etc. After much faffing around and posting about it on OcUK forums, it was recommended that I adjust some BIOS values namely for the System Agent voltage and RAM voltage. Taking the RAM to 1.4v and setting the System Agent to 1.3v (default is auto) completely fixed any crash issues. I checked a before and after using Karhu RAM Tester and whilst before these two changes I was seeing RAM errors even as early as 50% coverage in the test, I could now run it for hours with zero errors. So yes I agree there are some underlying quirks with power levels closely related to auto/standard component voltages on Z690 but they are fixable with a bit of trial and error in the BIOS. The rest of the system is absolutely perfect I have to say, and the whole build looks so clean on this board. Idle temps are around 27/28, load temps in gaming no more than 65 for the 12700KF, all fans around 700rpm so super quiet. Probably the most powerful but still efficient gaming/editing build I have ever done. Also a worthy mention is that I found coil whine to be audibly annoying when in the BIOS and in certain games/menus or doing certain things that utilised the GPU. I completely eradicated all coil whine by simply setting C-States Control in the BIOS from Auto to Enabled, then disabling C1E in the expanded C-States sub-menu. This has not affected the CPU throttling down in any way since Windows is set to balanced power mode and still throttles down the CPU to a few hundred MHz etc. All coil whine has been solved simply by turning off C1E on my config. As it stands, all my benchmark results marry up to what others on other Z690 boards are getting so that indicates all is well. The full specs for reference to anyone else thinking of a similar build is: 12700KF Arctic Freezer II 280mm AIO 64GB 3600MHz Corsair LPX (2x32GB DR Samsung chips) 3080 Ti FE 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe 8TB Samsung 870 QVO SATA Phanteks AMP 750w PSU Corsair 5000D Airflow case (Arctic PST PWM 120mm + 140mm exhaust, AIO fans as intake)
@@ahamedfareed5532 No, still runs like a baby 24/7. Wanted to include a link to the CPU-Z Validation page but for whatever reason it gets deleted. But yea. Still use it, still love it will continue to use it.
@@ahamedfareed5532 It always depends on what you are planning to doif you wanna game and save some bucks get yourself a 3070TI and DDR4. The difference between DDR4 and 5 (my experience) is not really noticeable. But once Raptor Lake is out I´m gonna upgrade but I stay at the same board (Gigabyte Z690 Gaming) just with DDR5It´s cheap and reliable and a good buy. You can find my configuraten if you google for CPUZ validator, click on the first link and add /tn9vj8 to it.
@@r0tb3rt Hello buddy Yeah im building a gaming pc and i already bought an I5 12gen K processer. and also looking to buy 3070 ti thanks for the info and what cpu cooler do you recommend buddy?
Apparently there are now three versions of the Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X DDR4 - Ver. 1 Rev 1.0, Ver. 1 Rev 1.1, and Ver. 2 Rev 1.0. What is the difference between them?
Built with this board using a 12700k, 32GB 4x8Gb 3600MHz, RTX 3070 and 2 M.2 SSDs (Samsung 980 and WD SN570) I had problems with the RAM at first, it wasn't setting the XMP and was throwing up the DDR light on the board but after a quick bios update to F6, everything worked perfectly
@@ahamedfareed5532 I actually wouldn't, my board has bad coil whine so there's always a buzzing sound from it which Gigabyte knows is something that happens to their board only, also the audio from the board isn't great at all!
Did you update your bios with Q flashback before building? And I didn't quite get whether linux ran well on your build. I have to watch videos a couple of times 👍 Glad I found your videos. I prefer CPU Fan Cooling , your thoughts Thanks
Have you tried the motherboard HDMI port with the iGPU only ? I have the same motherboard and I'm having issues while connected to HDMI. I've tried different cables but no change, however at 1080p the cable quality requirements shouldn't be an issue. DisplayPort seems to work fine with no issues. Just wondering if it's something specific from my setup or maybe poor signal quality from the motherboard HDMI port.
I'm not actually fond of the idea of getting rid of so many PCie slots just for m.2 I understand it's a gaming board and redoing the M.2 to be 2 PCIe 8x slots may run afoul of the huge GPU heatsinks seen nowadays but it would be nice to see ATX boards actually take advantage of being ATX and moving SSDs to an add-in card, it keeps options open rather than restricting lanes to only M.2 M.2 is getting long in the tooth to be honest, think of all the insanity we could have if there was a return to AIC SSDs
yep, it would've been so much expandable if it had normal PCI express slots and a convenient m.2 to pci-e adapter that would have come with the mobo. Sure, leave one m.2 on the motherboard itself but use the actual usable space saved for random add-in cards, PC style.
M.2 isn't going anywhere, it's used by laptops and gives massive economies of scale to reduce price of what would be a much smaller SSD than a 2.5. PCIe SSD cards would be limited to desktop only and this would just make them too expensive. The only issue here is motherboard manufacturers that prefer to put M.2 slots on the board instead than PCIe slots + a cheapo bifurcation-based PCIe adapter
I don't know, but it seems m.2 slot is way under-utilized than it could be especially for the smaller size, and potential use with faster speeds each year it seems lol. One current possible use example could be for a complete streaming setup using one small mid-tower pc if no room for dual pcs, or space for larger cases designed run dual pc. In this mid-tower setup using m.2 SDI capture card to keep your main PCIe 4.0/5.0 x8/x16 lines for hardware which can benefit more in those lanes than the majority of current SSDs need/will need for most. Depending on if you're an audiophile allowing a 2-slot GPU in top PCIe x16 and audio card below it while allowing video capture directly through m.2 from up to 4 sources per m.2 slot. As tech continues to advance, it will be the more you can fit on the board in the least space = most enticing haha. I mean look at the trend of pcs in the last 15 years... mATX basically died out for a bit recently because majority of people want to build ITX sized computers. Others build in mid-tower ATX or full with ATX/eATX to have space for the water cooling, or more powerful hardware while better managing temperatures. I predict mATX comeback wave soon where boards might skip out on SATA 6gbs ports and using space freed up for more m.2 lanes. This as well as going from the normal mATX using one PCIe x16 and one PCIe 4x (if 2nd slot is x16 it's usually limited to x4 when top slot is in use) on currents boards to newer boards standardizing two PCIe 5.0 x16 lanes with also four or more m.2 PCIe x4/5... See in my opinion ITX is made simply too small thermally and for current hardware size needs. Even stuff like a decent CPU cooler to fit in an ITX case which can actually cool newer top notch processors, its hard to find, and then even harder to get to fit and work properly with the space given on the ITX board due to larger onboard heatsinks lol. EATX and ATX are fine if your room is okay with mid-full size case. I know people having to live in cramped areas, and cannot change this. So a gray area of mATX production could be improved on drastically. Slightly bigger than ITX and using a case made specifically for mATX, just feels and looks better than cramming everything into such a tiny ITX box while being afraid of spontaneous combustion or the sounds of cables grinding in fans lmao. Honestly most do not need SATA 6gbs slots. I haven't used them in 5+ years haha. Give me two m.2 slots there instead. Way better and no cables while not taking up the main x16 slot areas on board with how AIC SSDS do.
@@marcogenovesi8570 yeah, I see the standard growing with the years, but for example, with a pci-e slot by 8 or by 16 on pci-e gen 4 (15.76 GB/s with 8 lanes and 31.5 GB/s with 16 lanes) can provide enough bandwidth for a blazing fast ssd or a couple less fast ones, but you can install the adaptors wherever, and include more adaptors if desired. I think the variety of pci-e connectors and available electrical lanes on standard pci-e makes it very un-standard-y, and m.2 is the same everywhere. At least, if there was a standard to mount m.2 devices vertically (maybe there is such standard, idk), more space would eventually be saved on motherboards for other m.2 slots or even PCI-e slots or whatever. It's all about possibility and liberty to put a crap-ton of capture cards, GPUs, audio cards, network cards, newer USB version cards, a bunch of "SATAn" ports for big data storage for a desktop PC so you put it all together for a build/render/storage/mail/media/firewall or all of the above server/desktop PC... the PC is awesome.
@@marcogenovesi8570 Not saying M.2 should go away but for enthusiasts there should be more options as M.2 is somewhat lacking in board space. There is reasons the enterprise doesn't deal with M.2 much
@@marcogenovesi8570 Right 2.5G really seems like a half-step You would like to see 10G more but it's also one of those things where if you wanted 10G you probably already have it (10G RJ45 copper is getting cheap and SFP+ is proper cheap) and wouldn't bother getting in on a motherboard unless you really don't want a separate NIC taking up space or you're on ITX (is there even a ITX board with 10G?)
Been really happy with my 12600k+DDR4+B660, gives me more performance than a 5800x, costs less, platform has more features and an upgrade path to 13th gen, while AM4 is end of life.
"while AM4 is end of life" - like it's a bad thing. For AM4 to support 3 full generations of Ryzen (not including last pieces of Bulldozer or Zen+ refreshes) is pretty commendable in my book. Fact that AMD missed the mark with Zen 3 pricing leading to pretty awesome setups on Alder Lake should and will benefit consumers in the end anyway. Great job putting together this good of a setup!
Well, literally every Intel platform in since 2009 or so has been EOL from the launch on.... AM4 has had a lifetime of over 4 years which is quite a bit better and there is still the 5800X3D coming this spring.
@@JIAroJIy4 End of life isn't bad for a few reasons, one being a bigger selection of CPUs to fit your need and mature chipset drivers. But the fact remains that Alder Lake has better single threaded performance compared to AMD. I would recommend AMD if going with the 5900X for doing heavy multithreaded workloads while using less power. The average user will benefit more from the E cores of Alder Lake with it's better single threaded performance, than of the 8 or 12 performance cores of AMD suitable more for heavy workloads with lower TDP.
I bought this motherboard & am having trouble mounting the huge Duo Fan msi gaming x RX6600XT. It looks like the .M2 covers are preventing the card's seating in the main pciex 16 slot, connecting the right PSU plugs to the power connectors. I'm confused by the 8, 4 CPU plugs vs. PCIe pwr 8, 4 connectors?
You might have already seen this, but for hardware Unboxed's video on Z690 VRM testing their Gigabyte boards (which included this board) all performed at the bottom Power consumption and thermal wise. They didn't test ASRock boards, but it might be Gigabyte having an issue, not DDr4 vs DDr5.
Awesome thanks for the video. Wendell what do you think about having only 2 DIMM slots being better for DDR5 on Z690 boards. More stable and less latency than having 4 slots?
I would say these "teething" issues will remain on 6x0 series chipsets (well, boards that use them). Hopefully manufacturers will figure stuff out by the time z790 will be released.
Ooof, struggling to find a Mobo. One the one hand, I want (NEED) single core performance. the 12700K fits the bill. I'm currently on a 3800x. for 300-350$ for a processor, and 200$ for a mobo, I'd be in the same expected ballpark of the 5800x3d. The question is, does anyone think the 3D cache is going to be worth it? What's a good board for the 12700k that isn't freaking like 300$++? I'd like to stay in the 200$ region. I don't need anything super fancy. Only two that I've found are this, and the Asus PRIME z690 D4 Plan on staying DDR4 for now, until DDR5 pricing drops and shows bit more promise, and by that time, i'll be ready to move on to a new Mobo/Processor anyways likely... EDIT:: I ended up getting an MSI z690 Pro DDR4, and managed to pick up a 12700k for 330$. Paired it with my 32gb 3600mhz CL16 memory and its running great, have it OC'd to single/dual core at 5.6ghz, and it scales down on how many cores/what temp from there to a respectable 5.2-5.3ghz when all P-cores are running. Still on Win10, but probably be switching to Win11 "soon" in the process of migrating files and folders to a backup HDD.
Wow glad you got it all going. Have all the parts but I'm stuck figuring out how to plug everything together. The huge size of parts for this new build are mind blowing.
Just put a build together with this motherboard. Quick question about the RGB headers (newb to RGB stuff). I also got a Cooler Master Hyper 12 RGB cooler. The RGB connector from the fan is 4 pin female. Can I use this on the 4 pin RGB header on the board? At the moment using it with the included controller. But hoping I can just connect to board so it can be synced with RGB Fusion.
Hello there thenx for the video. Have problem to conect rgb msi coreliquid 360r v2 fans and bump ist working but not the rgb.. Where do I conect thus to work? Thenx
What do you mean by XMP not reporting out the "correct cores" via the ACPI tables? I've had a number of issues with the Z690/12900K system (e.g. 5.15.11 kernel results in a kernel panic when you also have 100 Gbps Infiniband installed and trying to have it automount NFSoRDMA on boot). Thanks.
so will all 4 m.2 ports work with 16x on the videocard? or do i need to skip the top slot again. i thought there was 20 lanes from the cpu, which would be 16 for gpu and 1 m.2, and the 3 bottom nvme run off the chipset. thanks for any reply's.
I'm looking at upgrading from an 8700k to a 12900k to get the most out of my 3090 FE but on a budget, this board would be great as i could use the 32 gig of vengeance ram i have in my current rig saving a lot of money. I have built a few rigs in the past but i still have a lot to learn and i'm confused.. because if i choose this board i would want to connect my Z906 5.1 speakers.. now i know you said in the video that you can do this, but HOW? Good video btw, lot's of useful info.
Having massive issues getting my memory running on it's XMP profile. Got 4x 8GB Corsair 3000MHz memory and I literally can't run on anything apart from the standard, 'basic' profile. :/
Hey I can't find any information on what cpu connector to connect even after reading manual. The 4pin or 8pin? And depending on what cpu I pair with the board will that make any difference on which connector I do if I only do one?
@@Level1Techs Had the same question. I don’t tend to overclock. But is it okay to connect 8+4 or just not at all necessary? Thinking of an i5 12400 for my build.
I wonder if it’s worth building a small form factor pc with a 12th gen i3 on an h660 motherboard to serve as a small server to run gameservers Single thread performance and power efficiency kinda had me window shopping
From what I've heard from linus tech tips video on 12th gen processors, there was an issue with Windows 11 cpu scheduler. I'm about to build a pc with one of those. Has it been resolved or should I go for W10? Thanks.
Got that board and im sending it back, its by far the most terrible bios ever. It wont let me boot from anything and top slot m.2 doesn't work half the time. I have build many many pcs and never seen anything like this. Tried nvme drive, sata ssd and usb drive. None can be selected.
Good afternoon everyone! Can anyone tell me if a 3slots 3080 GPU can fit in a gigabyte z690 gaming x ddr4 motherboard? Apologies for asking, I am new to PC building and I was about to assemble the first one! Thank you in advance.
My first gigabyte board ever and my last, returned it. They claim best vrm 16+1+2 but really boards with much less out perform it. It has loud electronic noise in certain task, quality all around this board is below competition, including features. If you do research I see nothing but reasons not to buy gigabyte motherboards. I have gigabyte monitor and it's great but the motherboards are just not a good purchase. Even on a good price I'd pay more to avoid gigabyte.
@@treyquattro in my opinion I have had good MSI boards and I bought my brother an ASRock board and that one has been my favorite. Years ago I had an Asus board and I just got an Asus to replace the gigabyte and years later I ran into same problem I used to have. Where soon as I enable xmp my computer blue screens & crashes. I swapped slower ram and enabled xmp and it's working great so far. So Asus boards are picky about ram. This was an AMD CPU board and my current Asus is Intel. One feature I use on all new computers is putting a negative offset to decrease CPU voltage which is important to me because my temperatures drop a lot and performance is better while consuming much less power. The gigabyte board I couldn't find that option yet MSI, ASRock, and Asus all have this great feature along with many additional useful features. So between these 3: MSI, ASRock, & Asus any of these would be a great choice. I learned from my current experience with my new Asus board different memory and/or configurations of memory affect games stuttering, so if your a gamer like me I would spend a little extra and whichever motherboard you go with check the memory qvl for the motherboard you want and get best value one for the board you choose for the best experience to avoid stutters and for stability. Or at least some good memory because even though I have powerful system with good GPU/CPU the memory has effected if the fps will have small little stutters or not.
@@user-ji1rq6tq2p thanks for the detailed response. I've had good results with ASUS and MSI in the past. I've never put together a Gigabyte-based system but I'm planning on Gigabyte for the next build. Nothing seems perfect it seems. At least you managed to return the board OK.
@Rick Sanchez I mean it makes sense... Personally I will only begin to say that X company is bad at making X product when I will have a good enough sample. I will not tell that a company is shit over one default on one product. However if I RMA and then the replacement does the same now I will start to say that the product may be the problem.
@@treyquattro , they're not required. Linux just can't properly take advantage the E cores, which can reduce performance occasionally. Seem odd given the history of big little on ARM, but the fix is on the way.
@@toddedens6788 Thanks. I know Linus is on the job. I should have said required for optimal performance. I'm going to go with a homogenous computing solution (10/11th Gen Intel) as the general advice for Linux boxes is to go with one or two generations behind the state of the art. Plus, Z690 boards are expensive!
@@rafaelveloso7882 DDR5 is Gigabyte Z690 Aurus Pro, DDR4 is Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X, if you mean that Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X is DDR4 and DDR5, then please post here DDR5 motherboard that has Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X model.
This might be a Gigabyte branded motherboard, but it's an Aorus Elite without Wi-Fi. Look like they reused PCB layouts in order to get these to market in time for launch.
I love using my Crucial Ram. USA designed using USA based Micron memory chips. You can't go wrong. I love supporting american companies. Wish we had a company in america to create silicon wafers (blanks) so we don't have to rely on china anymore.(shortages are forced by china as government of china controls the corporations and tells them what they can and cant do, like not supplying wafers to american companies)
It's better to buy 128GB DDR4 instead of wasting money on 32GB DDR5. At least with DDR4 i can than use a good 64GB RAM Disk (where i put my virtual testing emulator for Android and other things - also good to increase write endurance)
I bought one of these boards. I had to return it. The board would power up, but would not POST, giving the five-beep error code and a VGA light. I changed processors, video cards, HDMI cables, RAM, monitors (and made sure the monitors were on when I attempted to boot up), and power supplies. I double and triple-checked all of my connectors and reseated everything. I reset the CMOS. No change. I am frustrated beyond belief.
After more troubleshooting, I discovered that many, if not all, of the socket 1700 motherboards are shipping with Secure Boot enabled and CSM disabled. This is causing issues with older video cards and preventing the systems from ever reaching the UEFI/BIOS screen. My GTX 970 would not work in this motherboard because of these settings.
Great review thanks, went a long way to helping me decide the hardware for my new build !
Be interesting to watch the next videos with this board and your overall take on it!
Worth noting that Gigabyte have released a bunch of BIOS updates since release and the current F6 consolidates all those interim updates into one, power levels were adjusted in one of those releases amongst other fixes.
My new build upgrade from 6700K on a Gigabyte Z170 X Gaming-5 was with this Gaming-X DDR4 board and a 12700KF. I had an RTX 2070 Super for a few weeks before being able to get a 3080 Ti FE at nVidia's MSRP. On the 2070 Super I had no problems but once I was up and running with the 3080 Ti, around the same time I also upgraded the RAM from 32GB 3600 to 64GB 3600 and in games I was getting a straight crash to desktop, no errors or anything, just quits to desktop in most games that were demanding, like Cyberpunk, Forza Horizon 5 etc.
After much faffing around and posting about it on OcUK forums, it was recommended that I adjust some BIOS values namely for the System Agent voltage and RAM voltage. Taking the RAM to 1.4v and setting the System Agent to 1.3v (default is auto) completely fixed any crash issues. I checked a before and after using Karhu RAM Tester and whilst before these two changes I was seeing RAM errors even as early as 50% coverage in the test, I could now run it for hours with zero errors.
So yes I agree there are some underlying quirks with power levels closely related to auto/standard component voltages on Z690 but they are fixable with a bit of trial and error in the BIOS.
The rest of the system is absolutely perfect I have to say, and the whole build looks so clean on this board. Idle temps are around 27/28, load temps in gaming no more than 65 for the 12700KF, all fans around 700rpm so super quiet. Probably the most powerful but still efficient gaming/editing build I have ever done.
Also a worthy mention is that I found coil whine to be audibly annoying when in the BIOS and in certain games/menus or doing certain things that utilised the GPU. I completely eradicated all coil whine by simply setting C-States Control in the BIOS from Auto to Enabled, then disabling C1E in the expanded C-States sub-menu. This has not affected the CPU throttling down in any way since Windows is set to balanced power mode and still throttles down the CPU to a few hundred MHz etc. All coil whine has been solved simply by turning off C1E on my config.
As it stands, all my benchmark results marry up to what others on other Z690 boards are getting so that indicates all is well.
The full specs for reference to anyone else thinking of a similar build is:
12700KF
Arctic Freezer II 280mm AIO
64GB 3600MHz Corsair LPX (2x32GB DR Samsung chips)
3080 Ti FE
1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe
8TB Samsung 870 QVO SATA
Phanteks AMP 750w PSU
Corsair 5000D Airflow case (Arctic PST PWM 120mm + 140mm exhaust, AIO fans as intake)
impressive. I mean getting a 3080 at MSRP!
@@treyquattro It took a while but finally got there!
looking to do a nearly identical setup / upgrade as you
thanks for sharing!
XMP does not work on Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X / processor intel 12700k and XPG Lancer DDR5 5200MHz 32GB (2x16GB) CL38-38-38 UDIMM 288-Pins Desktop SDRAM Memory RAM Kit (AX5U5200C3816G-DCLABK), bios F6.
@@bratoch Just set the voltage and DDR voltage manually. Don't need to enable XMP if you can just put the settings to XMP manually anyway.
Pump plug is all the way down on the motherboard. This challenged me a lot with a little cable….
Thank you. Looking forward to more videos on this series.
I have the same Mainboard with the same 4000mhz Crucial Ballistix Max 32GB with an i9 12900k and cant complain. It runs smooth, no issues whatsoever.
Hi bro
Do you have any issues with the board or still works fine?
@@ahamedfareed5532 No, still runs like a baby 24/7. Wanted to include a link to the CPU-Z Validation page but for whatever reason it gets deleted. But yea. Still use it, still love it will continue to use it.
@@r0tb3rt thanks for the reply buddy, I'm looking forward to buying it. 👍🏼
@@ahamedfareed5532 It always depends on what you are planning to doif you wanna game and save some bucks get yourself a 3070TI and DDR4. The difference between DDR4 and 5 (my experience) is not really noticeable. But once Raptor Lake is out I´m gonna upgrade but I stay at the same board (Gigabyte Z690 Gaming) just with DDR5It´s cheap and reliable and a good buy. You can find my configuraten if you google for CPUZ validator, click on the first link and add /tn9vj8 to it.
@@r0tb3rt Hello buddy
Yeah im building a gaming pc and i already bought an I5 12gen K processer. and also looking to buy 3070 ti thanks for the info and what cpu cooler do you recommend buddy?
This motherboard is perfect combo with my i9-12900k and DDR4! Not in a rush to get a newer memory.
Apparently there are now three versions of the Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X DDR4 - Ver. 1 Rev 1.0, Ver. 1 Rev 1.1, and Ver. 2 Rev 1.0. What is the difference between them?
I'll have to look and do some testing on my side.
how did you all get the m.2 screw off on this motherboard
I should probably be sleeping but who needs sleep.
Same here!
India?
@@jshanks1001 nope, wasn’t that late at my place. I’m from Slovenia (EU)
Built with this board using a 12700k, 32GB 4x8Gb 3600MHz, RTX 3070 and 2 M.2 SSDs (Samsung 980 and WD SN570)
I had problems with the RAM at first, it wasn't setting the XMP and was throwing up the DDR light on the board but after a quick bios update to F6, everything worked perfectly
does your 3600 kit work fine?
@@igrjenennrjcvjfuyr Yeah, it works no problem after the bios update, it's Crucial Ballistix and it's actually 2 16gb kits (2x8gb sticks each)
@@MonkeyMan125431 oh ok thanks, im getting some corsair vengeance ram so
Hi bro
Do you still recommend this motherboard I'm looking forward to buying it
@@ahamedfareed5532 I actually wouldn't, my board has bad coil whine so there's always a buzzing sound from it which Gigabyte knows is something that happens to their board only, also the audio from the board isn't great at all!
Did you update your bios with Q flashback before building? And I didn't quite get whether linux ran well on your build. I have to watch videos a couple of times 👍 Glad I found your videos. I prefer CPU Fan Cooling , your thoughts Thanks
great video - I subscribed
VERY interested in the follow up video about Z690 performance with different GPUs
did you guys have a date for that one?
Have you tried the motherboard HDMI port with the iGPU only ?
I have the same motherboard and I'm having issues while connected to HDMI.
I've tried different cables but no change, however at 1080p the cable quality requirements shouldn't be an issue.
DisplayPort seems to work fine with no issues.
Just wondering if it's something specific from my setup or maybe poor signal quality from the motherboard HDMI port.
Very nice thinking of picking this board up later this year. :)
Did you plug a power connector into the 4 port next to the 8 for the CPU?
thanks for the video mate! :)
I'm not actually fond of the idea of getting rid of so many PCie slots just for m.2
I understand it's a gaming board and redoing the M.2 to be 2 PCIe 8x slots may run afoul of the huge GPU heatsinks seen nowadays but it would be nice to see ATX boards actually take advantage of being ATX and moving SSDs to an add-in card, it keeps options open rather than restricting lanes to only M.2
M.2 is getting long in the tooth to be honest, think of all the insanity we could have if there was a return to AIC SSDs
yep, it would've been so much expandable if it had normal PCI express slots and a convenient m.2 to pci-e adapter that would have come with the mobo. Sure, leave one m.2 on the motherboard itself but use the actual usable space saved for random add-in cards, PC style.
M.2 isn't going anywhere, it's used by laptops and gives massive economies of scale to reduce price of what would be a much smaller SSD than a 2.5. PCIe SSD cards would be limited to desktop only and this would just make them too expensive.
The only issue here is motherboard manufacturers that prefer to put M.2 slots on the board instead than PCIe slots + a cheapo bifurcation-based PCIe adapter
I don't know, but it seems m.2 slot is way under-utilized than it could be especially for the smaller size, and potential use with faster speeds each year it seems lol. One current possible use example could be for a complete streaming setup using one small mid-tower pc if no room for dual pcs, or space for larger cases designed run dual pc. In this mid-tower setup using m.2 SDI capture card to keep your main PCIe 4.0/5.0 x8/x16 lines for hardware which can benefit more in those lanes than the majority of current SSDs need/will need for most. Depending on if you're an audiophile allowing a 2-slot GPU in top PCIe x16 and audio card below it while allowing video capture directly through m.2 from up to 4 sources per m.2 slot. As tech continues to advance, it will be the more you can fit on the board in the least space = most enticing haha. I mean look at the trend of pcs in the last 15 years... mATX basically died out for a bit recently because majority of people want to build ITX sized computers. Others build in mid-tower ATX or full with ATX/eATX to have space for the water cooling, or more powerful hardware while better managing temperatures. I predict mATX comeback wave soon where boards might skip out on SATA 6gbs ports and using space freed up for more m.2 lanes. This as well as going from the normal mATX using one PCIe x16 and one PCIe 4x (if 2nd slot is x16 it's usually limited to x4 when top slot is in use) on currents boards to newer boards standardizing two PCIe 5.0 x16 lanes with also four or more m.2 PCIe x4/5... See in my opinion ITX is made simply too small thermally and for current hardware size needs. Even stuff like a decent CPU cooler to fit in an ITX case which can actually cool newer top notch processors, its hard to find, and then even harder to get to fit and work properly with the space given on the ITX board due to larger onboard heatsinks lol. EATX and ATX are fine if your room is okay with mid-full size case. I know people having to live in cramped areas, and cannot change this. So a gray area of mATX production could be improved on drastically. Slightly bigger than ITX and using a case made specifically for mATX, just feels and looks better than cramming everything into such a tiny ITX box while being afraid of spontaneous combustion or the sounds of cables grinding in fans lmao. Honestly most do not need SATA 6gbs slots. I haven't used them in 5+ years haha. Give me two m.2 slots there instead. Way better and no cables while not taking up the main x16 slot areas on board with how AIC SSDS do.
@@marcogenovesi8570 yeah, I see the standard growing with the years, but for example, with a pci-e slot by 8 or by 16 on pci-e gen 4 (15.76 GB/s with 8 lanes and 31.5 GB/s with 16 lanes) can provide enough bandwidth for a blazing fast ssd or a couple less fast ones, but you can install the adaptors wherever, and include more adaptors if desired. I think the variety of pci-e connectors and available electrical lanes on standard pci-e makes it very un-standard-y, and m.2 is the same everywhere. At least, if there was a standard to mount m.2 devices vertically (maybe there is such standard, idk), more space would eventually be saved on motherboards for other m.2 slots or even PCI-e slots or whatever. It's all about possibility and liberty to put a crap-ton of capture cards, GPUs, audio cards, network cards, newer USB version cards, a bunch of "SATAn" ports for big data storage for a desktop PC so you put it all together for a build/render/storage/mail/media/firewall or all of the above server/desktop PC... the PC is awesome.
@@marcogenovesi8570 Not saying M.2 should go away but for enthusiasts there should be more options as M.2 is somewhat lacking in board space. There is reasons the enterprise doesn't deal with M.2 much
When talking about the rear IO you didn't even mention whether the NIC is 1GBit or 2.5
2.5
if it's not 10gbit it doesn't really matter
No need to mention, all Z690 boards have a 2.5 LAN port.
@@marcogenovesi8570 Right
2.5G really seems like a half-step
You would like to see 10G more but it's also one of those things where if you wanted 10G you probably already have it (10G RJ45 copper is getting cheap and SFP+ is proper cheap) and wouldn't bother getting in on a motherboard unless you really don't want a separate NIC taking up space or you're on ITX (is there even a ITX board with 10G?)
Been really happy with my 12600k+DDR4+B660, gives me more performance than a 5800x, costs less, platform has more features and an upgrade path to 13th gen, while AM4 is end of life.
"while AM4 is end of life" - like it's a bad thing. For AM4 to support 3 full generations of Ryzen (not including last pieces of Bulldozer or Zen+ refreshes) is pretty commendable in my book.
Fact that AMD missed the mark with Zen 3 pricing leading to pretty awesome setups on Alder Lake should and will benefit consumers in the end anyway.
Great job putting together this good of a setup!
Well, literally every Intel platform in since 2009 or so has been EOL from the launch on.... AM4 has had a lifetime of over 4 years which is quite a bit better and there is still the 5800X3D coming this spring.
@@JIAroJIy4 End of life isn't bad for a few reasons, one being a bigger selection of CPUs to fit your need and mature chipset drivers. But the fact remains that Alder Lake has better single threaded performance compared to AMD. I would recommend AMD if going with the 5900X for doing heavy multithreaded workloads while using less power. The average user will benefit more from the E cores of Alder Lake with it's better single threaded performance, than of the 8 or 12 performance cores of AMD suitable more for heavy workloads with lower TDP.
I bought this motherboard & am having trouble mounting the huge Duo Fan msi gaming x RX6600XT. It looks like the .M2 covers are preventing the card's seating in the main pciex 16 slot, connecting the right PSU plugs to the power connectors. I'm confused by the 8, 4 CPU plugs vs. PCIe pwr 8, 4 connectors?
You might have already seen this, but for hardware Unboxed's video on Z690 VRM testing their Gigabyte boards (which included this board) all performed at the bottom Power consumption and thermal wise.
They didn't test ASRock boards, but it might be Gigabyte having an issue, not DDr4 vs DDr5.
Gigabyte had good boards for B550 and X570 but their Z690s are just straight up trash. MSIs are top tier.
Thanks man. Great Video.
Awesome thanks for the video. Wendell what do you think about having only 2 DIMM slots being better for DDR5 on Z690 boards. More stable and less latency than having 4 slots?
It's mostly teething issues of the early days of ddr5. Absolutely valid for right now though.
I would say these "teething" issues will remain on 6x0 series chipsets (well, boards that use them). Hopefully manufacturers will figure stuff out by the time z790 will be released.
@@Level1Techs I bought G. Skill RipJaws 32gb (2x16gb) DDR4 4000. Is that going to be a problem? Do I need to send them back and get the 3200 version?
Ooof, struggling to find a Mobo.
One the one hand, I want (NEED) single core performance. the 12700K fits the bill. I'm currently on a 3800x.
for 300-350$ for a processor, and 200$ for a mobo, I'd be in the same expected ballpark of the 5800x3d.
The question is, does anyone think the 3D cache is going to be worth it?
What's a good board for the 12700k that isn't freaking like 300$++? I'd like to stay in the 200$ region. I don't need anything super fancy.
Only two that I've found are this, and the Asus PRIME z690 D4
Plan on staying DDR4 for now, until DDR5 pricing drops and shows bit more promise, and by that time, i'll be ready to move on to a new Mobo/Processor anyways likely...
EDIT:: I ended up getting an MSI z690 Pro DDR4, and managed to pick up a 12700k for 330$. Paired it with my 32gb 3600mhz CL16 memory and its running great, have it OC'd to single/dual core at 5.6ghz, and it scales down on how many cores/what temp from there to a respectable 5.2-5.3ghz when all P-cores are running. Still on Win10, but probably be switching to Win11 "soon" in the process of migrating files and folders to a backup HDD.
Wow glad you got it all going. Have all the parts but I'm stuck figuring out how to plug everything together. The huge size of parts for this new build are mind blowing.
I just started the video, but I hope more z690s will unlock the BCLK OC on non Z chips!!!!
I have this model in bios update F6 and not F6a lol, Everything works wonderfully, the XMP and the NVME 850 Pro!
Just put a build together with this motherboard. Quick question about the RGB headers (newb to RGB stuff). I also got a Cooler Master Hyper 12 RGB cooler. The RGB connector from the fan is 4 pin female. Can I use this on the 4 pin RGB header on the board? At the moment using it with the included controller. But hoping I can just connect to board so it can be synced with RGB Fusion.
Hello there thenx for the video. Have problem to conect rgb msi coreliquid 360r v2 fans and bump ist working but not the rgb.. Where do I conect thus to work? Thenx
What do you mean by XMP not reporting out the "correct cores" via the ACPI tables?
I've had a number of issues with the Z690/12900K system (e.g. 5.15.11 kernel results in a kernel panic when you also have 100 Gbps Infiniband installed and trying to have it automount NFSoRDMA on boot).
Thanks.
so will all 4 m.2 ports work with 16x on the videocard? or do i need to skip the top slot again. i thought there was 20 lanes from the cpu, which would be 16 for gpu and 1 m.2, and the 3 bottom nvme run off the chipset. thanks for any reply's.
is there a video for the ddr5 varient
I'm looking at upgrading from an 8700k to a 12900k to get the most out of my 3090 FE but on a budget, this board would be great as i could use the 32 gig of vengeance ram i have in my current rig saving a lot of money.
I have built a few rigs in the past but i still have a lot to learn and i'm confused.. because if i choose this board i would want to connect my Z906 5.1 speakers.. now i know you said in the video that you can do this, but HOW?
Good video btw, lot's of useful info.
Does this board have coil whine which has plagued Gaming X motherboards in the past?
Having massive issues getting my memory running on it's XMP profile.
Got 4x 8GB Corsair 3000MHz memory and I literally can't run on anything apart from the standard, 'basic' profile. :/
Have already updated the BIOS before anyone asks!
@@fdsamatt5763 Con la gigabyte z690 x gaming? lo pudiste solucionar?
Been running this board for 2.5 years. 12600K @ 5.1 and B-die. No issues
is it possible to use 4 (m2) and use 6 (sata 6gb) ((together)) ?-totally 10 storage connected ?
Dues Ex ? isn't it Deus Ex ? (on the benchmark graphics at 4:15) :p
Nice video !
How would I sent up my current 5.1 sound system to this board considering thr lack of audio ports?
You would get an external USB or internal PCIe 5.1 sound card/audio interface. Plenty of them out there, some pretty cheap.
someone just told me gigabyte's capacitors arent up to snuff. they recommended me to asrock z690 steel legend instead. is that true?
is it still good to pair with a 13600kf and a rtx 4070, i care about audio quality so the better driver inclined me
Hey I can't find any information on what cpu connector to connect even after reading manual. The 4pin or 8pin? And depending on what cpu I pair with the board will that make any difference on which connector I do if I only do one?
8 pin and optionally 4 pin if you oc
@@Level1Techs thank you
@@Level1Techs Had the same question. I don’t tend to overclock. But is it okay to connect 8+4 or just not at all necessary? Thinking of an i5 12400 for my build.
Want this motherboard with an 13700k . Cant this board update bios without a cpu installed ?
Yup, I did it with the 13900K
thanks Wendell
I'm going with this board. And I have 3600 cl16 ram in the cart. Would you recommend I go with the 3200 kit instead?
What RAM did you decide to go with? I would be interested since I'm looking to buy the same as you.
How many NVMe M.2 SSDs can the GIGABYTE Z690 Gaming X DDR4 support installed 1 today and only saw space for one please let me know. Thank you
1 which is closest to the CPU and 3 below
So will this board support more than one 2070 super graphics card?
So is going 3600MHz not a good idea?
I wonder if it’s worth building a small form factor pc with a 12th gen i3 on an h660 motherboard to serve as a small server to run gameservers
Single thread performance and power efficiency kinda had me window shopping
First boot No Post! Red Lights on Z690 GAMING X DDR4 Gigabyte mother board with i5 12600k What do the Red Lights mean?
Lately I've been listening to buildzoid too much and I want to swap my ddr4 for ddr5...but I'm holding out for am5 first
would this motherboard supply enough power and be good enough for the i7 13700kf ?
is that motherboard good for I9 12900k? I don't understand anything about pcs
Does it support both SATA and NVME M.2?
Specification lists 6 SATA3 6Gb/s Ports
From what I've heard from linus tech tips video on 12th gen processors, there was an issue with Windows 11 cpu scheduler. I'm about to build a pc with one of those. Has it been resolved or should I go for W10? Thanks.
Resolved at this point on windows :)
can it run Crysis?
Which wifi card would you recommand with this MB
I have the TP link WiFi 6 card. Any will work fine tbh.
does the TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB DDR4 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz (PC4-25600) work for this motherbored
Yes, it's compatible with this motherboard
I bought this motherboard and having issues installing a wifi card
Got that board and im sending it back, its by far the most terrible bios ever. It wont let me boot from anything and top slot m.2 doesn't work half the time. I have build many many pcs and never seen anything like this. Tried nvme drive, sata ssd and usb drive. None can be selected.
Bro, I need my mouse to be on Thunderbolt 4, what for whippin that minesweeper
I'm choosing Gigabyte Z690 GAMING X for i9-12900 with MSI GeForce RTX 2060 VENTUS 12GB GDDR6.
Good afternoon everyone! Can anyone tell me if a 3slots 3080 GPU can fit in a gigabyte z690 gaming x ddr4 motherboard?
Apologies for asking, I am new to PC building and I was about to assemble the first one!
Thank you in advance.
I have this MB with a 2.7 slot 3080 ti and its not even close. So yeah that shouldnt be an issue.
Yes it can.
My first gigabyte board ever and my last, returned it. They claim best vrm 16+1+2 but really boards with much less out perform it. It has loud electronic noise in certain task, quality all around this board is below competition, including features. If you do research I see nothing but reasons not to buy gigabyte motherboards. I have gigabyte monitor and it's great but the motherboards are just not a good purchase. Even on a good price I'd pay more to avoid gigabyte.
what's preferable in your opinion?
@@treyquattro in my opinion I have had good MSI boards and I bought my brother an ASRock board and that one has been my favorite. Years ago I had an Asus board and I just got an Asus to replace the gigabyte and years later I ran into same problem I used to have. Where soon as I enable xmp my computer blue screens & crashes. I swapped slower ram and enabled xmp and it's working great so far. So Asus boards are picky about ram. This was an AMD CPU board and my current Asus is Intel. One feature I use on all new computers is putting a negative offset to decrease CPU voltage which is important to me because my temperatures drop a lot and performance is better while consuming much less power. The gigabyte board I couldn't find that option yet MSI, ASRock, and Asus all have this great feature along with many additional useful features. So between these 3: MSI, ASRock, & Asus any of these would be a great choice. I learned from my current experience with my new Asus board different memory and/or configurations of memory affect games stuttering, so if your a gamer like me I would spend a little extra and whichever motherboard you go with check the memory qvl for the motherboard you want and get best value one for the board you choose for the best experience to avoid stutters and for stability. Or at least some good memory because even though I have powerful system with good GPU/CPU the memory has effected if the fps will have small little stutters or not.
@@user-ji1rq6tq2p thanks for the detailed response. I've had good results with ASUS and MSI in the past. I've never put together a Gigabyte-based system but I'm planning on Gigabyte for the next build. Nothing seems perfect it seems. At least you managed to return the board OK.
Me reading that with my freshly bought Gigabyte Gaming X right aside me
👁️👄👁️
@Rick Sanchez I mean it makes sense... Personally I will only begin to say that X company is bad at making X product when I will have a good enough sample.
I will not tell that a company is shit over one default on one product. However if I RMA and then the replacement does the same now I will start to say that the product may be the problem.
but how well does it run Linux? 5.16 kernel?
Ah, kind of answered. I think an AMD or Intel 10th or 11th gen system is still preferred for running Linux - homogenous cores are required for now
@@treyquattro , they're not required. Linux just can't properly take advantage the E cores, which can reduce performance occasionally. Seem odd given the history of big little on ARM, but the fix is on the way.
@@toddedens6788 Thanks. I know Linus is on the job. I should have said required for optimal performance. I'm going to go with a homogenous computing solution (10/11th Gen Intel) as the general advice for Linux boxes is to go with one or two generations behind the state of the art. Plus, Z690 boards are expensive!
Damn wendell, you used to be SO JUICY!
What are these "odd ball" use cases? Don't hold out on us now wizard!
There are mysterious nugget there
is this motherboard's RAMs DDR4 or DDR5?
u have the DDR4 and the DDR5
but this one on the vid is DDR4
@@rafaelveloso7882 DDR5 is Gigabyte Z690 Aurus Pro, DDR4 is Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X, if you mean that Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X is DDR4 and DDR5, then please post here DDR5 motherboard that has Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X model.
@@Emperor-2029 can u tell me if its worth it to buy a z690 like this only of your not going to OC your cpu? Is the b660 enough? For maybe a 12400f?
@@rafaelveloso7882 Can you post here the link that Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X has DDR5?
This might be a Gigabyte branded motherboard, but it's an Aorus Elite without Wi-Fi. Look like they reused PCB layouts in order to get these to market in time for launch.
ECC is the reason I ended up going to AMD platform. Intel, listen, ECC with 128GB RAM is a must have not a luxury item
Yes. Also Linus Torvalds (the Linux founder) said that
you could just turn it off
Why?
@@lukastemberger 11 months ago Intel didn't support ECC on mainstream platforms. Now they do with Alder lake
@@besssam But it's so insignificant in consumer PCs that it's not worth the 2% of slower performance.
I'm getting a new build for warzone my specs, asus strix 3070ti, i9-12900k, Gigabyte Z690 X gaming, 32gb ram what you think?
Exactly my build but I have a 3080 . Wondering if this motherboard worked
I love using my Crucial Ram. USA designed using USA based Micron memory chips. You can't go wrong. I love supporting american companies. Wish we had a company in america to create silicon wafers (blanks) so we don't have to rely on china anymore.(shortages are forced by china as government of china controls the corporations and tells them what they can and cant do, like not supplying wafers to american companies)
It's better to buy 128GB DDR4 instead of wasting money on 32GB DDR5. At least with DDR4 i can than use a good 64GB RAM Disk (where i put my virtual testing emulator for Android and other things - also good to increase write endurance)
This board would be the best buy Z690 if it weren't for dodgy DDR4 support...shame.
Vrm is not DrMos this mobo is garbage