GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS GAMING X? Is it a good budget mobo?
GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS GAMING X? Is it a good budget mobo?
Unless you've already purchased the 9600KF or discovered it during a major discount, the 3600 offers better worth, and you don't require liquid cooling integrated on the chip. The stock cooler works too, and even then you can opt for a hyper 212 which is more affordable than an air cooler. The board itself is adequate (the Tomahawk Max remains excellent value for its price).
I just sent back my 3600X because the factory bent CPU socket and heatsink. I tried three times to refit it carefully by screwing it at an angle. The thermal paste stuck only on the edges, not filling the center of the socket. It was reaching 70°C during idle and 90°C while playing PUBG. That was the worst experience ever!
I've handled and installed numerous non-X AM4 processors before... I've been doing this since I was young. Setting up an X for myself was completely error-free. It looks like a factory oversight after we thoroughly verified everything. The thermal paste was only sticking to the edges of the CPU, while the rest couldn't make contact with the heatsink's paste at all.
You had to purchase a CPU cooler for the i5-9600KF eventually...maybe it would have been possible with the Ryzen 3600X. The i5-9600KF doesn’t even include a built-in cooler. Yet here we are. The Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X is a solid motherboard, and should manage air or liquid cooling for overclocking on this processor. It features a 5(x2) + 2 phase VRM setup—Gigabyte claims it’s a 10-phase system, but similar to MSi, AsRock, or ASUS, it actually uses double phases. (You can’t complain about Gigabyte for using double phases, since ASUS runs 4(x2) even on their ROG Maximus models.) The Z390 Gaming X falls in the same ~150W range as the ASUS Strix Z390-H, Prime Z390-A, AsRock Z390 Extreme4, and the MSi Z390 MPG Pro Carbon. I’ve been using a Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master there so far, and everything’s working fine.