Gigabyte Releases Aorus Z270 Motherboards

As part of their new lineup for Kaby Lake, Gigabyte has unveiled a new series of motherboards in addition to their usual ones. Continuing the trend of LED adoption, the new Aorus lineup standardizes RGB LED lighting and swappable LED overlays. Each Aorus board features two LED backlit areas that are the same for each board and also has a LED strip header. Starting off with 6 boards in total, we have the Z270X-Gaming 9, Z270X-Gaming 8, Z270X-Gaming 7, Z270X-Gaming K7, Z270X-Gaming 5, and the Z270X-Gaming K5.

In addition to the LED lighting being standardized, the Aorus lineup also share a number of common traits. Each board features steel plating reinforcements on all of the RAM slots and PCI-E x16 slots. Steel plating reinforcement for I/O slots has become somewhat of a trend with this coming generation of motherboards. Dual-BIOS and large VRM heatsinks are also provided for the entire Aorus lineup.

In terms of specific features, the Z270X-Gaming 9, Z270X-Gaming 8 feature a built-in water cooling system for the VRMs and Creative Sound Core 3D ZxRi audio codecs. The Gaming 7 has to make do with the Creative Sound Core 3D SBX Pro Studio Audio Suite but all 3 feature additional EMI shielding and Nichicon capacitors. The other 3 boards feature the new Realtek ALC 1220 codec with some EMI shielding. For more information, be sure to check out our reviews on the Gaming 9 and Gaming 7!