Fast Track to Gen X - Speed Simplified a Aorus Z790 X Refresh

Over the many years of running a hardware review website I have seen plenty of creative reasons to launch a new product.  One of the first I remember was how the motherboard maker Soltek released the SL-865Pro-775 Hybrid motherboard.  This new motherboard was released when Intel launched the LGA775 (Core) line of processors and what Soltek did was to match the new processor with the older 865 Springdale chipset intended for the Pentium 4.

Soltek intended this motherboard to be a stopgap for their industrial customers looking to take advantage of the new processor but needed to also retain access to AGP graphics and other legacy expansion cards.  Since then, many companies have offered “refreshed” products from new NVIDIA graphics cards based on the same GPU core to motherboard makers adding new features or ongoing support for a new processor (CPU) release.

At the end of August 2023 Gigabyte invited me and a handful of other tech journalists to attend the AORUS Z790 X Media event in San Diego that they called “Fast Track to Gen X – Speed Simplified”.  This event served as a formal announcement for the Z790 X line of motherboards, effectively a Z790 refresh, to support a handful of new technologies and features designed to make these motherboards faster and easier to use.

The Z790 X Series is a significant update offering the following Highlights and Features to facilitate Best-in-Class DDR5 Performance, offer new DIY Friendly features including a New BIOS and EZ-Latch clips for extremely simple M.2 SSD installations.

• Fast OC Capabilities
• DDR5 8266+ & Memory Shielding + Direct Contact
• HWInfo Memory and BIOS Tuning

Fast DIY

• EZ-Latch for M.2 Slot, M.2 Heatsink, PCIe Slot Release

Fast Connectivity

• WiFi 7

In addition to the above features, Gigabyte was also announcing a new Partnership with HWInfo to provide exclusive access to the Gigabyte UEFI along with a custom AORUS skin allowing users to accurately monitor memory timings, CPU information, temperatures and other BIOS details directly from HWInfo.