Packaging and Overview

Final retail box and packaging are almost identical to that of GIGABYTE's X299 AORUS offerings. Packaging is almost identical as well, and the motherboard sits in a separate box inside the larger box, where it is well protected.

The accessory package includes four SATA6Gb/s cables, SLI HB bridge, Velcro cable straps, Torx wrench, IO shield, two EC temperature sensors, two RGBW extension cables, WIFI antenna, M.2 screws, G-Connector, AORUS Case Badge, stickers, driver DVDs, and manuals.

The motherboard has a whopping eight hybrid PWM/DC mode fan headers situated around the PCB. That is a lot of fan headers, and they seem to be grouped together. The top right corner of the motherboard has five of the eight headers, including the CPU fan header, and one of the pump headers. Two pump headers, circled in blue, offer full speed as their default mode. I am checking with GIGABYTE on the amperage of the headers.

The motherboard has seven built in temperature sensors used to control fan speed based on fan curves you can set in the UEFI or Windows. There are also two headers for EC temperature sensor probes, which are actually included in the box, so you can put those wherever you want and use them as fan reference, the headers are circled in green.

The back of the motherboard is devoid of much hardware, and that is a great thing. We do find POSCAPs, but it seems that this is a trend for all X3299 motherboards since the socket is so large the capacitors in the LC filter are always on the back of the board.

The rear IO panel features PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse, eight USB 3.0 ports (yellow are DAC-UP 2, white is also for USB BIOS recovery), 1Gbit LAN, WIFI antenna connectors, USB 3.1 type-A, USB 3.1 type-C, and 7.1 gold plated audio outputs with S/PDIF optical.

The PCI-E layout is super easy to understand, the first slot is always x16 PCI-E 3.0, the second is always x8 PCI-E 3.0, the third is always x4 PCI-E 2.0, the fourth is always x16 PCI-E 3.0, and the fifth is always x8 PCI-E 3.0. You can run up to 4-way SLI/CrossFireX. GIGABYTE provides three x4 PCI-E 3.0 M.2 slots; each one has a really awesome M.2 shield that doesn't only cool down your M.2 drives but also greatly aids in M.2 drive installation by holding the M.2 screw in place (seriously, that's more important to me than cooling my M.2 drives).

Eight SATA 6Gb/s ports connect to the chipset, there is no port sharing or switching on this motherboard. A USB 3.1 type-C header is located right below the 24-pin connector.

The motherboard features an 8-pin and a 4-pin 12v power input for the CPU power; I recommend plugging both in. Near all of those five fan headers sits one of the RGBW headers, it can also just be used for normal RGB LED strips and UV strips.

A beautiful POST code display is located right near a USB 3.0 internal header. We also get power, reset, and clear CMOS buttons on the motherboard, although I am not sure they placed clear CMOS so close to the power and reset switches and didn't change its color, you will need to be careful if you are going to use these buttons. You also get two USB 2.0 internal headers.

We find another RGBW header, but also a digital/addressable RGB LED header. Above the digital RGB header is a jumper, and this jumper allows you to change the digital RGB power from 5v (default) to 12v. Check out those heat sinks, and the new thermal pads GIGABYTE is using on the VRM heat sinks. They aren't taking any chances, and the contact between the heat sinks and the power stages are very good.