Z490 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce

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3 May 2021
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132
Well, my ridiculously extravagant purchase of an unused Z490 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce motherboard has materialised. A gigantic package arrived and this thing is immense.

GIGABYTE-AORUS-Z90-Xtreme-Waterforce-resize.png

I have a soft tubing loop (13/10), and I actually love the look of the soft tubing natural runs. The system will include my i9 10900KF, 32GB of HyperX, D5 Next pump and reservoir, an RTX 3080 in an Alphacool water block, and a 9x120mm external gigantic Alphacool radiator.

I will be using a Core P3 case, which is a bit tight for this motherboard but I will make it work.

I will post some photos as the build progresses.
 
Soldato
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22 May 2010
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Nice was looking at these for the Z390 platform last year but the price even back then was just too much for what it is. Maybe one day i'll invest if prices drop below £700 lol, they seem to be anywhere from £900 to 1.3k now!
 
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Much to my surprise the build went very well, and the machine was up and running in maybe 3 hours. I really struggled to connect the two RGB cables under the monoblock, but my son came to help and that made all the difference.

The front IO adapter is brilliant. Really simplifies plugging all those little bits in and also keeps the mess hidden.

I still have work to do. My daughter really wanted to play games with me so I had to do a quick plumbing job and just reused my old soft tube runs (they miraculously all fit) and got the system filled and booted up. I will rework the soft tubing runs in a week or so when I return from a family holiday.

More to follow. I will get some photos and a few other issues (and how I resolved them) posted up today and tomorrow.
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2005
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3,779
Great job - and discount!! Images aren't showing for some reason - opening them in a new window only shows the controller? I love everything about the board, except the fact that they are effectively charging $800 for a waterblock. Seems to be ripping off the top end, just becaquse they know someone will pay :mad:
 
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