It’s no secret that Gigabyte is preparing a very limited edition of theXtreme Ice seriesof products. Facebook userDuy Mạnhhas shared new renders of the Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice motherboard, which will complement the Aorus GeForce RTX 4080 Super Xtreme Ice 16G.
The Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice sports Intel’s premium Z790 chipset andLGA1700socket, which supportsAlder Lake,Raptor Lake, andRaptor Lake Refreshprocessors. The motherboard has all the bells and whistles, including a gold-colored socket, a misty cover plate that protects the socket area, and a crystalized titanium texture. Since Gigabyte hasn’t officially announced the motherboard, it’s uncertain whether the socket is just gold in color or is gold-plated. It’s a nice eye candy, but users won’t appreciate it once they’ve installed a CPU cooler over the socket or removed it entirely for one of those aftermarketcontact frames.
Guessing the Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice’s feature set is tricky without a specification sheet. Judging by the render and the number of components on the motherboard, the Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice probably comes in an E-ATX form factor. The translucent cover prevents us from seeing if two or fourDDR5memory slots are on the motherboard. Since it’s a limited edition product, Gigabyte has placed a gold plaque with the serial number on each motherboard.
Like many high-end motherboards, the Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice has a sizeable LCD screen over the I/O cover that displays the processor and power delivery subsystem’s temperatures, as well as the speed of the primary fan headers. There’s at least one M.2 PCIe 5.0 slot with a huge passive heatsink. We can also spot the primary PCIe 5.0 x16 expansion slot with metal shielding and a quick-release switch for easy GPU removal. There are almost certainly other M.2 slots and expansion slots under the covers, but we can’t see what they are.
The Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice connectors, including the 24-pin power connector, four SATA III ports, and USB 3.0 headers, are angled, which will help with cable management.
According to Gigabyte, the Xtreme Ice series is a very limited-edition lineup. The company’s Vietnam Sales Manager stated that only 300 bundles would be available. While we’re on that topic, Gigabyte won’t sell the Xtreme Ice series individually, but instead offer a bundle consisting of the Z790 Aorus Xtreme X Ice motherboard, Aorus GeForce RTX 4080 Super Xtreme Ice 16G graphics card, and a CPU cooler that hasn’t broken the cover yet.
There’s no word on pricing yet, but being so limited in supply and a bundle with a high-end GPU at that, the Xtreme Ice series will certainly cost thousands of dollars.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
