A while ago Gigabyte announced its Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce, but did not mention a price. This mainstream, Z390 segment motherboard has hit the shelves, and guess what? It’ll cost you the pretty sum of 1049 euros.
The motherboard itself basically is the eATX Z390 Aorus Xtreme from Gigabyte which hovers at a 549 euro price marker. So that mono cooling block you see up there adds a 500 euro price premium. Connectors are provided in G1/4 format. The cooling block cools both the processor and VRM, the Aorus Xtreme has 16 phases for the CPU and chipset. The board has configurable RGB lighting and also contains two RGB headers for other equipment. The CPU is powered by two 8-pin power connectors.
I have no idea who the target demographic is for Gigabyte, on X299 I could understand it (but even then), 1049 EUR for a (Z390) mainstream segment motherboard. Hardware priced this unusual is often done to create media hype. Gigabyte, benefits from the attention. For the price of that single motherboard, you can build an entire PC, a pretty nice one as well.