Warranty
That's cool, if it gives you piece of mind. I'll stick with the standard 3 year and save my money. Out all the times i've purchased extended warranties for products I cannot remember a single time ive ever used one.
Personal experience obviously makes quite a difference - I've used warranties quite a bit. I've also had a fair few PC parts fail (GPUs, RAM and PSU - all of which were top-tier at time of purchase); most under warranty and replaced, but not all.
The extended warranty at £20/40 is pretty insignificant on a card which starts at £1,000, with plenty costing £1,200+, but each to their own. As said, Gigabyte's warranty is the best I've come across as standard at 4 years and I'm considering that too.
Agree that checking small print and weighing up shipping costs is important, am doing that right now as regards warranty options on the system - Standard is 3 years parts/labour, with 1st year onsite (they come to you and fix the issue), 2-3rd return to base (system goes back to them); Extended adds onsite for the second and third year, but for £225... Shipping the system is around £40 so will prob stick with the standard warranty in this case as a failed GPU or RAM would not require shipping the entire system and £200-odd extra is a fair chunk of cash, but then again packing up a beast like this, + the CPU cooler issues with transport are a bit of a pain (but prob not worth £225 though!).
Motherboard
Have been trying hard to find a board less RGB-tastic/gamer-themed than the AORUS Master that still shares a similar build quality and features and it's proving near impossible! I was looking at ASUS's WS Pro, but that disables x2 SATA ports for each (!) M.2 drive used. The Master OTOH, has 3x M.2 slots, one of which is free (no restrictions), another reduces a PCIe slot speed (no big deal) and only the third cuts 2 SATA connections - so, in theory, I
could run 2x NVMe + 6x SATA drives, should I wish. On top of that it has fantastic VRM cooling, a back plate heat sink, 2x 8-pin connectors and built-in WiFi.
Am I missing something here, or is this simply the best Z390 board there is (unless you want extreme overclocking/water cooling features)?
The only other option that appeals to me is the ASUS Maximus XI Extreme (similar price to the WS Pro, but prob better suited to me, i.e. workstation/gaming combo), which I actually like the look of (shock horror!) - but info as to which M.2 drives disable what (or not) seems very limited. It offers an additional 2 (4 total), but it seems that they might then limit the GPU to 8x... Maybe, or not, no one seems to know...
Not sure if it's just me, but finding out this info is a real pain, particularly as forum posts seem to contradict one another and the manuals (aside from the Gigabyte one) are rather lacking. I am beginning to wonder whether there's something I'm missing here - how can Gigabyte have such great connectivity options, with all other manufactures disabling SATA ports left right and centre, even on their super high-end boards?
Whilst the TJ11 doesn't officially support E-ATX boards, it states in the manual that
"Although TJ11 was not designed for Extended-ATX motherboard, the internal space can still allow installation for motherboards with width of up to 11 inches. In addition, the motherboard tray has mounting standoffs for supporting SSI-CEB dual CPU motherboards. Enthusiast motherboards such as ASUS’s Rampage III Extreme and EVGA’s X58 Classified 4-Way SLI are 10.6 and 10.375 inches wide respectively. These are wider than standard ATX motherboard specification of 9.6 inches, but will fit inside TJ11 without any problems. Even if there are SATA connectors mounted on the edge of the motherboard facing to the side, the TJ11 will have room to accommodate them as well." - so presumably the Extreme should fit (at 12 x 1 x 10.9 in) should I go that route, agree?
Thoughts on the AORUS Master vs the Maximus Extreme, plus any clarification as to the M.2/SATA/PCIe issues, much appreciated.
Manuals for ref.:
AORUS Master:
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_z390-aorus-master_1001_e.pdf
Maximus XI Extreme:
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...3.1839548784.1559893512-1999083181.1556226774
Cheers.