Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WIFI7 ICE Motherboard Review

It’s no secret that there are a lot of motherboard reviews going live on eTeknix today, and while there are boards from ASUS and MSI and more on the way, one that stands out is the Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WIFI7 ICE. It’s by far one of the most unique motherboards we have for this launch thanks to the “ICE” design. Offering up a plethora of massive heatsinks and armour all finished in a stunning mixture of white, grey and silver, with a bit of RGB thrown in for good measure. However, it’s not just a great-looking motherboard, as part of the AORUS series, it’s one of their more high-end solutions and comes brimming with high-end features for enthusiast gamers and content creators alike.

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WIFI7 ICE

It features a 16+2+2 Twin Digital VRM design, with a range of premium chokes and capacitors, so it should be able to deal with the best of the best AMD CPUs, and since it supports AMD Ryzen 7000, 8000 and 9000 processors, you’ve got a fair few to choose from. While not the most extreme motherboard from AORUS, it’s obviously still very much on the high-end. The armour and heatsinks are massive too, again, not the biggest or most extreme implementation, but it’s still a lot and should help push storage, memory and CPU performance to the next level. You get DDR5 support, an impressive 3 x PCIe 5.0 M.2 and 1 x PCIe 4.0 M.2 for extreme storage configurations. There’s also a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, as well as a PCIe 4, and PCIe 3.0 slot for additional add-in cards.

Key Features

• CPU Support: AMD Socket AM5, supports AMD Ryzen™ 9000 / 8000 / 7000 Series Processors
• VRM: Digital twin 16+2+2 phases VRM solution
• Memory: Dual Channel DDR5, 4*DIMMs with AMD EXPO™ Memory Module Support
• Wi-Fi Installation: WIFI EZ-Plug for quick and easy Wi-Fi antenna installation
• PCIe and M.2 Slots: EZ-Latch Plus with quick release and screwless design
• M.2 Heatsinks: EZ-Latch Click with screwless design
• Sensor Panel: Sensor Panel Link for hassle-free in-chassis panel setup
• User Interface: Friendly UI with multi-theme, AIO fan control, and Q-Flash Auto Scan in BIOS and SW
• Storage: Ultra-fast storage with 4M.2 slots, including 3 PCIe 5.0 x4
• Thermal Management: Efficient thermal design with VRM Thermal Armor Advanced and M.2 Thermal Guard L
• Networking: Fast networking with 2.5GbE LAN and Wi-Fi 7 with directional ultra-high gain antenna
• Connectivity: Extended connectivity with dual USB4 Type-C with DP-Alt, HDMI
• Audio: Reliable audio with Realtek ALC1220 HD Audio and audiophile-grade capacitors
• PCIe Durability: Ultra Durable PCIe Armor with a metal back plate on the PCIe x16 slot for enhanced durability
• PCIe UD Slot X: PCIe 5.0 x16 slot with 10X strength for graphics cards

For more information, please visit the official product page here.

Memory Support

Memory support is impressive, offering up incredible speeds for these new CPUs, however, which generation of CPU you use will have some impact on the memory capabilities as you might expect, but typically they’re all over 8000 MHz.

AMD 800 Series Chipset

While this review cycle we’ll be focusing on the X870E series of motherboards, of course, there’s going to be more to this series, with the X870E being the flagship models, the X870 below that, and then the B850 and the B840 being the more affordable models below those, but with some obvious compromises on the features, giving us a range of options for normal PC users, gamers, overclockers and enthusiasts.

Ryzen 9 9950X

For these reviews, we’ll be using the latest AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPU, and while we haven’t actually reviewed this CPU on its own, of course, we’ll be exploring the Ryzen 9 9950X performance through these motherboard reviews. We did a feature testing Windows 32H2 Vs 24H2 on YouTube recently, which you can check out here.

• 16 cores and 32 threads
• Up to 5.7 GHz max boost clock
• 64 MB of L3 cache
• Supports DDR5 memory up to 2x1R DDR5-5600 or 4x1R DDR5-3600
• Requires AM5 socket motherboard
• Includes Precision Boost Overdrive and Curve Optimizer Voltage Offsets technology
• Unlocked for overclocking
• Supports PCIe 5.0