GIGABYTE X870 AORUS Elite WIFI7 (AMD AM5)

For the money, Gigabyte has been pretty hard to beat recently and for a big wad of change left from $300, the Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite Wi-Fi 7 seems to pack a punch in the value department, at least on paper. There's the somewhat dubious upgrade over older 600-series chipset models. The board is equipped with all the modern features you would expect. These features will support you through the lifespan of Socket AM5 and possibly a year or two beyond without any future shortcomings. At $270, it's a good deal, especially since the board also looks great in the current market climate.

I haven’t taken a look at any of the Gigabyte motherboards for a few years and I’ve been missing out. The X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 is one of 10 boards that Gigabyte is launching today and it is their highest-end X870 model alongside of the matching X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 Ice white/silver model. Going with X870 over X870E means half as many USB and SATA ports and fewer chipset PCIe lanes which as we saw with the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 does limit the use of one of the PCIe slots if you fill up the one chipset ran M.2 slot. I’m always looking for more USB ports but that may be partially because I am always testing new hardware. But the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 isn’t sitting too bad on ports overall and you do get a good mix of older USB 2.0, USB 3.2 Gen 1, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. Not to mention the rear I/O has two Type-C USB 4.0 ports as well. The similar X870E Aorus Elite Wifi7 does get more internal USB headers if you think you will need more. Beyond that, the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 looks good styling and the neutral blacked-out design of this model should work well in most builds. They also have the Ice model as well which looks even better as well. Four M.2 slots with three of those supporting PCIe 5.0 (if your CPU supports it) should be more than enough for all but the craziest of builds. You even get an internal HDMI port for those who want to put in a screen INSIDE of their PC. You also have the easy unlock PCIe button which makes removing today's huge video cards a lot easier. I’ve damaged a board or two trying to press down the eject button between a big GPU and a heatsink in the past. Really the only issue I had with the board at all, and it's not that big of a deal was with the RGB lighting. It was interesting to me that they went with 5 under glow LEDs up under the chipset heatsink for lighting but none anywhere else on the board. I don’t care if I have lighting at all, but if you are going to add it at least get some in a few places around the board. For pricing the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 has an MSRP of $289.99 which given that it is a higher-end X870 board isn’t bad. Gigabyte did tell me that they have a $10-$20 rebate on some of the boards they are launching today but the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 wasn’t included in that. They also have a $20 reward for honest reviews posted on retailers. The link for that is HERE. The big thing for me though was the news that there is no longer a premium for white models of motherboards. The matching X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 Ice has the same 289.99 price point.

There are lots of storage options too, with three Gen5 M.2 mounts, as well as a Gen4 mount, ensuring you can use the latest and greatest SSDs, and even configure them in various RAID configurations. Furthermore, there’s a lot of fast connectivity on the back too, with dual USB4 Type-C which supports DP-Alt and HDMI, plenty of extra USB ports for peripherals, and the latest ALC1220 HD audio. Overall, this is a complete package for the enthusiasts out there, and while there may be more extreme versions above this model, I can’t imagine this not being more than enough for the vast majority of high-end gaming PC builds.