Product on Review: X870 AORUS ELITE WIFI7
Manufacturer: GIGABYTE
Street Price:
- US: $289.99 excl. Tax
- UK: £269.99 inc. V.A.T.
- AUS: AUD$599 inc. Tax
Introduction
AMD’s X870 and X870E-series motherboards are now firmly ensconced at retailer as the primary partner for their latest Ryzen 9000-series CPUs, and the diversity in their lineup is finally clear. Starting with a selection of high performance designs and eventually extending down to mainstream and affordable product segments, the X870/E-series will be a broad top-to-bottom replacement for the X670-series beginning from as low as $200 and reaching the heights of truly premium design pricing going into 2025.
AMD’s B850 and B840 designs - mainstream and budget chipsets for AM5 motherboards - are scheduled for a later date and will fully round out the 800-series. Each will down-step the platform’s capabilities, typically through a reduction in available I/O and PCIe Lanes.
The 800-series continues AMD’s commitment to the AM5 platform, offering compatibility not only with ‘Zen 5’ Ryzen 9000-series processors but also 8000-series APUs and ‘Zen 4’ 7000-series chips. AM5 is expected to be a fixture in the market until at least 2027, indicating that these new designs will be compatible with processors launched at least three years from now. That’s in stark contrast to Intel, who will be sunsetting LGA1700 later this year after just two discrete processor architectural generations.
X870 is a more price-conscious performance desktop chipset, taking cues from both X870E and its 600-series predecessor. It utilises a single-controller solution rather than the dual-PCH of X870E, restricting its I/O capabilities but not PCI-Express lane performance. It’s tailored to those with conventional rather than exceptional peripheral and storage needs as a result.
The chipset has full PCIe 5.0 support for x16 and x8/x8 modes on the GPU alongside a single PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 NVMe slot. Additional peripheral support is offered through the chipset’s general purpose PCIe lanes, typically through a plethora of M.2 NVMe storage and additional integrated I/O. In terms of sheer quantity, X870 motherboards support half the number of USB and SATA ports compared to X870E but are otherwise quite similar.
Clear improvements over X670 include improved memory support up to DDR5-8200 (OC) (GIGABYTE claim DDR5-8000(OC) support in the first BIOS revisions), a USB4 40 Gbps port as standard rather than an optional extra, and a more comprehensive CPU overclocking toolkit that augments software-based overclocking.
800-series motherboards are also some of the first to support WiFi 7 networking as standard. This allows the combination of multiple 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz bands into continuous data streams for higher realised bandwidth and better management of IoT environments.
Today we’re reviewing GIGABYTE’s X870 AORUS ELITE WIFI7, their thus-far highest tier X870 motherboard and upper-echelon member of the wider X870 ecosystem. This attractive continuation of the ELITE class of motherboards adheres to the ATX form factor standard and is aimed firmly at gaming enthusiasts rather than hardcore overclockers or those with a need for significant peripheral provision.
The design features a relatively modest 16+2+2 DigiPhase power delivery system - plenty for CPUs operating within reference spec - and wide heatsink/heatspreader coverage for surface-mounted components. Aesthetically it’s one of the most restrained 800-series models thus far, helping it operate as more of a blank canvas for light-based customisation than its competitors.
In common with a few other manufacturers, GIGABYTE equipped the X870 AORUS ELITE with usability features for easy installation and post-purchase system upgrades. They’ve lept on the ‘EZ’ moniker to denote them, and this model includes Wifi EZ-Plug for antenna installation, EZ Latch to help with GPU/M.2 removal, and EZ Debug to aid troubleshooting.
Both WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 technologies are integrated into this model, the latter requiring Windows 11 24H2 for OS-level support. Audio is provided by Realtek ALC1220 Codec and audiophile grade capacitors. GIGABYTE’s proprietary RGB Fusion 2.0 LED lighting system controls the minimal on-board LED illumination and those supplied through the four additional RGB LED headers.
An additional feature which we believe is currently unique to GIGABYTE is an internal HDMI display-output header. While its use is flexible, GIGABYTE envision that it would be used by an internal screen (not included) that would display real-time sensor readouts.
This is our first look at X870 and we’re eager to see what the platform can offer. At $289.99 it’s certainly towards the high end of X870 models but nowhere near the $400+ premium tier currently occupied by some ASUS ROG Strix designs. That being said, there are also cheaper X870E models; they might not be as well-appointed as the AORUS ELITE but the added I/O might take USB peripheral provision from a tight squeeze to a generous allotment, even if it doesn’t look quite as attractive.
