GIGABYTE continue to pursue a consumer-focussed approach to motherboard design with the X870E AORUS MASTER, much like its junior sibling the X870 AORUS ELITE. It is perhaps most surprising that they’re quite restrained, remaining very conventional and in so doing belying the flagship status the board enjoys. There are significant benefits to this approach, but a least a few potential owners might lament the lack of some ineffable quality that would make this a deeply aspirational model more than the sum of its parts. That being said... just being pretty great at everything should be plenty.

AMD X870E motherboards are supposed to be feature-rich, that is after all the very point of the dual-PCH approach, and the AORUS MASTER exemplifies that ethos. While it may be surpassed by competition in individual aspects such as the storage provision, or number of USB ports etc., the approach it does take means it’s weak in no particular aspect.

That very much extends to usability, where GIGABYTE is arguably a cut above the competition. Innovations, no matter how insignificant, add up to quite a large difference that PC building veterans will notice instantly. Installing hardware is trivial, to the extent that even gently guided novice users will be comfortable getting to grips with it.

It’s not all plain sailing for the AORUS MASTER however. While WiFi 7 (802.11be) and USB 4 support gives the AORUS a measure of future-proofing, other manufacturers offer more connectivity for the same price or less. It will complement the extended life-span expected from AMD’s AM5 platform but competitors will provide more room to grow through more USB Type-C Gen2x2 ports, or Bluetooth 5.4 support, or other aspect that becomes inexplicably useful in the future.

We’re increasingly pleased to see manufacturers roll out proprietary ease-of-use features that help with component installation, removal and eventual upgrades. GIGABYTE have done a great job with EZ Latch for PCIe and M.2, and we’re starting to side-eye premium motherboards that don’t have such features. The jury is out on WiFi EZ Plug however as it breaks compatibility with antenna socket standards, something that could be a concern long-term if the supplied antenna is prone to failure.

The X870E AORUS MASTER performed well in tests, keeping up with the other X870E boards as expected. Chipset Temperatures were also the best of the X870E’s we’ve seen thus far, but VRM temperatures might indicate that the perforated rear I/O shield to encourage air flow across the VRM heatsink was more necessary than originally assumed.

Like the X870 AORUS ELITE, this design isn’t a model for extreme overclockers. Sixteen phases are unexceptional in a world with 22-phase power delivery, even if other features have made this design more suited to test bench installations than its lower tier running mate. Consumers and hobbyists with a penchant for modest overclocks should nonetheless be quite happy with the tools available as well as memory auto-OC features. Ample air flow around the CPU socket to cool those toasty VRM will be needed however, particularly if pushing 12- and 16-core Ryzen chips.

Easing users through any issues as they crop up are troubleshooting tools that should be go-to standard on consumer designs. DeBug codes and CPU-less BIOS Flashing are valuable to end-users with some knowledge and eagerness to fix any problems they have, and should boost the platform’s longevity well past warranty deadlines. End users are also increasingly advised to perform their own BIOS updates over the course of a system's life span, making recovery tools essential. We wish that manufacturers hadn’t increasingly placed these potentially critical tools in the ‘premium feature’ bracket and thus pricing them out of more mainstream and budget designs.

A final feature we’d like to explicitly call out is the internal HDMI header for a mini sensor-display. We’re not quite sure exactly who is catered to by it apart from the statistically obsessed or eternally anxious, but we appreciate that it exists to help owners marshal their sensor data or simply have a dynamic and attractive display just a glance away.



While the AORUS MASTER isn’t quite as toned-down as its sibling, it is notably less busy than the other X870E motherboards we’ve seen thus far. It strikes a balance between branding and sleek lines that doesn’t take away from other components when installed in a complete system. The VRM lighting borders on unnecessary, but chipset heatsink edge illumination is surprisingly effective in just accentuating the design.

Finally, we come to the price. At an MSRP of $499 it is the highest tier design released by GIGABYTE and tied for the most expensive of the X870E boards we’ve looked at thus far. At this price we expect more, and we get more on other boards (that incidentally are less expensive in some regions). In a vacuum we wouldn’t be disappointed, indeed we’d be rather happy to discover so many useful or novel proprietary features. With the benefit of wider knowledge however it wouldn’t be our first pick.

Still, with excellent usability characteristics, innovative features not seen elsewhere and an aura of premium design, GIGABYTE's X870E AORUS MASTER attains both the Vortez Creative and Premium Awards.

GIGABYTE’s X870 AORUS MASTER is a premium motherboard for the content creating gamer who appreciates the full featureset the X870E chipset and their engineers can provide, while also valuing the easiest system assembly experience. More demanding veteran users with a laser focus on I/O and platform longevity should carefully weigh additional options, particularly at a price tier where every purchase is a considered one.