The X870E AORUS MASTER’s packaging is not safe from the scourge of purple ‘Cyberpunk’ colour schemes, in this instance highlighting the large AORUS bird-head logo. This streamlined style is echoed by the minimal information on the front being strictly what you need to know: AMD Socket AM5, DDR5 memory and PCI-Express 5.0 compatibility, as well as the Chipset designation.



GIGABYTE’s included accessories are much more generous and varied than other X870E designs we’ve looked at (as well as the X870 AORUS ELITE), touching on most core aspects of the ‘board. Included are:



They’re pushing the boat out a little more than usual here. Cable tidy accessories and thermistors are relatively common at this tier, but a dedicated fan for system memory cooling is a new one. As noted, the 802.11be antenna features their proprietary WiFi EZ Plug connector, and we finally have a noise detection sensor cable for the header that was so confusing on the X870E AORUS MASTER.

The AORUS UEFI allows users to set up and control the DDR Wind Blade fan through a selectable fan header. Fan RPM can be controlled automatically using DIMM temperature sensors on supporting memory.

As before, we very much welcome the G-Connector’s inclusion too. This handy little jumper block lets you attach the individual front panel cables (for power switch, reset switch, LED indicators etc.) to it first and then plug the whole block into the jumper array on the motherboard. At a stroke it eliminates a lot of frustration associated with putting a PC together.



Here’s our first look at the X870E AORUS MASTER gaming motherboard. It’s immediately noticeable that the design is a lot more ‘busy’ than the ELITE thanks in part to a strong angular highlighting and small touches such as the ‘echoing’ AORUS triangle to the top-right of the chipset cooler. We’re not convinced that the ‘Team Up, Fight On’ tagline resonates particularly well but GIGABYTE sure won’t give it up without a fight.

The AORUS MASTER gets a little more integrated RGB than mainstream competition, adding some configurable illumination to the VRM heatsink as well as the bottom edge of the chipset cooler. The latter is a pleasant edge glow around the components but the former is much more of an acquired taste. Each, of course, can be disabled.

A straightforward ATX footprint should mean that the motherboard is compatible with almost every ATX PC case on the market. It does however feature more than the usual number of edge-aligned headers on the bottom-right of the board so the chosen case will need to be appropriate to take full advantage of them. There should be no compatibility issues with the plethora of modern AM5 coolers; in extreme cases older air coolers with a wide and low base or fin stack could foul on the VRM or top-most M.2 heatsink.