Gigabyte X870 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Motherboard Overview
As we take a first look at the X870 AORUS Elite WiFi7 for those wondering this is a standard ATX motherboard. Gigabyte is going with a black PCB with gray accents. You’ll also find these gray accents on the brushed aluminum heatsinks throughout the board.
Starting at the CPU socket we have AMD’s AM5 socket. This board is going to support AMD’s Ryzen 9000, 8000, and 7000 series processors.
Surrounding the CPU socket we have our power delivery components. Gigabyte is making use of a 16+2+2 phase design with 60A power stages. It is worth noting that these are designed in a parallel 8+8 design. The power delivery components are covered by two large heatsinks, which will keep your VRM temperatures in check. The VRM heatsinks connect to the rear I/O cover, which really brings the top section of the board together. This cover has the AORUS logo on it.
Hiding in the top corner of the board are two 8-pin EPS connectors. By default you only need to have one plugged in, but for higher-end processors and overclocking you’ll want to use both connectors for more stable power delivery. Moving across the top of the board you’ll find your optional CPU fan header, main CPU fan header, small power and reset buttons, a standard 4-pin RGB header, and a 3-pin addressable RGB header.
Coming to the far edge of the board you’ll find indication LEDs, a POST code display, 24-pin ATX power connection, a HDMI port (sensor panel link), and a USB 3.2 gen 2×2 header. When it comes to memory we have four DDR5 DIMM slots which will support up to 256GB of DDR5 memory with speeds of 8000 MHz.
Moving down the board there are four SATA 6GB/s ports as well as a USB 3.2 header. These connections are at a 90-degree angle so they won’t get in the way of your graphics card or other expansion cards. At the bottom of the board you’ll find the rest of your headers and connections. From left to right we have the front panel audio header, two 3-pin addressable RGB headers, ESPI_DB header, TPM header, three 4-pin fan headers, two USB 2.0 headers, three more 4-pin fan headers, and then finally your front panel headers. If you’ve been keeping count this board has a total of eight 4-pin fan headers.
Like most motherboards these days the bottom half of the X870 AORUS Elite WiFi7 is characterized by heatsinks. The design on these heatsinks features the AORUS logo, but I feel it is a bit toned down from previous designs. The top heatsink is a bit beefier as it is meant to cool off a Gen5 NVMe SSD. Both the top and bottom heatsinks are easily removable as they make use of Gigabyte’s EZ-Latch plus system. Once removed we find our four M.2 slots. The top and bottom two slots are powered by the CPU and are Gen5 slots, while the second slot is powered by the chipset and is a Gen4 slot. Each one of these slots make use of Gigabyte’s EZ-Latch click system, which is essentially a tool-less system from installing your M.2 drives. The included heatsinks also have pre-installed thermal tape on them.
When it comes to expansion slots we have three PCI-Express X16 slots. The top slot is a PCI-Express 5.0 slot and is x16 electrical, the second slot is PCI-Express 4.0 and is x4 electrical, and finally the bottom slot is PCI-Express 3.0 and is x2 electrical. It is also worth noting that if you have M.2 drives in either of the two bottom M.2 slots (M2B_CPU or M2C_CPU) the top x16 slot will run a x8. The top graphics card slot is metal reinforced and has a simple button towards the edge of the board to easily release your graphics card. If we flip the board over we can see how reinforced the top slot is.
Of course we have an integrated I/O shield on the rear I/O. When it comes to buttons and connections we have a Q-Flash Plus button, WiFi antenna connections, four USB 2.0 Type-A ports, four USB 3.2 gen 1 Type-A ports, HDMI, two USB 4.0 Type-C ports, two USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-A ports, 2.5G Ethernet, and then your audio connections. In total you have 12 USB ports on the rear I/O and don’t forget you get even more via headers on the board. Gigabyte also is making use of a WiFi EZ-Plug that makes it super-easy to plug in the included WiFi 7 antenna.
