Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro review

pcgamer.com:

Having already launched one generation of chipsets on its Socket AM5 platform, AMD faces an uphill struggle in selling 800-series chipset motherboards when older, cheaper options are perfectly capable of running CPUs such as the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. However, it arguably has an easier task than Intel given the low sales figures of its Core Ultra 200 series and there are plenty of options that leave you with decent change from $400/£400 too.

The Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro retails for just $350—still not cheap, but then the X870E option with AMD’s new 800-series chipsets is the flagship choice.

This gets you Wi-Fi 7, full PCIe 5.0 support across both graphics and some of the M.2 storage ports, USB 4 Type-C ports and the latest features too that are designed to make the building process as hassle-free as possible as well as dealing with hot-running PCIe 5.0 SSDs. The latter are what ultimately make the difference here given the older X670E chipset offers the majority if not all of the same features under the hood in terms of ports and bandwidth.

At this price you’re also paying for premium looks too and Gigabyte has delivered with a chunky set of dark, moody heatsinks for the M.2 ports and VRMs as well as a dash of built-in RGB lighting above the I/O panel and chipset heatsink. While it’s not exactly cheap, the board looks and feels every bit like something costing $100 more.

Socket: AMD Socket AM5
Chipset: AMD X870E
CPU compatibility: AMD Ryzen 7000/8000/9000 desktop
Form factor: ATX
Memory support: DDR5-4800 to DDR5-8200 (OC), up to 256 GB
Storage: 4x M.2, 4x SATA
USB (rear): 2x USB 4 Type-C 40 Gbps, 3x USB 3.1 Type-A 10 Gbps, 4x USB 3.0 Type-A 5 Gbps, 2 x USB 2.0
Display: 1x HDMI 2.1, 2x USB/DisplayPort
Networking: Realtek 2.5G LAN, Wi-Fi 7
Audio: Realtek ALC1220
Price: $359 | £329 | AU$626

If you hate dealing with tiny M.2 screws or graphics cards stuck in their slots then you’ll love the tool-free features on offer with the X870E Aorus Pro. They’re similar to other