Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice review

pcgamer.com:

It’s been a somewhat bizarre launch for Intel with its Core Ultra desktop processors crashing and burning (thankfully not physically this time) in reviews and sales figures are understandably poor, especially when compared to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which even outsold all of AMD’s other Ryzen 9000 CPUs combined. It’s only because of a long list of problems and promised fixes that we’d even consider opting for Intel’s new platform and consider a motherboard such as the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice.

But from the start the constant updates do make testing difficult.

BIOS updates, driver updates, Windows updates – they’ve all been coming thick and fast for Z890 motherboards in the hope of improving performance. Today we’ll be seeing if the latest tweaks for the platform and specifically the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice make it worth considering, even when directly compared with its X870 counterpart that costs a touch more.

Of course, with Intel, it’s only releasing cheaper options of LGA1851 motherboards this month, whereas AMD had to content with older 600-series chipsets on its platform. Like AMD’s 800-series, the focus is on Wi-Fi 7, PCIe Gen 5 support, tool-free features and high-speed USB Type-C ports and being Intel, that means Thunderbolt 4.

Socket: LGA1851
Chipset: Intel Z890
CPU compatibility: Intel Core Ultra 200 desktop
Form factor: ATX
Memory support: DDR5-4800 to DDR5-9200+(OC), up to 256 GB
Storage: 4x M.2, 4x SATA
USB (rear): 1x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C 40 Gbps, 2x USB 3.1 Type-A 10 Gbps, 3x USB 3.0 Type-A 5 Gbps, 4x USB 2.0
Display: 1 x Thunderbolt 4, 1x DisplayPort
Networking: Realtek 2.5G LAN, Wi-Fi 7
Audio: Realtek ALC1220
Price: $270 | £280 | AU$490

While this particular board’s party piece is its glorious white colour scheme that even extends to the PCIe and memory slots, as well as small details on the PCB such as the POST code display and RGB headers. Really nice touches, Gigabyte.

Considering this board leaves you with plenty of change