Overall and Final Verdict
I haven’t taken a look at any of the Gigabyte motherboards for a few years and I’ve been missing out. The X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 is one of 10 boards that Gigabyte is launching today and it is their highest-end X870 model alongside of the matching X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 Ice white/silver model. Going with X870 over X870E means half as many USB and SATA ports and fewer chipset PCIe lanes which as we saw with the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 does limit the use of one of the PCIe slots if you fill up the one chipset ran M.2 slot. I’m always looking for more USB ports but that may be partially because I am always testing new hardware. But the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 isn’t sitting too bad on ports overall and you do get a good mix of older USB 2.0, USB 3.2 Gen 1, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. Not to mention the rear I/O has two Type-C USB 4.0 ports as well. The similar X870E Aorus Elite Wifi7 does get more internal USB headers if you think you will need more.
Beyond that, the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 looks good styling and the neutral blacked-out design of this model should work well in most builds. They also have the Ice model as well which looks even better as well. Four M.2 slots with three of those supporting PCIe 5.0 (if your CPU supports it) should be more than enough for all but the craziest of builds. You even get an internal HDMI port for those who want to put in a screen INSIDE of their PC. You also have the easy unlock PCIe button which makes removing today's huge video cards a lot easier. I’ve damaged a board or two trying to press down the eject button between a big GPU and a heatsink in the past. Really the only issue I had with the board at all, and it's not that big of a deal was with the RGB lighting. It was interesting to me that they went with 5 under glow LEDs up under the chipset heatsink for lighting but none anywhere else on the board. I don’t care if I have lighting at all, but if you are going to add it at least get some in a few places around the board.
For pricing the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 has an MSRP of $289.99 which given that it is a higher-end X870 board isn’t bad. Gigabyte did tell me that they have a $10-$20 rebate on some of the boards they are launching today but the X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 wasn’t included in that. They also have a $20 reward for honest reviews posted on retailers. The link for that is HERE. The big thing for me though was the news that there is no longer a premium for white models of motherboards. The matching X870 Aorus Elite Wifi7 Ice has the same 289.99 price point.
Live Pricing: HERE
