Aorus X870E Elite X3D Ice Motherboard Review

A little over a year ago I was lucky enough to review the Aorus X870 Elite WiFi 7 Motherboard from Gigabyte.  This was one of my first AMD reviews in several years and kicked off a trend that encompassed a number of different AM5 motherboards from near top of the line to bottom basement B-series boards that aren’t bad but, not all that special.  What is interesting is that Aorus/Gigabyte tend to do things a little different when it comes to their motherboard series offerings. 

Obvious differences include the actual chipset, B-series “business” chipsets are generally cheaper and come with considerably less features.  AMD offers an X870 and X870E chipset with the major difference being available PCI Express lanes.  Things get a little more complex depending on what CPU you pair with your motherboard but, that is more of a “you” problem than a motherboard selection one.

In this review we will be looking at the Aorus X870E Elite X3D Ice motherboard.  This board features an AMD X870E chipset supporting AM5 processors and comes with the X3D refresh features and the extremely swank ICE color combo.

• X3D Turbo Mode 2.0 : Incredible X3D performance unleashed by AI
• DDR5 OC up to 9000MT/s
• DriverBIOS : Wi-Fi Driver Pre-install, Power-On & EZ to Launch the Network.
• AMD Socket AM5 : Supports AMD Ryzen™ 9000 / 8000 / 7000 Series Processors
• Digital twin 16+2+2 phases VRM solution
• Dual Channel DDR5 : 4*DIMMs with AMD EXPO™Memory Module Support
• 2 EZ-Flex : high-efficiency heat dissipation & flexible patented baseplate for M.2 SSD
• WIFI EZ-Plug : Quick and easy design for Wi-Fi antenna installation
• 2 EZ-Latch Click & Plus : Quick Release & Screwless Design on M.2 slots and heatsinks
• Friendly UI : Multi-Theme, AIO Fan Control, and Q-Flash Auto Scan in BIOS and SW
• Ultra-Fast Storage : 4*M.2 slots, including PCIe 5.0 x4
• PCB Thermal Plate : 14% thermal improvement and reinforced motherboard stability.
• Efficient Thermal : VRM Thermal Armor Advanced & M.2 Thermal Guard L & M.2 Thermal Guard Ext.
• Fast Networking : 5GbE LAN & Wi-Fi 7 with directional Ultra-high gain antenna
• Extended Connectivity : HDMI, Dual USB4 Type-C with DP-Alt, Front QC-USB 65W
• PCIe UD Slot X : PCIe 5.0 x16 slot with 10X strength for graphics card

When it comes to the series “pecking order” the Elite motherboards are pretty far down the list.  Currently the Aorus Xtreme AI Top is the halo motherboard followed by the Master and Pro series.  This leaves the Elite to be the least expensive X870E motherboard I could feel good recommending despite not being the board “I would run” in my daily driver.

But, then again, I have slightly different tastes.

Periodically, motherboard makers will re-release products to help freshen the image and fix issues that were found after the initial product release.  For the X3D refresh you will find many features that were exclusive to higher tiers now being offered across the board.  For instance, the UD PCB Back Armor (the back plate) was only available on the Xtreme series and now is standard issue.  M.2 EZ Match is now found on all motherboards including direct touch VRM coolers and EZ buttons on the I/O panel.  Previously these were exclusive to Master and Xtreme editions.  One new feature I like to see is the progressive increase in supported DDR5 clock frequency from 8600 MT/s on previous editions with 9000 MT/s support on X3D boards which is Super-fast for the AM5 and still one of the easiest ways to get free performance from your build.