Verdict and Conclusion
When Gigabyte sent me the B860 AORUS ELITE WiFi7 ICE to review, I thought it would be just another mainstream motherboard. But to my surprise, it has a lot more to offer than meets the eye. Although this motherboard is sub $200, it comes packed with a ton of features that’s normally found on more expensive enthusiast motherboards.
And as I’ve said many times, don’t nderestimate mainstream chipsets such as the B860. Although the B860 chipset offers up to 34 useable PCIE lanes, compared to the Z890’s 48 useable PCIE lanes … if you don’t need all those extra PCIE lanes, then a B860 chipset based motherboard will be just fine, and should be more than capable to run the latest hardware with little to no difference at all.
Now let’s take a look at some of the features that make this motherboard so attractive. First, let’s start with the Digital Twin 14+1+2 phases VRM solution, that uses a 6-layer, 2X Copper PCB with premium capacitors, The whole board is cooled by their Advanced full-metal thermal design, which includes large VRM heatsinks with 5 W/mK thermal pads.
Expansion slots include 1 x PCIe 5.0 x16 with UD Slot X and PCIE EZ-Latch Plus, and 2 x PCIe 4.0 x16 slots. It also comes with 4 x DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting XMP memory modules with speeds of up DDR5-9200 OC.
For storage, there’s a total of 4 SATA ports and 1 x PCIE Gen5 M.2 slots as well as 2 x PCIE Gen4 M.2 slots, featuring the Gigabyte’s M.2 EZ-Latch Click and EZ-Latch Plus for easy DIY installation. These M.2 slots are cooled using the M.2 Thermal Guard and the M.2 Thermal Guard Ext. featuring a large heat shield.
The rear I/O panel offers plenty of connectivity, including 1 x USB4 USB Type-C port (DisplayPort capable), 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (red), 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI port, 2 x antenna connectors for WiFi7 (EZ-Plug), 1 x 2.5GB LAN port, 1 x Line-in, Mic-Out and 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector.
It also comes with diagnostic LEDs, and onboard buttons for power, reset and BIOS Q-Flash, which is a great added bonus, and are normally found on enthusiast motherboards. So when I say this motherboard is packed with features … believe me, it is!
During our tests, we used Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor, along with 48GB of Patriot Viper Xtreme 5 DDR5-8000 ram, Crucial T700 1TB PCIE Gen5 SSD, and the GeForce RTX 4080 Super.
We managed to get very good scores in all of our benchmarks, including a Cinebench 2024 score of 2,388 points for multi core, and 129 points for single core. For PCMark 10, we got a decent score of 9,453, and a score of 16,016 for PassMark 11.
For Procyon Video Editing Benchmark, we got an impressive score of 12,078 and a score of 211 for the AI Computer Vision Benchmark. For 3DMark Steel Nomad and Speedway, we got a nice score of 6,822 and 7,529 respectively. And finally, for Port Royal and Timespy, we got pretty good score sof 18,583 and 27,293 respectively. All-in-all, I’m more than happy with the results from our benchmarks.
The Gigabyte B860 AORUS ELITE WiFi7 ICE motherboard is one of those hidden gems. It could easily be dismissed as just a standard motherboard based on its price … but this is what really makes it even more appealing. For $190, this motherboard not only looks great with its all-white aesthetic, but also comes packed some great enthusiast features, and performs as good as it looks … something you wouldn’t expect for the price!
You can buy the Gigabyte B860 AORUS ELITE WiFi7 ICE motherboard for around USD $190 from Amazon – https://amzn.to/4l6o2ak
Final Words:
The Gigabyte B860 AORUS ELITE WiFi7 ICE motherboard offers a lot more than the price suggests. It comes with a ton of enthusaist features, offers good performance, and has great aesthetics with an all-white design. You get all of this for only USD $190!
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