Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE Motherboard Review

Gigabyte has just released a new series of motherboards based on AMD’s latest AM5 socket chipsets. This article will focus on one of the highest models: the X870E AORUS PRO ICE. The motherboard uses the flagship X870E chipset, which replaces the very successful X670E. The X870E AORUS PRO ICE supports the latest components, such as DDR5 memory, PCIe 5.0, USB4, and WiFi 7. The list of exciting features is longer, but we won’t tell you everything in the introduction.

Let’s begin with a long list of specifications and features, and I will describe those that are most important or refreshed in the new chipset series.

Specifications and Features of the Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE

The X870E PRO ICE is not the highest model, as it is also the MASTER on the list. However, the general specifications are similar, with a clear visual difference, as the PRO ICE is white. Gigabyte tried to use all possible components, heatsinks, and covers to make it look “icy cold.”

The list of key features suggests multiple improvements in the new generation of motherboards. At first sight, we couldn’t say there are so many changes.

Key Features

• 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
• WIFI EZ-Plug: Quick and easy design for Wi-Fi antenna installation
• EZ-Latch Plus：PCIe and M.2 slots with Quick Release & Screwless Design
• EZ-Latch Click：M.2 heatsinks with screwless design
• Sensor Panel Link：Onboard video port for hassle-free in-chassis panel setup
• Friendly UI: Multi-Theme, AIO Fan Control, and Q-Flash Auto Scan in BIOS and SW.
• New Power Monitor in HWinfo for real-time monitoring on CPU power phases
• Ultra-Fast Storage：4*M.2 slots, including 3* PCIe 5.0 x4
• Efficient Thermal：VRM Thermal Armor Advanced  & M.2 Thermal Guard L
• Fast Networking：2.5GbE LAN & Wi-Fi 7 with directional Ultra-high gain antenna
• Extended Connectivity：Dual USB4 Type-C with DP-Alt, HDMI
• Reliable Audio：Realtek ALC1220 HD Audio & Audiophile Grade Capacitors
• Ultra Durable PCIe Armor : The metal back plate of PCIe x16 slot for enhanced durability.
• PCIe UD Slot X： PCIe 5.0 x16 slot with 10X strength for graphics card

AMD X870E Chipset Specifications

Chipset Comparison – Source: AMD

The X870E is the flagship chipset, so we can expect the best device support. On the other hand, there are barely any changes compared to the X670E, as we only get native USB4 support in the X870E chipset. It’s quite disappointing, but it doesn’t change that motherboards based on the 800 series chipsets promise many other improvements. AMD decided not to release lower chipsets in the first wave, while the successor of the B650E seems to be the most interesting option, considering the price-to-performance ratio.

The table with the general differences between the new chipsets is above, while below are all the details about the X870E PRO ICE.

Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE Specifications

The specifications are pretty impressive, as the motherboard is packed with various controllers, supports multiple M.2 SSDs, fast LAN and WiFi, and many more.

The X870E PRO ICE supports all AM5 processors from the 7000, 8000, and 9000 series. Even the initial F1 BIOS, which was installed, supports all the mentioned CPU series. For this review, the BIOS was updated to the latest F3a version, and I can already tell you it’s recommended to do that as it fixes some minor issues with PCIe lane distribution.

The motherboard supports all kinds of DDR5 RAM up to 8000MT/s. I assume it will increase slightly after we receive improved BIOS releases, but everyone plays safe for the product premiere. Using two memory modules is also recommended, and the X870E has strengthened only two memory slots – optimal for a dual-module, dual-channel setup. Because of the AMD architecture, four memory modules don’t run much above 6000MT/s, and many configurations seem problematic. The motherboard still allows us to occupy four memory slots if we need a very high RAM capacity.

The X870 PRO ICE offers four M.2 sockets. Three work up to PCIe 5.0 x4 mode (connected to the CPU), and one works up to PCIe 4.0 x4. M.2 sockets connected to the CPU share the bandwidth with the first PCIe x16 slot. If we use sockets such as M2B or M2C, the PCIe slot will have a reduced bandwidth of x8. In reality, it doesn’t matter much, as tests confirmed it’s around a 1-2% performance decrease on high-end graphics cards.

We wish to see a newer audio codec, as Realtek ALC1220 has been around for a couple of years. On the other hand, Gigabyte is well-known for better audio capacitors and optimized traces for noise reduction. It could be better in this department, but it’s still fine.

The main difference in the new motherboard series is native USB4 support. It’s not much, but until now, we could only count on external solutions available on the highest motherboards. The X870E PRO ICE offers two USB4 Type-C ports with Display Port support, which should be more than enough for most users.

Gigabyte X870E PRO ICE uses 16+2+2 power phases, of which 16 are for the CPU. The design is similar to what we could see in high X670E and B650E motherboards like the Master series. This power design works well with top AM5 processors and doesn’t overheat under extended high loads.

Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE Features

The list of Key Features is also available on Gigabyte’s website.

Looking at the list of key features, we can say that Gigabyte has improved many things that aren’t the most important for end-users, but it is improving the experience and may make our lives easier. I love how Gigabyte added EZ-Latch designs to all M.2 sockets and the main PCIe slot, as they help a lot, especially when removing the graphics card. Those with large graphics cards for longer, know it was a big problem in some older motherboard series.

Let’s check what we get with the X870E PRO ICE and how the motherboard looks.

Retail Packaging and Accessories

The motherboard arrived in a retail package before the premiere. The package design and contents are the same as in stores.

Inside the box is everything we need for the installation, including a WiFi antenna, SATA data cables, thermal sensor cable, a sticker/badge with the AORUS logo, RGB extension cable, a quick user’s guide (an extended version of the manual is available on the website), and a set of various gaming theme stickers. We won’t find M.2 screws as the motherboard supports mentioned EZ-Latch design, and they’re not required. The WiFi antenna supports EZ-Plug, so in short, there are no nuts to hold it in place, and it’s easier to install and remove.

A Closer Look at the Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE

The X870E PRO ICE has a clean, bright design. Inside a PC case, it looks even smoother and cleaner than outside.

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The layout feels optimal. After initial tests, the motherboard was installed inside the case, which fits perfectly, and all the cables can be easily connected. All the connectors are where I would expect them, and access to buttons, switches, and connectors is easy, even with all other components installed. Again, I’m glad to see the EZ-Latch design.

The only thing I’m missing is the clear CMOS button on the back of the motherboard. On the back, we can find the Q-Flash Plus button, and inside, next to the debug code display, a power button and a programmable button, which is by default a reset. We can program it to recover the last state or give other functionality. A button on the back IO plate would still be much more comfortable. The motherboard is not recovering from some failed overclocking attempts, and if we have the motherboard inside the case, then using internal buttons is a little problematic.

The motherboard has many fan headers, all of which can be controlled in the BIOS or Gigabyte software. Setting all nine fans inside the PC case was no problem.

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The X870E PRO ICE uses large heatsinks and high-performance thermal pads, so it handles everything without fans. I noticed that Gigabyte is not using large backplates like the previous generations. It doesn’t change much, and some users found it problematic when installing it on some PC cases. Even though it doesn’t look so fancy, it’s a good move.

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Compared to the top series from the last generation, the X870E PRO ICE doesn’t have backside cooling for three M.2 SSDs. It’s still available for the top M.2 socket (above the PCIe slot dedicated to a graphics card). It’s better for all who decide to use M.2 SSDs with third-party cooling or with built-in large heatsinks, as it’s easier to install them. On the other hand, some double-sided M.2 SSDs could also use cooling on the other side of the PCB.

Some readers can be surprised with a double chipset setup. The X870E chipset uses two Promontory 21 dies to support more PCIe lanes, while other chipsets have only one. Both X670/X670E used two PROM21 chips, but X870 drops to one.

Below are additional close-ups of the ICs on the motherboard.

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UEFI BIOS and Software

BIOS/UEFI

The new motherboard series BIOS/UEFI has been redesigned to be more user-friendly. The X870E PRO ICE is kept bright to match the motherboard design.
The motherboard arrived with an initial F1 version, so we updated it to the F3a version as it was fixing at least one issue with the PCIe lanes distribution for the graphics card. It’s good to keep the BIOS up to date as it may improve the performance and help with compatibility.
The BIOS has two modes: an easy mode for all those who are fine with basic settings and an advanced mode for those who like to adjust everything or need specific settings for their work.

Easy Mode

Advanced Mode – Tweaker

Advanced Mode – Settings

Advanced Mode – System Info

Advanced Mode – Boot

Advanced Mode – Save & Exit

Gigabyte Software

Gigabyte adds the Control Center software, which includes RGB adjustment, fan control, overclocking and diagnostic options, and software/firmware updates. Everything we need in one place.

The RGB worked with the most popular brands, like G.Skill and Kingston. Less popular V-Color also worked fine, as you can see in the photos in this review.

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As I already mentioned, fan control works without issues and can be easily managed by the software.
The Performance tab gives us options to overclock our PC, but most will require a restart to work. I still recommend using BIOS for overclocking attempts and user profiles to recover quickly if anything goes wrong.

Test Setup and Performance of the Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE

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CPU and Memory Performance

Gigabyte X870E PRO ICE performs well in memory benchmarks, even though it uses an early BIOS, so I’m sure there will be some improvements in the future. Results in AIDA64 are slightly better than those of the motherboards on the B650E and X670E chipsets.
The 14th-generation Intel looks the best in these tests, but of course, it’s a different architecture.

AIDA64 CPU tests show that the X870E PRO ICE performs slightly better than other AM5 motherboards. The difference isn’t significant, but it confirms the motherboard works well.

AIDA64 FPU tests suggest that the B650E Master from Gigabyte is the fastest. Again, the performance difference between all AM5 motherboards is nearly the same.

The results of additional tests show no clear winner. Each test looks slightly better on a different motherboard, suggesting that after more reruns, we may have an average close to the error margin. We still ran each test several times, but sometimes it’s not enough.

PCMark 10 also shows the X870E PRO ICE’s high performance. The motherboard has no problems with all applications and is slightly faster than older AM5 models.

Gaming Performance

Gaming benchmarks show about the same results on Gigabyte and ASUS motherboards. Differences are close to the margin of error, so the user’s experience will be similar in all cases. The new chipset doesn’t change anything, but our tests confirm that the X870E PRO ICE is well-designed and has no problems with performance.

Popular games run as fast on the new chipset as on earlier chipsets. The results are similar in all cases.

Storage Performance

M.2 SSD

The M.2 performance has been tested using the Crucial T705 2TB NVMe PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD. It performs even slightly better than declared, passing 14.5GB/s sequential read and reaching over 1.5M IOPS in random read and write.

USB

In USB performance, we focus on the most significant chipset improvement: the native USB4. Using the ADATA SE920 USB4 SSD, we see that the performance is slightly worse than that on Intel chipsets, where we could reach flat 3.8GB/s. It’s nothing significant, and we will observe how it looks after BIOS and driver updates in the future. The performance, in general, is still great, so there is nothing to complain about. Results are better than we can achieve on Thunderbolt 4 controllers.

Network Performance

LAN

I’m glad to see Realtek 2.5Gbps LAN, mainly because Intel still hasn’t fixed all the issues with their NICs that cause performance drops on selected switches and routers. Realtek is also automatically installed on every new Windows, including the Server 2022 series.
Our results are close to what the NIC is specified for, up to over 2.4Gbps.

WiFi

WiFi results depend heavily on the environment, and the test room is far from perfect: it has thick walls and multiple networks, which clearly limit the bandwidth tested between two computers and the router on the way (above).

The direct internet bandwidth is over 830Mbps on average, using a 1Gbps connection, which is pretty good considering the cable link gives us around 950Mbps.

Power Consumption

Above, you can see our results of the whole test rig. It’s a typical high-end PC. The new Gigabyte motherboard uses slightly less power for about the same tasks. It’s mentioned in the X870E PRO ICE features that we can expect better power saving. It’s not much, but everything counts.

Overclocking with the Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO ICE

Nothing has changed in two years, and we can still choose fully manual, PBO, or mixed-mode overclocking. The above screenshot shows how it looks when we set a maximum frequency for all cores. We could set the x0.5 ratio on the same processor higher than on the B650E Master motherboard, which gives us around 5.4GHz on all CPU cores.

In the screenshot below, you can see how it looks when we play with PBO settings. The multi-threaded score is better in the first case, while the single-threaded score is better in the second case scenario. The PBO adjustment with the negative curve (typically between -10 and -30) gives better results in modern games and helps lower power usage.

Gigabyte motherboards also have an Active OC Tuner, which switches between manual settings and PBO to provide higher frequencies at all cores and a higher boost frequency for single-core tasks. The test rig couldn’t perform better with the Active OC Tuner, even though it ran at slightly higher frequencies.

Regarding memory overclocking, we can count on 6400-6600MT/s at 1:1 and up to 8600MT/s+ at 1:2, IF:IMC ratio. However, anything above 8200MT/s can be limited to the 8000G APU series. The motherboard works perfectly fine with 2x48GB DDR5-6400 CL32 modules (used in overclocking results on the above screenshots) and even boots at 6600MT/s CL32, but the memory controller can’t handle it at a 1:1 ratio. Single-rank modules can easily work at 8000MT/s.

Even though the X870E PRO ICE is a new motherboard, and no one expects it to have a fine-tuned BIOS, it performs well and overclocks well. We had no problems during the tests that could suggest any problems with BIOS. I’m sure anyone who wishes to overclock on this motherboard will be satisfied.

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Conclusion

The X870E AORUS PRO ICE is another well-designed motherboard from Gigabyte. We had no problems with compatibility or performance during the tests. All components used on the motherboard worked as expected. The motherboard is also well-equipped, even though it isn’t the highest model (we can expect at least two higher models).

Like in high motherboards from the 600 series, the X870E PRO ICE has a solid 16+2+2 power design and entirely passive cooling that handles all the heat without issues. Although, at first glance, it’s not so much different from the motherboards of the previous generation, the design and the long list of features, such as toolless M.2 installation or easy graphics card removal, improve the experience.
The motherboard has everything gamers need: fast USB/USB-C ports, high-quality audio, four M.2 sockets in PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 standards, fast PCIe slots, 2.5Gbps LAN, and WiFi 7.

The motherboard has multiple RGB headers and a backlight, which is ideal for RGB enthusiasts. Gigabyte motherboards are fully compatible with most RGB devices, such as fans, LED strips, water cooling components, RAM modules, etc.

The X870E PRO ICE is also great for overclocking and supports a wide range of RAM frequencies up to at least 8600MT/s. We hope to see even better results when motherboards receive a more tuned BIOS. However, even the early version seems stable and problem-free, which does not happen often before the product premiere.

The Gigabyte X870E AROUS PRO ICE costs exactly as much as the MSRP, $359.99. With a Newegg rebate card, it’s $20 less. The price is reasonable for what we get. As usual with Gigabyte, we don’t expect any problems with availability, and many stores have already listed the whole line of new Gigabyte motherboards with AMD X870 and X870E chipsets.

The X870E AORUS PRO ICE offers all the best at a reasonable price, so it fully deserves our recommendation!

Click the stamp for an explanation of what this means.

Bartosz Waluk – Woomack

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