Gigabyte's X870E Aorus Pro Ice is a midrange motherboard full of features, from a trio of PCI Express 5.0-capable M.2 sockets to 40Gbps USB4 ports, integrated Wi-Fi 7, and a winter-white design that's sure to look good inside your chassis. At $359.99 (sometimes offered with a rebate), you get a competent all-around AMD Ryzen platform with four total M.2 sockets; 11 USB ports on the rear I/O; loads of install-convenience features (say hello to EZ Plug, EZ Latch Plus, and EZ Click); an updated BIOS; and solid performance. And if you don't like white, Gigabyte vends a black non-Ice version with the same specifications and price. The company's own X870E Aorus Master remains our elite Editors' Choice-winning pick for high-end AMD builds, but this Ice board makes a strong case if you need to spend a bit less.
Design, CPU, and Memory: All-Around Slick
The AMD AM5-based Aorus Pro Ice uses a six-layer PCB (compared to eight layers for some other premium boards), along with large heatsinks to keep the MOSFETs and any other bits below running within spec. They had no trouble running our AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, nor would they have issues with the flagship 9950X. The VRM heatsinks sport a matte and brushed-aluminum finish, as do the plate heatsinks for the chipset and most of the M.2 slots. (The top PCI Express 5.0 M.2 slot has its own larger heatsink.) These are all easy to remove thanks to what Gigabyte called its EZ-Latch Click mechanism, while another feature, EZ-Latch Plus, holds M.2 drives in place without those tedious M.2 micro-screws that everyone hates.
RGB elements grace the area above the rear I/O, sporting Aorus branding, as well as underneath the chipset, with Gigabyte's Aorus falcon logo on top. Control over the RGB is managed through the Gigabyte Control Center (GCC) utility. Overall, we like the icy-white look and premium design.
The AMD X870 and newer X870E chipsets support AMD's "Zen 5" Ryzen processors natively. That means you needn't flash the BIOS to get them to work (though you should always update it to the latest version for best results). Any Zen 5 Ryzen 9000-series CPU is drop-in compatible. The chipset also supports all Zen 4 Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors and the 8000-series Ryzen APUs.
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Memory support on this platform increased, and in the case of the Pro Ice, it is listed up to DDR5-8200+ (OC), which is plenty fast for the price point. The four slots have locking mechanisms on both sides and support up to 256GB, which is plenty for even the most hard-core home users.
The baseline kit we use for testing, a Kingston two-16GB-DIMM DDR5-6000 set, and our Teamgroup DDR5-7200 kit both worked by enabling the baked-in profile on the sticks. We also tried our Klevv DDR5-8000 kit, which ran the AIDA64 stress test successfully, even though it isn't on the QVL. (A similar kit is.) AMD's desktop sweet spot is still squarely in the 6000-to-6400 neighborhood (using 1:1 with UCLK), so there's no real need to buy memory much faster than that.
Layout and Internal Connectors
Our tour begins in the top left corner, where we find two 8-pin EPS connectors (only one required to be used) that send power to the processor. Flanking the power leads are the large VRM heatsinks cooling the VRMs below.
Sliding right past the heatsink are the first three of eight fan headers. Each header supports PWM and DC-controlled devices, with all headers outputting up to 2A/24W, which should be plenty, even for a custom loop and water pump. Control over these devices is handled through the BIOS or GCC.
In the right corner are simple power and reset buttons. Below is the first 3-pin ARGB header with the others (two more 3-pin and one 4-pin RGB) on the bottom edge. Control over both integrated and attached RGBs is handled through the GCC software. There are plenty of prefab lighting patterns and options, and you can customize them to your liking. Next is the Ultra Durable (UD) 24-pin ATX connector to power the board, two more fan headers, and finally, the front USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) Type-C front-panel header—typical fare.
Audio, Expansion, Storage, and Rear I/O
On the bottom left side of the board, you’ll find the last-gen flagship Realtek ALC1220 7.1-channel audio codec with several dedicated audio capacitors visible. We'd like to see Realtek's newer codec used, but you probably won't hear the difference.
In the middle of the board are two full-length PCI Express slots. The reinforced top slot (dubbed "UD Slot X") connects through the CPU and runs up to PCIe 5.0 x16 speeds, no matter which M.2 sockets are used. The bottom two full-length slots connect through the chipset with the middle slot (PCIEX4_1) supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds and the bottom slot (PCIEX4_2) PCIe 3.0 x4.
We find four M.2 sockets around the PCIe slots. Three connect through the processor and can run at PCIe 5.0 x4 speeds. The fourth connects through the chipset and can run up to PCIe 4.0 x4. All M.2 sockets handle up to 110mm modules and RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 modes if you need additional speed or redundancy. Four SATA ports along the edge supporting RAID 0, 1, and 10 round out the storage.
Across the bottom are several headers and connectors. From left to right, we see the front-panel audio, three RGB headers, a TPM header, two USB 2.0 headers, a second 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbps) connector, three more fan headers (system fans), a clear CMOS jumper, and finally, the front-panel header.
As with most boards, the rear I/O plate arrives preinstalled. The Ice version of the board uses a white background with light grey labels, which isn't quite as easy to read as others but still legible in most lighting.
You get plenty of USB ports, 11 to be exact (two USB4, three USB 3.2 Gen 2, four USB 3.2 Gen 1, and two USB 2.0), and a Q-Flash Plus button on the left next to the HDMI output. The two-plug-plus-S/PDIF audio stack, the quick connect Wi-Fi 7, and the 2.5GbE port are on the right. I have no complaints here.
A Brief Look at the UEFI BIOS and Utilities
Gigabyte's BIOS for X870 receives a facelift from the X670 version and is an improvement. EZ Mode is primarily informational, but you can still adjust a few options, including memory speeds, fan control, Q-Flash, and a button for an X3D turbo mode for AMD's 3D V-Cache-equipped AM5 CPUs. The Advanced Mode is cleaned up with selectable headings/buttons across the top. The Ice version uses a light gray background with black writing and Aorus orange highlights. The high-contrast color scheme does make things easy to read.
Inside the advanced portion of the BIOS is the standard configuration with major headings across the top, including Favorites (customizable by the user), Tweaker, Settings, System Info, and Boot. You’ll find all the advanced functionality in this much more comprehensive mode.
The Tweaker section contains all the options for fine-tuning and overclocking your system. You can adjust voltages, RAM speeds and timings, and CPU overclocking options here.
Inside the Settings section are several subheadings where you can adjust platform power, configure I/O ports, putter with AMD's overclocking section, and see a PC Health readout, which displays system information such as voltage and temperatures. Here, you'll find options to turn audio and integrated graphics on/off, enable Resizable BAR, and configure USB, NVMe, SATA, audio, and network hardware.
On the whole, Gigabyte's UEFI is laid out logically and is easy to navigate. The updated X870 version has a wide variety of tweaks, including overclocking the CPU and RAM. Unlike other BIOSes, though, you cannot play with the RGB lighting from here; it has to be done through Windows. Overall, it provides all the options you need, and our version (F3d) was stable during our time with the board.
On the software side, the Gigabyte Control Center houses Windows-based monitoring and control over RGB lighting, fans, and performance/overclocking. It's a lightweight app that matches the black-and-orange Aorus theme and is easy to work with. Additionally, on startup, it polls the system for software and driver versions, and then updates or downloads them as needed (with your approval). The screenshot below shows the landing page, all the hardware it can control on our test system, and the functions (such as fan control and RGB) below.
For a motherboard, it serves up options to control any RGB-equipped devices' lighting, fan curves, and overclocking/performance parameters. The RGB Fusion software includes eight LED effects (Static, Pulse, Flash, DFlash, Cycle, Wave1, Wave2, and Off) and options to change the brightness and speed of the effect.
Fan control has three canned options (Silent/Normal/Full Speed), the ability to adjust manually, and the ability to define custom curves. The software read all our test system fans, PWM and DC, and controlled them without issue.
Overclocking control within this utility is limited to CPU voltage and memory speed, so you'll likely want to do your serious tweaking from the BIOS. I wish the app had more granular overclocking control and access to Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) style tweaking. If manual overclocking feels intimidating, though, you can press the OC button and let the board set it for you.
Verdict: Chilly Looks, E-Z Installs Make This Ice Nice
Gigabyte's X870E Aorus Pro Ice is a good-looking motherboard with a lot going for it, both in terms of a wide range of quick-install features and those wintry good looks. Priced at $359.99 with a $20 rebate, this midrange offering is one of the only boards in its price range that offers three PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 sockets. If you want a lot of fast M.2 storage but don't have much money to spend, look no further. The only drawback worth mentioning is the dated audio codec, if you call the last-generation flagship dated.
There's a lot of competition around this price point. MSI's MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi is the value option of the bunch, at $299.99, followed by the venerable ASRock X870E Nova WiFi ($349.99), and finally the Asus ROG Strix X870A Gaming WiFi at $369.99. While all of them have good reasons to buy, none matches the Gigabyte's three PCIe 5.0 M.2 sockets, though if you're shopping for a white motherboard, that specific Asus Strix does come close to the Ice style.
The X870E Aorus Pro Ice is a worthy midrange motherboard. Its white aesthetic and three PCIe 5.0 M.2 sockets set it apart from the rest, but if you're planning on a black build theme and like what you see, the X870E Aorus Pro costs the same and has the very same specs.
The Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro Ice is a well-rounded midrange motherboard and the only one close to its price with three PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 sockets. It has everything you'd expect from AMD's newest platform, and a white aesthetic that sets it apart.
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About Joe Shields
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