GIGABYTE B850 AORUS Elite WIFI7 AMD AM5 LGA 1718 Motherboard, ATX, DDR5, 3X M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB-C, WIFI7, 2.5GbE LAN, EZ-Latch, 5-Year Warranty

Just built my newest build a few days ago. I chose the GIGABYTE B850 AORUS STEALTH ICE AMD AM5 Motherboard. Because in my opinion. It is the absolute best board for my use case. The Stealth rear plug feature. Presents a beautiful and absolutely extreme clean look. And for the short amount of time I've owned mine. Has performed exemplary. I paired it with an AMD 9800X3D, RTX 5080, 32 GB G.Skill DDR5 CL6000 ram. And my gaming experience has become a thing of sublime satisfaction. Had zero install issues. And performs beyond my expectations. This is my first AMD build. And I am glad to have chosen the AM5 platform. Please make sure that the case you buy has rear motherboard connect support. GIGABYTE good on you for making such a beautiful & quality product! I built this while recovering from radiation treatment for Cancer. And this build has been a blessing. Giving me something else to focus on during a trying time. GIGABYTE thanks again for giving my build the look and performance I was looking to achieve.

This review is for the GIGABYTE B650 AORUS Elite AX rev 1. I ordered this board because I was on an older Intel platform and I wanted to try an AMD build again. The AMD AM5 platform suits my needs since it has current modern features and is projected to have a long lifecycle and I anticipate my next upgrade to be in 5 years or so. The GIGABYTE B650 AORUS Elite AX was one the lesser expensive and full featured ATX boards with WiFi at the time of my purchase. My build includes: GIGABYTE B650 AORUS Elite AX Motherboard AMD Ryzen 7700X CPU Corsair Vengeance RGB RAM Zotac GTX 1080 AMP Edition First, my dislikes. No printed manual. As a lifelong pc builder, I rely heavily on a manual booklet for basic info such as what slots to install memory in. How to connect front panel power, reset, hdd status led etc. Where all of the headers such as USB and fans are located. Having an online manual is good but is useless if you don't have a spare computer or laptop to use while you build your computer. Thankfully I did not have to use the BIOS flashback feature because the board recognized my CPU, a Ryzen 7700X, otherwise I would have to go online, download the manual and look up the flashback instructions. For the price I do wish that the board included a higher end integrated audio chipset. Features-wise the audio chipset is the biggest disappointment. I did not like is the top most NVME slot right above the GPU slot has a really thick thermal adhesive pre-applied to the heatsink. It is so thick that it bends my NVME drive slightly - not enough to cause any issues but should be noted. One last thing I did not like is the lack of onboard BIOS post code status LED. I had this feature on my previous motherboard and found it super helpful when diagnosing problems. Now, for my likes. I like all of the features. AM5 socket, DDR5, WiFi6, PCIe 5.0, multiple NVMe slots, plenty of USB slots, and of course RGB support. The board itself is great. Build quality is awesome, no issues with build quality or materials. I did run into a few issues though. Although these issues were encountered with this motherboard, they are not Gigabyte's fault necessarily. These issues were mostly to do with the AMD platform and chipset itself. 1. The shipping BIOS "F2" version did not allow me to enable XMP memory profile. I had to flash the BIOS to the current at the time "F4" BIOS. Note that the current BIOS version as of this review is "F5a". 2. There were a lot of stability or problems with the USB chipset or bus. File transfers over USB were very slow or slower than it should be. I have USB DAC that had a lot of noise during audio playback. These issues were resolved by installing the latest chipset drivers for the B650 from AMD directly and also updating the BIOS. Here are some recommendations based on my experience with the GIGABYTE B650 AORUS Elite AX. Definitely update the BIOS. In past generations of motherboards it is only recommended to update the BIOS to fix a specific issue you've encountered. However, in modern motherboards there are so many chipsets and features that it is important to keep up to date on BIOS versions to maintain stability, performance, compatibility, and security. AMD seems to release AGESA updates (as BIOS updates) often and this is directly tied to the chipset. Also, download the chipset drivers directly from AMD because they tend to be more up to date than the motherboard manufacturers' website. To flash the bios, just download the BIOS file for your motherboard from Gigabyte's website and extract/copy the file to a USB drive. Reboot and enter the bios and choose Q-Flash. Select the BIOS, and the board will load the BIOS to memory then prompt for a reboot and apply the new BIOS. Aside from the chipset drivers, all other motherboard drivers can be downloaded and installed from Gigabyte. Ever since, updating the BIOS and AMD chipset drivers, I have had absolutely zero issues. Performance is amazing. Stability is solid. I even run a mild overclock using the AMD Ryzen Master app and doing an auto-oc. In summary, I highly recommend the GIGABYTE B650 AORUS Elite AX if you're looking for an AM5 build. The issues I've had are specific to the AMD platform and not the motherboard itself, however because of this I would not recommend the AMD platform for novice PC builders or if you are not comfortable or familiar with BIOS updates and troubleshooting driver issues.

First and foremost it looks fantastic That's probably the reason why most people are going to buy this board. The packaging is also really nice and well designed for a fun unboxing experience. The PCIE slot quick release works great and the latches for the M.2 drives make it pretty easy to slot it a new drive. The performance is going to be pretty much what it says in the spec sheet. Altogether just a really nice motherboard you can't really go wrong with it but do remember that a premium is being paid for the back connect and extra little convenience features.

Worked perfectly fine and was easy to set up for my first PC build. Having the AIO_PUMP header at the bottom of the board was a terrible idea though. I don’t think any other mobo maufacturer would design their boards like that. The BIOS was easy to set up and flash. The WIFI7, when it works, is very fast.

I upgrade from a Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master in order to upgrade my Ryzen 5 5600x to a 7800x3d. The setup was pretty straight forward and I feel that the white color helps make labels clearer to read. There were some issues that faced after completing my build. I'll add fixes I found here in case anyone has a similar experience. 1. WiFi and LAN don't appear to be pre installed. They expect you to download this beforehand and put it into a flashdrive so that you can install it later. 2. QFlash is great but the manual (which doesn't come with it so dl on your phone or another pc) isnt straight forward on this. I found a recent YT vid from 2024 that showed me how to do it properly. 3. CMOS reset should work by pressing both pins with a metal object. I tried this and it did nothing for resetting my BIOS to default. Same with removing the CMOS battery for 30 minutes. 6. After I enable EXPO 1, my system didnt post. This ended up being because my two memory sticks weren't placed in the correct arrangement, the manual helped with figuring out how it should go. 7. The heat plate that covers the M.2 slots are great because they're tool less, but can be difficult to put back on because you have to hook the top and bottom into a small space by where the M.2 inserts are. 8. QFlash is great! But it does take a little over 6 minutes to complete. 9. The BIOS descriptions are extremely minimal. I often feel like they expect it to be tribal knowledge that you should get from YouTubers if you want to know what they are. 10. If you install your GPU then your boot M.2 in the slot below it, you may run into a frozen aorus logo loading screen. I had to put mine in the last slot at the bottom to get it to boot properly. Pros: • Comes with its own WiFi module with wifi7. I heard it's faster than the LAN capabilities. • The white color looks great! • QFlash has saved my life a few times, if I could name a child after it, I would to showy appreciation. • The manual was great and pretty well written given the broad amount of details it had to cover. • It has lights which help to indicate what may be causing problems. Check the manual to get a better understanding of what they mean. • Very roomie ports as I had an easier time connecting stuff then I did with my last few builds. • X3D turbo, I don't know if it's good or not yet, but it's at least there 😂 • Great clearing between the CPU and RAM making it easier to install and upgrade. • No tools needed for NVME and CPU inserts. Cons: • GPU was a bit difficult to properly seat. • M.2 didn't work in first slot like I would expect. Random legendary Reddit user told me how to fix this issue. • Seating NVME plate was a more difficult than it should be given that it's tool less. • website FAQs section was pretty much useless and they lacked proper laymens terms as to what each downloadable does. Some are straight forward but not all if you're not someone who's used to them. • the ice and non-ice versions are completely different, so make sure you get drivers and BIOS updates for the right one. All in all, it is a great MB with some cool features and plenty of room for upgrades. I picked this over the higher tier boards because I felt I wouldn't have been the type of user who would have taken advantage of the extra features. If your looking for a great upgrade white board to dip you into AM5 with an X3D chip then this is a fantastic option. Just note that while it's not difficult to setup, it's also not 100% plug-n-play for the less experienced builders.

Board installtion went smoothly and it looks amazing. Booted on first try without issue and BIOS updated easily. Coming from another brands AM5 board I found the UEFI interface to be fairly easy to navigate (with one caveat being sometimes escape takes you back one screen sometimes it prompts you for something else, this is a minor gripe). RAM timings were easy to setup and all hardware was detected without issue. The heatsink for the M.2 slots is a solid piece and works well with the screwless retainers. Overall I am very pleased with the board so far and again it looks great.

It works. I like how it has two M.2 slots that are both covered by a Thermal Guard. Had some issues using the onboard HDMI port where it was randomly turning off video output, but I switched my hdmi cable to a higher speed one and it’s no longer an issue.

Superb build quality as expected. Booted up right away with my 7800x3d and 2 sticks of ram. Didn’t have to install any drivers or software! Enabled PBO on cpu and XMP and no issues. Decently quickly boot time about 12 seconds. Chose this over the Asus TUF B850m Plus because it’s a little cheaper, has one more internal usb2.0 header which I use both of, and I think 1 more year of warranty. Also Gigabyte has the fastest boot times out of all the brands. Super fast and stable and very easy bios also. Bios update to new version using usb drive and Qflash was superrrr fast and easy. Perfect board for my Deepcool Ch270 mffpc vertical case (be ready to be blown away by my build pics ;) Only OCD nitpick I have is the capacitors are shiny silver; I wish they were black to blend in better and not be as pronounced with all my fan rgb lighting. That’s just me though.