Tuesday, January 7th 2025
GIGABYTE Shows off Z890/B860M and X870/B850 Motherboards at CES 2025
At CES 2025, GIGABYTE unveiled an impressive lineup of motherboards designed for Intel and AMD platforms for gaming, content creation, and professional use, with support for the latest processors, PCIe 5.0, and Wi-Fi 7. GIGABYTE introduced several Z890 chipset motherboards for Intel's "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra 200S series. The flagship Z890 AORUS Master offers features like DDR5 memory overclocking, tool-free PCIe and M.2 installation, and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. The compact Z890I AORUS Ultra targets Mini-ITX builds with its efficient 8+1+2 VRM solution and AI-enhanced BIOS profiles. Despite its small form factor, it delivers robust performance and thermal management. For those looking for aesthetics and reliability, the Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi 7 ICE impresses with a sleek white design, digital VRM capabilities, and simplified Wi-Fi EZ-Plug installation for improved connectivity. For more budget-friendly options, GIGABYTE showed B860M AORUS Elite WiFi6E ICE motherboard, too.
The AMD X870I chipset motherboards were equally impressive, bringing PCIe 5.0 support and compatibility for the Ryzen 9000X3D series of processors. The X870I AORUS Pro ICE is tailored for gamers in SFF builds, offering X3D Turbo Mode for enhanced gaming performance, support for AMD Ryzen 9000/8000/7000 series processors on the AM5 socket, and fast networking with 2.5GbE LAN. This motherboard also features Wi-Fi EZ-Plug for easy antenna installation, Wi-Fi 7 connectivity with directional high-gain antennas, and DIY-friendly tool-free PCIe and M.2 slots with quick-release mechanisms. The AMD AM5 socket also has a budget option of B850 chipsets, and GIGABYTE showed B850 AORUS WiFi7 ICE featuring a twin 14+2+2 phases digital VRM with DrMOS, PCIe Gen 5 x16 with EZ-Latch Plus, M.2 with EZ-Latch Plus and fully covered MOSFET heatsinks, Wi-Fi 7 with EZ-Plug and directional antenna, 2.5GbE LAN, and includes Q-Flash Plus.
6 Comments on GIGABYTE Shows off Z890/B860M and X870/B850 Motherboards at CES 2025
Including two chips but no way to force single or dual mode or switch between them is worse one chip.
We'll you're in luck than as very few boards even include two chips anymore and those that do thankfully have the switches.
not just that, but that the implementation produced issue with bios flashing (not wiping values properly), known since they started on intel boards,
but kept using it once ryzen came out.
and the fact i never had a board with more issues/less stability (no matter auto or man) since i started with pc hw in 2001, incl low tier 100$ stuff,
all while being the 2nd most expensive board i ever bought (for me), with many others having same issues (stability).
heck, was the only board unable to run Gskill kits at any AMP settings, or where wifi/bt got disabled for good (short of flashback), if you used ErP.
The only real BIOS related issue i have is that it's painfully laggy and slow when CSM is disabled (meaning in pure UEFI mode).
Enabling CSM makes it snappy. So what i do is that for daily use is disable CSM but if i know i'll be spending more than a minute there i enable it.
They even tried solving it at first with resolution toggle but gave up on it.