This being the last of the big four companies to cover in our X870 coverage (lots more to some soon), we now have a pretty good picture of what each company is doing. They're all going big on tool-free features and while MSI and ASRock might have equal graphics card release mechanisms, we have to say that Gigabyte's tool-free M.2 SSD and heatsink features are easier to use than the rest. The ease with which they can be removed and click into place removes frustrations we found with others, especially when it came to aligning and installing the heatsinks. The graphics card release mechanism here is maybe not quite as sure-footed and solid-feeling as ASRock and MSI's implementations, but overall the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master is a very easy board to work with.

There aren't too many stand-out features, but that seems to be a trend at the moment, not least of all because so much is packed onto the PCB in the first place and accessory sets are practically non-existent, so there's rarely anything to get excited about there with this generation of boards. The Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master itself is attractive, being the cleanest-looking board we've seen so far and with some white Gigabyte boards waiting in the wings we're hopeful the aesthetics will be dialed up even further. The addition of the internal HDMI port for display screens is a nice touch too, but it is rather limited in its refresh rate and resolution compared to the latest third party screens and those included with current cases.

It's not a board to shy away from high-end systems, though, as it has all the features you need to build a seriously powerful machine and just as importantly, take control of your rig's cooling whether it's air or watercooled. The thermal sensor ports are always welcome as are power and reset buttons, the LED POST code display is an essential tool if you're using fast DDR5 memory or overclocking with AMD systems as you otherwise never quite know if that memory training is just taking its time or your tweaking went a little too far.

It's far from a perfect X870E motherboard, though, as we spotted a few niggles in our travels. While it has an impressive 10 Type-A USB ports, it has fewer USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports than similarly-priced competition, and we'd have liked to see enhanced power delivery for the Type-C case header and more Type-C USB ports, if only with the future in mind for those planning on keeping their systems till the turn of the decade and at $500, you'd be right in wanting your board to last that long too. Thankfully it looks like we finally have the CPUs to keep you happy for that long thanks to AMD's new 3D V-Cache models. The lack of 10 Gbps Ethernet is depressing, but not surprising. In the distant past $500 would have bagged you 10 Gbps, but these days it's barely enough for a mid to high-end board like the one we have here. Thankfully the inclusion of Wi-Fi 7 will at least mean that side is covered.

There were some odd things we spotted with the board, though, most notably a bunch of hidden port labels under the chipset heatsink. This did make identifying the lower fan ports here quite difficult and while you can always refer to the manual, it's far quicker to be able to read these things off the PCB. It's almost like the same PCB is used on other boards with smaller heatsinks and here, it just happened to cover them, or the heatsink was made larger than originally planned. It's not a massive issue, but did raise eyebrows when three of the fan headers had no labels at all.

We certainly don't feel the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero is worth more than $100 more, but within that reach it's a very tempting option given it has a lot more of the premium features we've mentioned above. The stiffest competition comes from the likes of the ASRock X870E Taichi, which costs $50 less and in many ways feels like you get more motherboard for your cash with a backplate, additional CPU power phases, excellent M.2 cooling and still managing to include thermal sensor ports and even active VRM cooling. In summary, then, the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master is another well-rounded but expensive option that looks even more expensive given decent X670 and B650 chipset boards cost a lot less and handle the latest Zen 5 CPUs perfectly well. Still, if you're looking for cutting edge features and the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master's performance and features appeal, and you're looking to keep the board long term then we doubt you'll be disappointed, even if your wallet might protest a little.