Gamescom 2024 has seen a surprising amount of hardware announcements littered amongst all the gaming news, including new Socket AM5 motherboards with X870E chipsets. Gigabyte is keen not to miss out on the festivities, revealing its X870E Aorus Master motherboard at the event. This will be the company’s best board when it launches, boasting all the latest bells and whistles, including USB 4, Wi-Fi 7, and even 5GbE LAN.
As its name suggests, X870E Aorus Master sports AMD’s latest and most feature-rich chipset. It boasts four DIMM slots, capable of supporting up to 256GB of DDR5 RAM running up to 8,200MT/s. Of course, you’ll need one of the best CPUs to even get close to running such capacities or speeds. Check out our Ryzen 9 9950X & 9900X review to see how the latest Team Red silicon stacks up.
Featuring a 16+2+2 twin digital VRM design, X870E Aorus Master won’t leave any processor wanting for watts, regardless of TDP. Likewise, the best graphics cards of today and tomorrow will run free of any constraints thanks to the board’s PCIe 5.0 x16 slot. It also comes with two additional PCIe slots, but they’re only suitable for add-on cards due to their 4.0 x4 and 3.0 x4 bandwidth.
In terms of storage, Gigabyte fits X870E Aorus Master with a whopping three PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots for the best SSDs, plus one PCIe 4.0 for good measure. Rounding off connectivity, the motherboard’s rear I/O should prove more than sufficient for most users. Two USB Type-C 4.0 ports, four USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2, four USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1, and two USB 2.0 leave us practically dizzy. We also have one HDMI 2.1 input, two 3.5mm audio jacks, optical S/PDIF out, 5GbE LAN, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.3. Finally, we’d be remiss to forget the handy BIOS Flash and Clear CMOS buttons.
While not as fancy as Asus’ PCIe Q-Release mechanism, Gigabyte does include its EZ-Latch Plus lock for quick graphics card removal too. Even the M.2 SSD gets its EZ-Latch heatsink saving you from fighting those tiny screws. The brand’s focus on ease of use and installation leaves no stone unturned, since the Wi-Fi antenna plugs are also simple to lock in place. Now, if we could only just get front panel connectors to be less of a hassle.
While this board will serve you well into the future in its own right, it will also serve as a base for an easy drop-in upgrade too. AMD will support Socket AM5 until 2027 and beyond. So, in addition to Ryzen 9000 and 7000 stock, you’ll likely also have Ryzen 10,000 series chips at your disposal too. The company has made good on its support for Socket AM4, even launching new processors for the platform this year.
For more AMD coverage, give our Ryzen 7 9700X & Ryzen 5 9600X review a read.
