GIGABYTE B650 AORUS Elite AX ICE Motherboard

Boots up very fast and is rock solid stable. Zero issues with 64GB Corsair RAM kit listed as compatible on part picker. Drivers all installed with issue. No hangs, freezes, or crashes with a 7800X3D and WD PS5 SSD. Used WD heatsink instead of motherboard m.2 included heatsink. Reminds me of Aorus X470 and B550 boards which were trouble free as well. Much better choice than X670 Asus boards which have been really really slow to boot and have RAM issues.

性能はCPUとGPUで決まります。マザーボードは見た目です。結構重い。

So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and fully upgrade my rig before replacing my 6800 with a 7900xtx. This one is white, so even better. First, the good:

1) It’s really, REALLY solid. Very high build quality. Components are super easy to install. Even comes with a little clip to stick all the front panel jumpers in to make that part easy to install. Thats like the most annoying part of putting a PC together, man I was sold when I saw that little doodad.

2) It looks SICK. I mean if you are someone that really wants to show off your rig, this is a good start.

3) Once you get it running, pair it with a 7800x3d chip and it SMOKES. CPU/MOBO wont be a bottleneck for a while.

Now, the bad.

Ok, so full disclosure: I’m not like an A+ certified (or whatever it is) computer tech or anything, but I’ve built a ton of computers for myself over the years. Combining both for pleasure and business use, probably upwards of 100 builds. I’m not an expert at all, but I have a pretty good idea what I’m doing assembling a PC. That said:

I’ve never.

Ever.

NEVER NEVER.

NEVER had as much of a pain trying to get a MOBO to boot. 99% of the time, it’s either plug everything in, power it up, and it posts…or you have a DOA part. Not this one. I set it up with 3 different power supplies, multiple different RAM combos…hell I even swapped from one case, to a cardboard box, to another case, and back to the original. I’d isolated every single part possible in the build down to the wiring and still the same problem. Power up, fans spin, DRAM lights up and black screen. No post. Literally like 3 or 4 days until I finally started googling a solution. Eventually, after resetting the CMOS jumper/removing the battery 20 times I finally got it to post with 1 stick of ram. It runs stable AF with that one stick of RAM, just cant use any of the other DIMM slots.

In reading reviews, this appears to be a bios issue with the new AM5 boards that isnt entirely unique to this one. So I didnt return it, I’m just hoping I find a bios that doesnt have some sort of memory timing hitch eventually so I can plug in the rest of this ram that’s sitting on my desk taunting me. It seems stable enough for the last few days w/ whatever I throw at it, though it gets bottlenecked b/c I only have one channel 16mb of ram in it…but otherwise stable. So I’m tired of messing with it.

So if you are looking to upgrade to AM5, read more reviews about the different bios available on the different boards. Gigabyte will likely resolve this quickly, but as of right now (6/23/24)? Garbage bios.

I chose this board because the ASRock Steel Legend was on back order until Oct and I didn’t want to wait. Shipping was fast which is always a plus. Out of the box it did work with the 7800x3D. The instructions could be SO MUCH BETTER but it is what it is. Slot your RAM into the second and fourth lane if only using 2 sticks. Why is that so hard to state in the instructions??? The software for the rgb control is ok. It doesn’t sync with my ASRock 7900 GRE Steel Legend and I have yet to find a solution.

I added this to round out a perfect white pc, it looks amazing in my HYTE N70 and once you actually get it up and running seems to run just fine. However if you are looking for a good board keep far away from this one!
1. Booting is a chore, connected to a RTX4080 it will not boot, the little lights on the motherboard just hang on vga, some say its a issue with display port, but either way if you press reboot a couple of times and try to keep your monitor awake it will eventually boot. Gigabytes response is… have you updated the bios?
2. Memory, I really didn’t think this was an issue anymore, but apparently this board is VERY picky and doesn’t play nice with the ram I ordered, and I guess adding support for it is not a priority (corsair dominator 4800)
3. Software? It is a joke… cant even detect the board right half of the time it wants me to download drivers that are not even included, and make sure you get your copy of Norton protect! Bios updates are always empty.
4. Bios? Its a mess… all flashy but trying to find anything out is… less then fun. Bios update from windows? Nope! Bios update from a drive? Ok! Nope not that drive, no not that one either, better luck next time? Create EFI boot disk! Still refused to accept it: “cannot read file”
5. Support? Well go ahead and create that ticket and wait a week… or two… then you get… “have you restarted the machine?” Ticket closed. Seriously?

Honestly if I had not done a ton of custom cabling and cleanup I would have drop kicked it back into its box and simply threw it out so it didn’t wind up in someone else’s pc. Save yourself some frustration and stay away from this one.

Not sure how I got started but Gigabyte Motherboards are all I’ve ever used in my builds. They work, their gorgeous and they last… a….very….long…..time.

This motherboard just looks so good, has all the functionality options I need plus more, great price good design and bios isn’t too hard to understand