Gigabyte AORUS ELITE Z890 WiFi7 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

The Z890 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 is a very nice looking motherboard, perhaps not as extreme as some of the others launching this week, but still, it’s not like the heatsink and VRM configurations are lacking here, and it’s still a really nice looking motherboard too, with largely black hardware, and a few grey/silver highlights that really make it stand out.

The motherboard features a 16+1+2 Phases VRM design, with two large heatsinks providing ample cooling to ensure you can hit those big CPU boost clocks more consistently. While not the most extreme VRM configuration, for those just wanting to push the boost clocks and a bit of overclocking, it should be more than capable.

There’s a good range of storage options too, with a single PCIe 5.0 x4 sitting at the top here, and that comes with its own enlarged heatsink as those Gen5 drives can get pretty toasty! The larger heatsinks below provide cooling for three Gen4 M.2 drive mounts. The heatsinks are easily removed, as like a few other new boards, there are EZ-Latch Plus and EZ-Latch Click quick-release systems and new mounts that just make it easier to remove the heatsinks and install/remove your hardware. One thing that does stand out on this board is the red and gold components in the corner. These are the WIMA Audiophile Grade Capacitors for the ALC1220 High-Res Audio hardware.

It’s reasonably well connected too, as it comes with the Directional Ultra-High Gain Antenna system for WiFi7, which features a quick-release mounting point on the rear I/O, but also 2.5 GbE LAN for fast networking performance. There’s a good range of fast USB ports, as well as the latest THUNDERBOLT4 Type-C, but overall there aren’t a huge number of USB ports, which may be a problem for some users.