Gigabyte B560M AORUS Elite Motherboard Review

Intel’s latest 11th Gen CPUs are still providing us with new content, sort of! Today, we are taking a look at another B560 board, this time from the folks at Gigabyte. Gigabyte has been kind enough to send us their B560M AORUS Elite motherboard. As the name would suggest, this board is M-ATX in size, based on the B560 chipset and should be a great option for those looking to go to Intel’s 11th Gen CPUs. While the 11th Gen launch as a whole hasn’t been that great, we have found that the B560 boards are generally the way to go for most consumers should you want to look into the platform.

Gigabyte B560M AORUS Elite

We have seen a few B560 motherboards for testing now and must say, they are likely the way most people would want to go if upgrading to the latest Intel CPUs. Pairing something like the B560M AORUS ELITE motherboard with an Intel I5-11400F is going to give you a nice little budget gaming setup should you be able to find a GPU or be willing to use your current/old one.

Features

• Supports 11th and 10th Gen Intel^® Core™ Series Processors
• Dual Channel Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4, 4 DIMMs
• Direct 12+1 Phases Digital VRM with Low RDS(on) MOSFETs
• Shielded Memory Routing for Better Memory Overclocking
• Fully Covered Thermal Design with High Coverage MOSFET Heatsinks
• Fast 2.5GbE LAN with Bandwidth Management
• Dual Ultra-Fast NVMe PCIe 4.0*/3.0 x4 M.2 with Thermal Guard
• Rear USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C^® and Front USB3.2 Gen1 Type-C^® for Connecting Devices
• Pre-installed IO Shield for Easy and Quick Installation
• RGB FUSION 2.0 with Multi-Zone Addressable LED Light Show Design, Support Addressable LED & RGB LED Strips
• Smart Fan 6 Features Multiple Temperature Sensors , Hybrid Fan Headers with FAN STOP
• Q-Flash Plus Update BIOS without Installing the CPU, Memory and Graphics Card

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official Manufacturer Motherboard product page here.

Looking to purchase? Check it out on AMAZON UK: CLICK HERE

As for what else is included in the box aside from the B560M AORUS ELITE board itself, we have a user’s manual, a pair of SATA cables and a couple of M.2 screws and that really is about it.

A Closer Look

Gigabyte has gone with an overall grey/black theme for their B560M AORUS ELITE board. Even though this is an M-ATX board, we still seem to have everything one should need, bar a couple of extra PCIe x1 slots that most don’t use anyways.

Gigabyte has gone with a single 8-pin EPS power connector on their B560M AORUS ELITE motherboard. There is also a handy fan header right next to this that should help keep cable management as easy as possible.

Over to the right side of the board and we have a couple of CPU fan headers, there are almost hidden between the RAM slots and the top VRM heatsink. Also, to the right of the RAM slots we have our 5v aRGB and 12v RGB headers so we can get all of our RGB goodness going and synced up with out motherboard.

Gigabyte has gone with a 12+1 Power Phase design for their B560M AORUS ELITE. This will be more than enough for most any moderate build and even leave you plenty of room for some overclocks if that is your type of thing.

We have two M.2 slots, the top of which is PCIe 4.0 capable as is the top PCIe x16 slot. The Bottom M.2 and PCIe x16 slot are both only capable of PCIe 3.0 speeds.

Across the bottom of the board, we have our front audio header, a Thunderbolt port, COM, header, Q-Flash button and a 5v aRGB and 12v RGB connector. The Q-flash button is what is going to let you flash your BIOS without the need for pretty much anything plugged into the motherboard except some power! No CPU, RAM or GPU needed just make sure your PSU is plugged in, get your BIOS onto a USB and insert it into the BIOS port on the rear IO, hit the button and away you go!

Following along and we have a pair of USB 2.0 headers, SPI_TPM header, a system fan header and lastly, our front panel connectors. Now, for those who don’t know, the SPI_TPM header can be pretty useful. It allows you to buy a little addon card/module that plugs directly into it, and it will store your keys, data and passwords.

Towards the bottom of the board on the right edge you will find 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors.

There is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port and a USB Type-C port headers on board just below the 24-pin power connector.

If USB’s are your thing, the B560M AORUS ELITE board has you covered. With a total of 10 USB ports on the rear IO, including a Type-C, you should be able to plug in all the USB based devices you need. It also has the standard selection of inputs you would home to see.

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
• 1 x USB Type-C^® port, with USB 3.2 Gen2 support
• 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port (red)
• 2 x USB 3.2 Gen1 ports
• 6 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI port
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 6 x audio jacks

On to the back of the motherboard and as we would expect, nothing at all going on here which is just fine!

How We Test

Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary.

Testing Your Own System

We typically focus on commonly available benchmarks so that you too can run the same benchmarks on your own system. We hope this makes it easy for our readers to gauge the performance improvement available to them when they upgrade their own systems.

Gaming Tests

All games are run at their specified resolutions using the “high” settings or equivalent. We avoid using the Ultra settings as these often offer diminishing returns for performance vs visuals.

Test Bench

Synthetic Benchmarks

Online Benchmarks

Compression & Rendering

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider Performance

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Far Cry New Dawn Performance

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Metro Exodus Performance

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World of Tanks Performance

Memory & Storage

Power Consumption

How Much Does it Cost?

Currently coming in at £124.48, B560 is definitely the way for most to go should they be looking into a new 11th Gen CPU from Intel. The Price to performance ratio the B560 chipset offers is just amazing, especially when compared to the similar performance it has to that of the Z590 chipset. The Gigabyte B560M AORUS Elite Board has a decent set of specifications and features for its price and will be more than enough for most users. This has also currently been one of the cheaper B560 boards we have reviewed, which really helps it to stick out in our eyes.

Overview

The B560M AORUS ELITE is an affordable way to be able to use Intel’s latest 11th Gen CPUs. Offering great performance at an affordable price while not diminishing on quality and design. The M-ATX form factor is going to allow for slightly smaller builds overall vs ATX but it still has dual PCIe x16 slots and two M.2 slots as well. While it may only have a single Gen4 slot of each, this should be enough for most current users wanting to make the leap to the latest Intel platform. Overall the smaller M-ATX form factor hasn’t missed out on much that the bigger boards would have, and performance is still on point as well.

Build Quality & Design

While this is one of the cheaper boards we have seen for Intel’s new 11th Gen CPUs, Gigabyte has still managed to keep the quality and design at a level that should be to most users standards. The B560M AORUS ELITE motherboard comes packed with plenty of features that will allow you to make the most of your system. From the pre-installed rear IO shield to the extended VRM heatsinks and M.2 shields, the B560M AORUS ELITE is a force to be reckoned with. Among others, there are also multiple FAN and RGB/aRGB headers on the motherboard, and Gigabyte have even thrown in some Thunderbolt connectors for good measure. All in all, it is a well thought out motherboard.

Performance

As we have seen with most of our B560 boards, the performance from the B560M AORUS ELITE is quite similar to that of more expensive Z590 boards. Looking at our graphs and there aren’t really many boards that stand out performance-wise as a whole from either the Z590 or B560 chipsets. While this may not sound great, it is actually quite good for B560 boards, especially the B560M AORUS ELITE as it will allow for it to offer an amazing performance to price ratio.

Should I Buy One?

It looks like prices of B560 based boards have dropped ever so slightly in the past few weeks, and while this isn’t the cheapest B560 board out there, it is well worth the tiny bit extra it costs over the others. Having a look and most of the cheaper boards are cheaper for a good reason, and we can see why. They are missing the extended heatsinks, pre-installed rear IO shield and much more, making the extra cost of the B560M AORUS ELITE well worth it. For me, this is the perfect entry spot into B560 and offers some superb performance for those looking to upgrade to Intel’s latest 11th Gen CPUs.