Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite AX

Quite a bit has been stated concerning the ever-increasing expense of PC gaming {hardware}, Whether or not the explanations given are mining, covid lockdowns, inflation, logistics, or the passage of Mercury throughout the face of the Solar, it is true: stuff prices an excessive amount of. However Intel’s B760 motherboards are at the very least typically on the decrease bounds of loopy pricing.

Many B760 boards supply good worth for cash and a few have nearly each key characteristic and attribute a 2023 gamer fairly requires. Do you’ve one GPU? An SSD or two? Want some quick USB ports to your devices and gizmos? An excellent B760 board may have you coated and shouldn’t be ignored.

Up for overview right this moment I’ve the Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite AX (opens in new tab). It sits on the higher finish of Gigabyte’s B760 vary. Solely the B760 Aorus Grasp is above it. It is priced at $189, although it’s generally under this with a promo low cost. That is not unhealthy for what you get. 

Within the UK its comparatively dearer at round £239 whereas in Australia it is AU$409, although AU availability seems to be restricted. The Elite AX additionally is available in a DDR4 taste, and there are Micro-ATX variations too, so it is comprehensible that not all SKUs will probably be obtainable in all markets.

The B760 Aorus Elite is an ATX board, and meaning it doesn’t have the house constraints of a number of the different boards I’ve reviewed together with the MSI MAG B760M Mortar Max WiFi (opens in new tab) and ASRock B760M PG Sonic WiFI (opens in new tab). 

Notably, the Aorus comes with three M.2 drive slots and three PCIe x16 slots, although the underside two run at PCIe 3.0 x1 electrically. It is also price noting that the first slot does not assist PCIe 5.0. Meaning nothing proper now, however it might do within the years to return.

Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite AX overview and specs

Appears are all the time within the eye of the beholder. Inside motive, seems to be do not actually matter however I’ve to admit to not being an enormous fan of the design. There are a number of too many random strains working far and wide and it appears a bit bland. Except it was orange or was purple with graffiti on it (oh, wait a sec (opens in new tab)) it wouldn’t cease me from shopping for the board if the remainder of the factor measured up.

There is a clear pattern rising with motherboards transferring away from extreme RGB and in lots of circumstances, reminiscent of with the Aorus Elite AX, omitting it altogether. It is all the time good to retain the choice, although, and to that finish there are 4 RGB headers, two of that are addressable. Different notable headers embody assist for six fan/pumps, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-C case connector, a Gen 1 connector and a reset button, however no on/off button.

Does anybody keep in mind B460 and older boards? You are not alone in case you do not. They had been caught with DDR4-2666 reminiscence or DDR4-2933 with a high-end chip. Yuck. Maybe B-series boards nonetheless haven’t recovered from their ‘low-cost’ and fortunately out of date repute. Neglect that although. The B760 Aorus Elite helps as much as DDR5-7600 and the F2 and later BIOS choices assist 24GB and 48GB reminiscence modules, permitting assist for a complete of 192GB of reminiscence. That is far more than sufficient for any gaming system.

I famous above that the board contains three M.2 slots. All of them assist PCIe 4.0 x4 drives. The topmost slot incorporates a chunky heatsink with a properly designed retention mechanism. The opposite two are cooled by a single heatsink with a big space. Nonetheless, I might choose to see at the very least one among these slots positioned the place the CMOS battery sits, as putting M.2 heatsinks beneath a sizzling working graphics card can cause them to take in warmth relatively than dissipate it. It should not matter for a normal storage drive… hopefully! There are 4 SATA ports too.

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Because the B760 Aorus Elite AX is a premium B760 board, it is bought to have a VRM that may run as much as an Intel Core i9 13900K (opens in new tab) with none difficulty. It comes with a 12+1+1 part VRM with 60A levels, and is powered by 8-pin and 4-pin energy connectors. It isn’t essentially the most highly effective VRM you may ever come throughout, however it fortunately ran my i9 13900K with none drawback and, as you’ll be able to’t overclock outdoors of energy restrict tweaks, that is all it has to do.

The heatsinks are on the bigger facet, it is good to see extra inexpensive boards with heatsinks that would not have been misplaced on good Z sequence boards from a number of years again. Throughout a 10-minute Cinebench loop, the utmost temperature I noticed was 56°C. That is a bit larger than the MSI Z790 Mortar Max WiFi I just lately reviewed, however it’s nonetheless a superb end result.

Shifting onto the rear I/O, it is nice to see an excellent set of connectors. About the one factor lacking is USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20Gbps) assist. 4 USB 2.0 ports are joined by a pair of 10Gbps ports (one among which is Kind-C) and 4 5Gbps ports.

Realtek 2.5G LAN and Intel AX211 WiFi 6E controllers care for networking duties whereas a Realtek ALC897 codec with line in, line out and S/PDIF gives audio assist. ALC897 is nothing particular however it would do a job offered you are not hoping for the last word symphony orchestra expertise.

Lastly, you get DP 1.2 and HDMI 2.0 ports. These can nonetheless drive a 4K monitor at 60Hz and, although you are unlikely to recreation with built-in graphics, it appears odd that Gigabyte didn’t embody HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4 as many different B760 boards do.

Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite AX efficiency

System Efficiency

Gaming Efficiency

Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite AX evaluation

On the subject of efficiency, the B760 Aorus Elite AX carried out as anticipated. I all the time set my i9 13900K to Intel’s default energy limits with a purpose to stop the board from making use of unreasonable ‘overclocked’ energy ranges. Regardless of this, the Gigabyte nonetheless scored over 37,000 in Cinebench, simply forward of the opposite boards, regardless that the opposite closely threaded checks had been as anticipated. Nonetheless, it is higher to be pleasantly stunned as a substitute of negatively.

The gaming outcomes confirmed the Aorus performing as anticipated, with margin of error variations separating the 4 examined boards.

I famous the B760 Aorus Elite helps as much as DDR5-7600. I used to be happy to see it fortunately run my G.Talent Trident Z5 DDR5-7200 (opens in new tab) with out a difficulty. Truthfully, not many customers will pair extremely excessive finish reminiscence with a B760 board, however it’s nice to see Intel B-series boards working excessive finish reminiscence with none fuss.

I do like Gigabyte’s Straightforward Mode BIOS web page. It has a easy format together with your fundamental boot sequence choice, XMP setting, and monitoring information. It is a good design for customers who hardly go to the BIOS.

Gigabyte B760 Aorus Elite AX verdict

At $189 /  £239  / AU$409 the Aorus Elite AX provides good worth for cash, and though the competitors on this vary is hard, most of it comes from DDR4 and mATX boards. It is a good choice in case you’re the sort of consumer searching for a set and overlook sort of system. Chuck in a GPU, any twelfth or thirteenth gen CPU of your selecting plus an SSD or two or three and also you’re good to go. 

The Aorus can be price a glance you probably have two PCIe x1 growth playing cards, as many B760 boards are missing in growth potential, significantly the house restricted mATX choices. I actually wish to see a 20Gbps USB port and PCIe 5.0 GPU assist and I believe the positioning of the secondary M.2 slots is not preferrred, however these aren’t deal breakers at this worth.

Ultimately, whereas the B760 Aorus Elite AX is a strong choice providing good worth with plenty of USB connectivity and networking, it does not do sufficient to really stand out in a market crowded with comparable choices. However that may be stated of nearly any mid-tier B760 board. For those who’re a fan of the Aorus model and you are the type of consumer that prefers to focus in your gaming and never on the system that runs it, the Gigabyte is an effective choice. It is the sort of value-oriented board that can fortunately run a high-end CPU and GPU. 

In comparison with a dearer Z790 board, The B760 Aorus Elite AX is inexpensive sufficient to will let you divert a number of hundred in the direction of a greater CPU or GPU or a much bigger SSD. These are the actually vital issues that add efficiency to your system.