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Gigabyte's X870 Aorus Stealth, as its name implies, features only the required connectivity on the front (think PCIe, RAM, and storage), while the rest of the connections, like ATX and EPS power, fan, RGB, and other expansion headers, have all moved to the back of the board, yielding a clean, wire-free aesthetic on the front side, moving all the unsightly cables to the rear where they can are easily hidden. On top of that, the new board sports an all-black design, support for the latest AMD processors, a 64MB BIOS (Wi-Fi driver included), ample connectivity, robust power delivery, and more, all for a reasonable MSRP of $299.99 .
The decidedly mid-range motherboard comes with four M.2 sockets (two PCIe 5.0 x4) and two SATA connectors for storage, fast networking with 5 GbE and Wi-Fi 7, a last-generation flagship audio codec, 13 total USB ports on the rear IO (10 Type-A, three Type-C, and two USB4 40 Gbps ports), and more. The board also uses its X3D turbo mode to get the most out of your X3D chip, along with several DIY-friendly features, like the EZ-Latch Plus/Click for the M.2 socket and the primary PCIe slot, the Wi-Fi EZ-Plug, and the EZ-Debug zone. Not too shabby for a $300 board.
Performance with the latest BIOS (F5) was fine on the Aorus Stealth, even though the AGESA is one version older (1.2.8.0 vs 1.3.0.0). We generally saw above-average to average results across a wide variety of tests. The board proved not only to be competent in productivity and creative activities, but also solid in gaming. In short, it’s a well-rounded motherboard with a variety of features and connectivity, and oh yeah, you get the clean look of a rear-connect motherboard that isn’t too cheap or too expensive.
Below, we’ll examine the board's performance and other features to determine whether it deserves a spot on our list of the best motherboards (it's one of the best rear-connect out there...). But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from Gigabyte’s website.
Specifications of the X870 Aorus Stealth
Swipe to scroll horizontally Socket AM5 (LGA 1718) Chipset X870 Form Factor ATX Voltage Regulator 20 Phase (16x 80A SPS MOSFETs for Vcore) Video Ports (1) HDMI (v2.1)
(2) USB4 Type-C (DP) USB Ports (2) USB 4 (40 Gbps) Type-C
(1) USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps Type-C
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