GoKawiilLike many refresh boards, the X3D AI Top improves upon the original with an increase in M.2 count and improved aesthetics. This top-of-the-line motherboard is one of the best X870E flagships available.
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Not long ago, we covered the non-X3D version of Gigabyte's X870E Aorus Xtreme AI Top motherboard and, in general, liked what it had to offer (especially at the lower refurbed price point). The elephant in that review, though, was that this X3D board was already on the market, with notable improvements in design and functionality. Like the original, the X3D is a flagship-class product through and through. From the appearance to the features, there’s no doubt it’s a premium offering. And now priced at $999.99 , it’s one of the more affordable flagships. But as you’ll see, it measures up with the others.
The Xtreme X3D AI Top comes with five M.2 sockets (up from four on the non-X3D) and two SATA ports (from four) for storage. Dual 10 GbE ports and fast Wi-Fi 7, unique flagship-class audio codec, plenty of USB ports including 10 on the rear IO (two USB4 40 Gbps Type-C), and multiple DIY-friendly features (including screwless M.2 designs, to EZ Wi-Fi plugs) sweeten the pot when considering this board against its high-end competitors. We love the appearance, and it is no doubt better than the non-X3D version all around. You even get a fancy LCD Edge View display like its peers, placing this in the crosshairs of other, more expensive flagships like the MSI X870E Godlike X , and the Asus X870E Extreme Glacial, both of which we reviewed in recent months.
Performance on this board using the latest BIOS (F7a with AGESA 1.3.0.0a) was among the best we’ve seen, too. It’s this way because, by default, there’s some magic sauce in the RAM settings increasing bandwidth (we only enabled Expo profile for the RAM; Expo AI Boost, and high-bandwidth support were disabled). As you’ll see later, what Gigabyte is doing improves all facets of our AIDA64 testing rather significantly.
The increased bandwidth and slightly reduced latency improved some of our results, yielding the fastest times we’ve seen in some tests. The board is a great gamer, and did well in productivity tests as expected. In short, this board performs quite well across a wide range of tests and games, thanks to the bandwidth increase that seems baked in when enabling the Expo profile on the base kit.Below, we’ll examine the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Xtreme X3D AI Top's performance and other features to determine whether it deserves a spot on our list of the best motherboards . But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from Gigabyte’s website.
Specifications of the Aorus Xtreme X3D AI Top
Swipe to scroll horizontally Socket AM5 (LGA 1718) Chipset X870E Form Factor E-ATX Voltage Regulator 28 Phase (18x 110A SPS MOSFETs for Vcore) Video Ports (1) HDMI (v2.1)
(1) USB Type-C
(2) USB4 Type-C (DP) USB Ports (2) USB 4 (40 Gbps) Type-C
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