Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice review: Making the most of the B650 chipset

Summary

• The Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice offers a great value with its impressive feature set and striking white design.
• This motherboard is compatible with AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000 series processors, providing a stable and enjoyable experience.
• While it lacks a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and a debug display, it performs well and is recommended for AMD Ryzen PC builds.

In a sea of great motherboards, how does a manufacturer stand out from the crowd? By offering great value and painting the entire PCB and other elements of the design white. That's what we have with the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice with this striking design and impressive feature set. Whether you're after a foundation for an AMD Ryzen 7000 or 8000 series PC build, this motherboard has everything needed for a powerful system, including PCIe 5.0 storage and DDR5-8000 support.

AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors and beyond run on the AM5 socket, which this motherboard has, but Gigabyte can keep costs in check with the mid-range B650 chipset, sacrificing PCIe 5.0 with the main x16 PCI slot for graphics cards, and cutting corners in a few areas that wouldn't typically affect most PC builds. The result is a stable, enjoyable motherboard to use with AMD CPUs and APUs, taking advantage of everything AMD has to offer with its Zen 4 architecture.

About this review: AMD provided XDA with a Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice sample for this review. Gigabyte had no input ahead of publication.

Price and availability

The Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice was launched with an MSRP of $240 though it can be found listed at various retailers for $220. This price makes the motherboard a great choice for those on tighter budgets and/or who don't need all the more advanced features reserved for boards with the X670 chipset from AMD. With support for both AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000 processors, it's possible to use this motherboard with plans to upgrade to more powerful processors through future upgrades.

Design and features

Gorgeous PCB with plenty of connections

The Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice is a stunning white ATX motherboard with a standard layout for B650 AM5 systems. There are four DIMM slots for DDR5 RAM with speeds up to 8000 MT/s supported. This is located alongside the AM5 socket, which can support AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000 series processors. The B650 chipset can be found adjacent to the primary PCI slot with a passive heatsink. Three full-size PCI x16 slots are present on the B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice, which should be sufficient for most PC builds with a GPU and a few expansion cards.

Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice is a stunning white ATX motherboard.

As well as the PCI channels, Gigabyte offers three PCIe-driven M.2 slots for storage. The primary M.2 storage slot adheres to PCIe 5.0 while the remaining two are capable of driving PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Using all three slots would allow for a powerful system to be created with lightning-fast loading times for software and games. Four SATA III ports can be used for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives to further expand the available storage pool. Powering the CPU and these PCI channels is an 8+2 phase power delivery system.

A large heatsink is attached to the voltage regulator modules (VRMs) to ensure they don't get too hot under load. These heatsinks are thick and entirely metal to better dissipate heat. A large shroud covers the rear I/O components, which consist of HDMI and DisplayPort, Wi-Fi 6 antenna connections, 2.5GbE networking, three audio jacks, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, five USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, and four USB-A 2.0 ports. Suffice it to say you won't have any trouble connecting all your peripherals to this Gigabyte board.

On the Gigabyte motherboard is the usual 24-pin ATX connector, as well as a single 8-pin and a secondary 4-pin ATX 12V connector. Only the 8-pin ATX 12V connection should be used for most AMD Ryzen processors, although I would recommend using both when using AMD Ryzen 9 chips and/or overclocking. For cooling, Gigabyte provides a single CPU fan header, a secondary header for the CPU fan and water cooling pump, three system fan headers, and one last header for a system fan or a water cooling pump.

Those who enjoy creating lit PC builds can utilize four addressable RGB LED strip headers. There are a few LEDs located beneath the chipset heatsink that change color with the system powered on. A TPM header is present, alongside a single USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, and two USB-A 2.0 headers for the PC case. Although this may be a B650 motherboard, multiple headers and a solid power delivery system ensure you can use this board with more capable hardware.

Performance

All the performance you'd need for a gaming PC

Building a PC with the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice is an easy process. The primary PCIe slot used for graphics cards has an easy latch system to release the installed device. There are numerous fan headers and other connections to rely upon to create a powerful PC. Gigabyte provides a Q-Flash utility with this board, which allows the BIOS to be updated without a CPU installed. This can prove useful when moving between CPU generations whereby older versions of the UEFI BIOS may not support the newer processors.

One area where the B650 Aorus AX Ice falls short is troubleshooting. There are a handful of colored LEDs located next to the RAM DIMM slots, though these are more difficult to use than an LCD debugger. Setting up a system with stock settings (aside from activating XMP or EXPO for overclocking the memory) is straightforward, but when you're attempting to overclock the CPU and other parts of the system, or need to work out what's causing a failed boot, I would have liked to see an LCD located somewhere on the PCB.

The Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice performs very well with the latest AMD CPUs.

Once up and running, the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice performs very well with the latest AMD CPUs. In games and running heavy benchmark software, the VRMs maintain stable temperatures with even an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. There's enough supply to keep this power-hungry processor running at maximum clock speeds and match results obtained with X670 motherboards, though I wouldn't push it further with the limited overclocking headroom. It is possible, but you will encounter system instability sooner.

Competition

Although the AM5 platform is still relatively new with support for the mainline AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPUs and 8000 series APUs, there are countless options available for AMD Systems. This Gigabyte motherboard won't be the first choice for enthusiasts chasing world records, nor will it be a viable option for those building a PC on the strictest of budgets. Where the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice makes the most sense is with a gaming PC build, using fast memory, a Ryzen 7 processor, and a recent Nvidia or AMD GPU.

The Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice makes the most sense inside a gaming PC.

Another good B650 motherboard would be the impressive NZXT N7 B650E. It has an all-white (or black) design, a more robust 16+2+1 power delivery design, a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, and other notable improvements over this B650 board. This is to be expected as the N7 launched with a slightly higher price tag, but it goes to show just how much value is on offer in this segment of the motherboard market. Spending just $60 more will get you all the bells and whistles of a premium AMD motherboard.

For direct comparison to the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice, you've got a few choices. Asus has its TUF Gaming B650-PLUS WiFi motherboard with similar specs and price tag, whilst MSI undercuts both Gigabyte and Asus with the MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi but loses PCIe 5.0 support for M.2 SSD storage. It's worth shopping around for B650 motherboards as brands can offer different features (and cut other areas) and some may better match your desired specifications.

Should you buy the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice?

You should buy the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice if:

• You want a white motherboard with a striking design and good build quality.
• You don't wish to spend more than $240 on a motherboard.
• You do not plan on overclocking an AMD Ryzen 9 processor.

You shouldn't buy the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice if:

• You need a budget-friendly motherboard that ticks most boxes.
• You've grown tired of all-black motherboards and fancy a change.

You should consider using the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice if you have AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 processors in mind. An AMD Ryzen 9 CPU will work just fine with this board, but your options for overclocking one of the flagship AMD processors will be limited by the VRM setup and potential bottlenecks elsewhere. With the right setup, it's possible to use this motherboard in a budget-friendly PC build and still be able to enjoy smooth gaming experiences at 4K with the best graphics card.

The lack of any PCIe 5.0 support on the main x16 slots may affect future upgrades as GPUs continue to improve with each generation. The DDR5-8000 maximum throughput for system memory is impressive, but this is overshadowed by the lack of a debug screen. On a motherboard costing north of $200, I'd expect to see some form of LCD instead of on-board LEDs for troubleshooting potential system issues — this makes overclocking using this motherboard less user-friendly.

If all you care for is to activate AMD EXPO on some DDR5 RAM modules and call it a day with stock settings for the AMD processor, the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice is an excellent motherboard with a stable BIOS, good system fan controls, and an attractive design. It's one of the better-value AMD motherboards available and I had a blast using it for our AMD Ryzen 8000 series reviews.