Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite Wifi 7 Review

Elite specifications, even from B850

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Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite Wifi 7
(Image credit: © Tom's Hardware)

Tom's Hardware Verdict

B850 and the Aorus Elite Wifi7 offer users a less-expensive entry into the latest AMD platform. For under $230, you get a PCIe 5.0 slot and M.2, several USB ports, great performance, and several DIY features, making it a good overall value.

Reasons to buy

  • +

    Solid all-around performance

  • +

    Price point

  • +

    DIY features

  • +

    Wi-Fi 7

Reasons to avoid

  • -

    Basic audio Solution

  • -

    Limited PCIe bandwidth

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

In our first motherboard review of 2025, we bring you a board from the new B850 chipset in the Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite Wifi7. The new chipset offers users a less expensive way into AM5, at least when talking about the 800 series, and has many features we like. That said, it is a value-proposition chipset; ultimately, there are some sacrifices here compared to X870/E.

The B850 chipset differs from X870E/X870 in a few noticeable ways. First, PCIe 5.0 is now optional for graphics. In other words, it depends on the motherboard if your primary PCIe graphics slot is 5.0-capable. The good news is that all boards will have at least one PCIe 5.0-capable M.2 socket. USB connectivity also changes because USB4 is not mandatory, but 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) is. So, if you need 40 Gbps via USB on this platform, you must look closely at the specifications or buy an expansion card. That out of the way, you can still overclock the CPU and memory, but B840 is memory only (among other changes).

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Joe Shields
Joe Shields
Staff Writer, Components

Joe Shields is a staff writer at Tom’s Hardware. He reviews motherboards and PC components.

14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Marlin1975
    Cons - Price
    I am looking at the B850s and some are as much or more than some X870 boards.
    Seems maybe they hope people will not cross shop. But many, most?, boards I see are priced to high IMO.
    Reply
  • snarfo67
    Last year I bought a Gigabyte motherboard (I'm usually a shameless ASUS shill) because it had all the features I wanted, no features I didn't want, and was priced well below the equivalent ASUS board. All was well until did a BIOS update, which disabled my Windows 11 activation. Lesson learned, back to ASUS.
    Reply
  • Loadedaxe
    snarfo67 said:
    Last year I bought a Gigabyte motherboard (I'm usually a shameless ASUS shill) because it had all the features I wanted, no features I didn't want, and was priced well below the equivalent ASUS board. All was well until did a BIOS update, which disabled my Windows 11 activation. Lesson learned, back to ASUS.
    That would have happened on a Asus board as well. It was a bug in Windows.
    There is a script you have to do in power shell to get it reactivated, to my knowledge MS has fixed it.
    Reply
  • StuWiFi6DDR5
    Loadedaxe said:
    That would have happened on a Asus board as well. It was a bug in Windows.
    There is a script you have to do in power shell to get it reactivated, to my knowledge MS has fixed it.
    They’ve been difficult for some time, BIOS issues, Windows 11 update issues, AMD not putting any XDNA, in the 9000 series, the 8000 series only having 16 tops, my M4 Mac mini 38 tops, my iPad mini 7 35 tops. Years back, pcie4 motherboard, pcie4 stick, old Ryzen 3 pcie4, but Ryzen 5, with graphics, no pcie 4, mind blown, you have to watch them like a hawk, which makes owner building, a chore, not a joy, like it used to be. A lot of us go for the mini computers, they come with the case, apu and motherboard integrated, power supply one plug, you have to get the ram, flash and boot media, but it’s still a lot less hassle.

    Buying something off the shelf, doesn’t give you the AI, unless you pay through the nose. Mac mini M4, $600, no hassle, but you have to wait for the software, I haven’t managed, to load a llm yet. They say lm studio, llama 2, but not yet.
    Reply
  • sverebom
    The details on the M.2-slots are wrong.

    According to the specs and the block diagram the first two M.2-slots connect to the CPU, only the third M.2-slot comes from the chipset .

    from top to bottom:
    M2A_CPU: PCIe 5.0 from the CPU
    M2B_CPU: PCIe 4.0 from the CPU
    M2C_SB: PCIe 4.0 from the Chipset/Southbridge
    Reply
  • StuWiFi6DDR5
    sverebom said:
    The details on the M.2-slots are wrong.

    According to the specs and the block diagram the first two M.2-slots connect to the CPU, only the third M.2-slot comes from the chipset .

    from top to bottom:
    M2A_CPU: PCIe 5.0 from the CPU
    M2B_CPU: PCIe 4.0 from the CPU
    M2C_SB: PCIe 4.0 from the Chipset/Southbridge
    Yup, gradually, pcie5, is getting into the motherboards and APUs, the 9000 series has pcie5, not the 8000 series, the 670 motherboards, often have pcie5, many of 850, 870 motherboards have pcie5. If I succeed, with a 670 motherboard, pcie5, will help with the llms, long and short term memory being crucial, speed, with the long term, speed and quantity being crucial, in the short term memory, I have 64 GB of ddr5, at 4.8GHz, only 8GB of GDDR6, at 12GHz. With a 7000 series graphics card, fingers crossed. So many things can go wrong, but I’ve ntfs formatted the pcie5 and created, the iso usb Windows 11 boot media.
    Reply
  • sverebom
    Don'T start with that please. We have been so close to having 1 PCIe 5.0 expansion and 2 PCIe 5.0 M.2-SSDs hooked to the CPU (all at max lanes), but then AMD had to insist on introducing USB 4.0 with the new chipsets, forcing the board partners to redistribute the available lanes in all kinds of weird ways (liker SSDs cannibalizing the GPU slot to find enough PCiE-Lanes).

    Sure PCIe 5.0 doesn't matter much yet, but for future proofing it would have been nice to have a somewhat affordable (sub 300 USD/Euros) platform that can do 95 percent of what Desktop-user and Gamers need in PCIe 5.0. It could have been so easy to have a fully PCIe 5.0 X870(E) version of the B850 Aorus Elite, but no, AMD needed a killer feature for X870(E) and now we have a plethora of mid-range X870(E) mainboards that all steal lanes from the primary expansion slot when you populate the second M.2-slot with an SSD for your games.
    Reply
  • StuWiFi6DDR5
    sverebom said:
    Don'T start with that please. We have been so close to having 1 PCIe 5.0 expansion and 2 PCIe 5.0 M.2-SSDs hooked to the CPU (all at max lanes), but then AMD had to insist on introducing USB 4.0 with the new chipsets, forcing the board partners to redistribute the available lanes in all kinds of weird ways (liker SSDs cannibalizing the GPU slot to find enough PCiE-Lanes).

    Sure PCIe 5.0 doesn't matter much yet, but for future proofing it would have been nice to have a somewhat affordable (sub 300 USD/Euros) platform that can do 95 percent of what Desktop-user and Gamers need in PCIe 5.0. It could have been so easy to have a fully PCIe 5.0 X870(E) version of the B850 Aorus Elite, but no, AMD needed a killer feature for X870(E) and now we have a plethora of mid-range X870(E) mainboards that all steal lanes from the primary expansion slot when you populate the second M.2-slot with an SSD for your games.
    Yes cannibalism, I got a PC, Windows 10, 16GB ddr4, i5 6th generation, this time, it didn't crash from windows update. 3 year old update, up to date security. But I still couldn't get the pcie 5, 7000 series graphics, 9000 series Ryzen 5 APU, 670 motherboard, to output, to the screen. So I'll have to fall back on a 8,000 series APU, 650 motherboard, PCIE 4, 540 graphics card, if I can even get that, to work.

    Maybe one day, I can cannibalise, the case and power supply, of the old PC, I have $A/C 3,000 worth, of components, gathering mould, in the cupboard. I'll have, to get a 800 series motherboard, to get over the BIOS problems with using a 9000 series APU. And PCIE 5, the mess, that's been the updates to Windows 11.
    Reply
  • FoxTread3
    snarfo67 said:
    Last year I bought a Gigabyte motherboard (I'm usually a shameless ASUS shill) because it had all the features I wanted, no features I didn't want, and was priced well below the equivalent ASUS board. All was well until did a BIOS update, which disabled my Windows 11 activation. Lesson learned, back to ASUS.
    January 16, 2025 - Hi. Interestingly, it so happens that a couple of days ago.. I watched a JazTwoCents video on how to transfer a Windows License when you change out a major component on a Desktop PC. He talks about other stuff in the first half of the video, but finally gets to the point and shows how to do it. It did require a phone call to Microsoft. Which as I recall, was just answering a few questions on the automated system. Further, I have learned that when confronting a Tech problem of some sort. To do a search online for a solution. Most often, any Tech problem we have related to computers, others have had also. Meaning that quite often someone has posted help tips and/or videos on the subject. It took awhile for me to remember to do a search, before "pulling my hair out", trying to solve the problem by myself. I hope that helps. Stay well. :giggle:
    Reply
  • FoxTread3
    January 16, 2025 - Hi. Interestingly, it so happens that a couple of days ago.. I watched a JazTwoCents video on how to transfer a Windows License when you change out a major component on a Desktop PC. He talks about other stuff in the first half of the video, but finally gets to the point and shows how to do it. It did require a phone call to Microsoft. Which as I recall, was just answering a few questions on the automated system. Further, I have learned that when confronting a Tech problem of some sort. To do a search online for a solution. Most often, any Tech problem we have related to computers, others have had also. Meaning that quite often someone has posted help tips and/or videos on the subject. It took awhile for me to remember to do a search, before "pulling my hair out", trying to solve the problem by myself.
    Reply