Gigabyte X870E AERO X3D DARK Wood Motherboard Review – Supreme Aesthetics!

Conclusion - Fantastic Design That Looks Professional-Grade

Gigabyte's refreshed X3D motherboard lineup has one feature that's the talk of the town, and that's X3D Turbo Mode 2. This is an enhanced version of the original X3D Turbo Mode, which the company launched with its previous AM5 offerings. This time, the solution is not only better, but Gigabyte has made it much more useful through BIOS and software-side revamps. In our tests, the CPU sees an average 10% uplift in app and around 10-20% improvement in games using the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU. That's a strong uplift & you get to see improvements on both fronts, which is great. Furthermore, the 110A 20 Phase VRM with 18 phases from the CPU is solid enough, and DDR5-9000 memory support is top-tier.

In terms of design, the premium wood textures and leather materials make for a unique approach. They look super fancy on an AERO-tier motherboard. This is the most pricey AERO motherboard we've tested to date, but the features it has to offer make it a premium offering.

With its DARK series, Gigabyte is further uplifting the visual aesthetics of its motherboards to the next level. We saw a range of Wood and Dark Wood series products at Computex this year, and we want Gigabyte/AORUS to keep rolling out these designs as they look really nice for builds, and the option to select wooden designs in both white and black themes is great on Gigabyte's part.

Four M.2 slots and three PCIe slots, of which two (each) are Gen5, are great. The EZ-Latch design on the PCIe slots and M.2 slots is DIY Friendly. WIFI7+BT5.4, along with dual 5GbE LAN ports, enable strong connectivity, while the full list of USB (20 in total) options includes:

• CPU+ASMedia USB4 controller:
  - 2 x USB4 USB Type-C ports on the back panel
  CPU:
  - 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port (red) on the back panel
  
• Chipset+USB 3.2 Gen 1 Hub:
  - 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports available through the internal USB headers
  
• Chipset:
  - 2 x USB Type-C ports, with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 support (1 port on the back panel, 1 port available through the internal USB header)
  - 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (red) on the back panel
  - 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports on the back panel
  - 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports available through the internal USB headers

The 64 MB BIOS also ensures that users not only have enough firmware flash storage for future AGESA BIOS updates, but it also comes packed with built-in drivers for WIFI, which means that you don't have to worry about installing WIFI drivers to get internet working when building a new PC.

• X3D Turbo Mode 2 delivers boosted gaming and app performance
• Tuned BIOS with new features and tons of tuning options
• AERO Wood with premium white design plus wood/leather materials
• Solid 16+2+2 VRM
• 256 GB DDR5 support & up To 9000 MT/s Speeds
• 64 MB BIOS (Ready For Current / Next-Gen Ryzen CPUs) & includes WIFI drivers
• Four M.2 slots with Thermal Guard M.2 heatsinks
• Dual Gen5 M.2 Slots
• Dual Gen 5 x16 Slots
• EZ-Latch Mechanism on M.2 Gen5
• 20 USB ports
• Dual 5 GbE LAN + WIFI 7 + BT 5.4 for connectivity
• EZ WiFi Plug
• Lots of Fan headers, ARGB+RGB headers

We already called Gigabyte's X870E AERO Wood series a solid and high-end AM5 design in the $500 bracket. Now, the Dark Wood series gives users more options, and to be honest, this is the company's best Wooden design to date. The X870E AERO X3D DARK Wood looks spectacular, offers great performance and overclocking capabilities, the DDR5-9000 support is solid too, and with tons of features in an elegant fashion, the new AERO Wood offering is another one of our top picks for X3D Ryzen CPUs.

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