Gigabyte Builds Out a White Micro ATX Board for $209
The Z890M Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice targets Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus chips and ships with heatsinks covering the lower half of the board.
By Lina Lewis ·
Gigabyte's Z890M Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice, a Micro ATX motherboard built for Intel processors, arrived on the Tom's Hardware test bench carrying a $209 Amazon listing. The board is aimed at builders pairing it with a Core Ultra 200S Plus chip and a Micro ATX case.
Storage options include three M.2 sockets and four SATA ports. Networking runs through 2.5 GbE and Wi-Fi 7, though the reviewer noted the wireless chip is capped at 160 MHz channels. Audio rests on a Realtek ALC897 codec, which the reviewer considers acceptable for general use but not for music production or audiophile listening.
Heatsink coverage is the design's standout feature. The reviewer said many rivals in this budget tier leave the lower half of the board exposed, while this model covers it and adds a large heatsink over the primary M.2 socket. Two RGB lighting zones sit near the VRMs and under the chipset heatsink. Six 4-pin fan headers each deliver up to 2A or 24W.
The primary M.2 socket runs through the CPU at PCIe 5.0 x4, while the other two route through the chipset at PCIe 4.0 x4, with one accepting modules up to 110mm. RAID0/1/5/10 is supported for NVMe drives. Two full-length PCIe slots are present: a reinforced CPU-fed slot at PCIe 5.0 x16 and a chipset-fed slot at up to PCIe 4.0 x4, with the reviewer cautioning that a large graphics card may block the second slot.
Power delivery includes 15 phases, 12 of them for Vcore, fed by dual 8-pin EPS connectors and 60A DrMOS parts totaling 720A. The reviewer said that covers the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, and Core Ultra 9 285K, while advising against heavy overclocking on the 285K or 270K Plus and recommending airflow through the case. Memory support is listed up to DDR5-9200 (OC); in testing, a DDR5-8800 kit did not work properly with the board, while a DDR5-8200 kit ran fine.
Rear I/O provides nine USB ports: four USB 2.0, four USB 3.2 Gen 1, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A. The single Type-C port runs USB4 at 40 Gbps with DisplayPort output, alongside a DisplayPort 2.1 output and a front-panel HDMI output for secondary displays. Performance testing called the board average overall, with strong results in 3DMark and real games, and AI Perfdrive offers customizable BIOS presets for one-click CPU improvements. Box contents include two white SATA cables, a rubber pad, an extra M.2 thermal pad, an EZ connector for the front panel, and an installation guide, with tool-free EZ-Latch and EZ-Click M.2 mounting.
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