This board looks good, with or without the RGBs, and the silver accents make it look professional, which is refreshing compared to all this horrific looking "gaming" branded stuff out there, looks as good as the asus STRIX stuff, which is in my opinion, the best looking, inoffensive component line out there.
The bios is actually pretty nice as well.
It has USB3, USB2, more than enough RGB headers, and a pretty decent layout overall. The wifi/bluetooth built in is solid, intel standard, and the processors/memory it supports are very high-end. The NVME heat sink actually cools my drive unexpectedly well, and isn't just an aesthetic choice.
There are some annoying things about this board though:
- Two fan headers; one CPU, one system fan. This is very poor, especially considering the ITX form factor is one that really needs decent airflow to maintain performance in general. But PWM fan splitters are like £3, so workarounds are doable and inexpensive.
- HD audio is very far on the left of the board, and I've seen cases in which this causes issues or really ugly cables. YMMV, but just be aware, in some cases it might not even reach.
- AORUS software looks horrible; their SIV for customising fan curves, RGB fusion, and app centre (the three things I've used), honestly look like something out of an early 90's flash game. The worst. They've already made the BIOs look nice, it'd be nice if the apps that I need installed on my actual OS didn't look terrible too.
None of these negatives are dealbreakers though, and this board is really nicely priced, with a lot of really high-end feautres (Although it misses a couple basic ones). Ultimately though, it looks nice, and performs very well, and supports a lot of really high-end hardware. I don't know how this overclocks, as there's not much extra room I can get from my Ryzen 5 3600 in this budget build.
Whilst I was reluctant buying this, as I've had to return a bunch of gigabyte products before due to faults/issues within warranty, this board seems solid and issue free for now, so if that's something putting you off buying this, then rest assured, this is a solid board.
The biggest issue is honestly the Aorus logo; Is it a bird with a ripped arm? Its definitely not a lower jaw unless the bird has a horrendous underbite. Horrible. Nasty.
| Brand | Gigabyte |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 10 x 10 x 10 cm; 1 Kilograms |
| Item model number | B450 I Aorus Pro Wi-Fi |
| Manufacturer | Gigabyte |
| Series | B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI |
| Color | Black |
| Form Factor | Ultrabook, Chromebook |
| Processor Socket | LGA 1150 |
| RAM Size | 32 GB |
| Memory Technology | DDR4 |
| Computer Memory Type | DDR DRAM |
| Maximum Memory Supported | 32 GB |
| Memory Clock Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Graphics Card Interface | PCI-Express x4 |
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11g |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 1 kg |
