Introduction
As the nice Yogi Berra said: “It’s like Deja Vu all once again.” Today, we’re reviewing the GIGABYTE X870E AERO X3D DARK WOOD motherboard. This can be a complement to the GIGABYTE X870E AERO X3D WOOD Edition motherboard we reviewed in March. The colour scheme is the precise opposite. The previous motherboard had a “light” wood-colored theme, while this one has a “dark” wood-colored theme. Otherwise, the 2 motherboards are the exact same in specifications.
GIGABYTE also sent along a case that matches the motherboard with a wood-colored theme. We now have a full review of the LIAN LI LANCOOL 217 Black Real Walnut Trimmed PC Gaming Case in a separate review with this motherboard installed, so you’ll want to check that out; the 2 pieces of hardware meld rather well together.
Somewhat background. The AERO branding is seen throughout GIGABYTE products, including motherboards and video cards. On the motherboard side, generally one AERO board is produced per chipset release. These are often top-tier quality boards with special aesthetics, as we saw in our X870E AERO X3D WOOD edition. We found the WOOD Edition board to be very top quality, well-designed, and with some unique aesthetic touches. We also felt that the “wood” accents that gave the board its name didn’t quite rise to the extent of quality the remainder of the design represented.
Nevertheless, this X807E AERO X3D DARK WOOD motherboard represents a refreshed version of the X870E chipset boards initially released in September 2024. The brand new boards include larger (64MB) BIOS chips, enhanced cooling heatsinks, EZ Release heatsinks and PCIe slots, Gen5 PCIe and M.2 support, vast connectivity options, software additions inside the BIOS to reinforce overclocking of CPU and memory, and, within the case of this motherboard, “X3D Turbo mode 2.0” which we are going to discuss in some detail. On top of all that, we also get to indicate off this motherboard in a brand recent LIAN LI case. We hope that GIGABYTE was in a position to tune within the wood accents on this “DARK WOOD” version.
This motherboard arrives with a price tag of $499 and carries a three-year warranty. We are going to discuss all of the features we will to see if the board lives as much as the worth. For a review of the AMD chipset hierarchy, please take a look here.
GIGABYTE X870E AERO X3D DARK WOOD Motherboard
Packaging and Contents
The motherboard arrived directly from GIGABYTE in a sealed retail box. This box and its construction is a little more rugged than we generally have seen in recent releases. The package overall is sort of heavy. GIGABYTE has chosen to make use of a double-boxed technique to guard the board. The box opens from the front to display the motherboard protected by a small empty carton covering about half the board. This little empty carton serves to guard the lower portion of the board. To ease the removal of the board, the front of the box tilts open to can help you get your hand under the board.
Accessories are found underneath the motherboard, which is in a thick anti-static bag. Quite truthfully, the accessories are scarce for $499: two SATA cables, one front panel quick-connector, three packs of rubber bumpers for M.2 slots, the WiFi antenna, and a few booklets. Oh, wait, yup, there’s that “AERO” keychain, too.
