GIGABYTE B450 Aorus Pro Wi-Fi: A Second Gen Mid-Range Motherboard
by Ian Cutress on June 19, 2018 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Gigabyte
- Trade Shows
- AM4
- Ryzen
- B450
- Computex 2018
With the launch of the second generation of Ryzen, AMD also launched the X470 chipset which enabled the next generation of Precision Boost, a new adaptive storage technology called StoreMI, and also significantly cut the power consumption of the chipset in both load and idle modes. At the time it was also leaked that AMD will be releasing new B-series chipsets into the market, called B450, with the same enhancements. GIGABYTE showed us the top-end B450 motherboard the company is working on.
The B450 Aorus Pro Wi-Fi is going to be at the top of GIGABYTE’s B450 product stack, using a mixture of consumer facing technologies and features but also keeping the board more price effective for its market. This means that the rear panel plate is integrated and the heatsink design supports an 11 phase (10+1) power delivery mechanism using what looks like 40A or 50A PowIRStage controllers, which to be honest looks pretty overkill for a B450 motherboard.
In the cost down mode, the DRAM slots do not have metallic reinforcement, and only the top PCIe slot gets the full reinforcement treatment: the other two PCIe slots get additional metal clasps but nothing as substantial as the top slot.
GIGABYTE has the board with an enhanced audio solution, using an EMI shield and additional filter caps with a PCB separation. SATA ports number six, however two of them are vertical out of the board and found near the 24-pin ATX connector, rather than nearer the chipset.
One of the added bonuses to this board is in the name: Wi-Fi. This board is using an onboard integrated 802.11ac 2T2R dual band module, likely the Intel AC-8265 or AC-9265, depending on how much those modules add to the final cost.
This is the first board that will be a victim to the issue surrounding AMD’s microcode support. Due to the 128 Mb size limit of the BIOS chip, GIGABYTE is removing support for Bristol Ridge processors in order to free up some room. We covered why this is going to happen across a lot of motherboards soon in another article, but GIGABYTE’s argument here is that the Bristol Ridge processors are old, were not widely promoted/distributed, and as a flagship B450 motherboard is unlikely to be used with one.
GIGABYTE said they expect to release this motherboard soon-ish, when all the parts are in place.
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14 Comments
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PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
What is with that branding? Is that a bird with a low-poly arm flexing to show off muscles or does it have a giant, weirdly-shaped, gaping beak hanging open?drexnx - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
...I never noticed that beforeThe Chill Blueberry - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
Reminds me of the Agnico-Eagle logo but for redisigned by a 12 yo.BigDragon - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
The logo is ugly either way. I can't tell what the bottom part is. I've never liked the logo.How exactly do you say "Aorus" anyway? Ah-oh-rus, ay-oh-rus, ah-or-us, awe-rus....does not come out cleanly.
drexnx - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
ore-us?Achaios - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
Well, "Aorus" is the Egyptian god Horus thinly disguised, so that'd be A-oh-rus as Horus is pronounced Oh-ros in Greek. I believe the original Egyptian pronounciation is lost as Demotic Egyptian is no longer spoken, and the Coptic language spoken today in Egypt which is a direct descendant of Ancient Egyptian through Demotic Egyptian, presumably do not have a word for a pagan deity. "Horus" was the Greek rendering of the name of that deity which has got a different name in original Ancient Egyptian.Achaios - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
The Egyptian Coptic language, a direct descendant of Ancient Egyptian via Demotic Egyptian, should not be confused with Egyptian Arabic which is the language of the majority of Egyptians today, who view themselves as "Arabs". Egyptian Copts are what we would call "native Egyptians" as they are direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians and so is their -distinct from Arabic- language.Alexvrb - Tuesday, June 19, 2018 - link
I don't care about logos and how you pronounce the name, myself. I think the fact that a hardware enthusiast site's comments are entirely focused on that is kind of hilarious. Maybe I'm the crazy one here but I think this is more relevant:"the heatsink design supports an 11 phase (10+1) power delivery mechanism using what looks like 40A or 50A PowIRStage controllers, which to be honest looks pretty overkill for a B450 motherboard."
This is the part that matters. Also, why is it overkill? What if I want to overclock and I don't need the extra features of a more expensive X470 with equivalent power delivery? I looked at the entry-level X470s and they didn't compete with this. You'd have to get something fairly high end in the X470 lineup to get that kind of PD.
Bottom line, I like it. At least on paper.
Spunjji - Wednesday, June 20, 2018 - link
I think that your comment opened with a comment on comments is hilarious. ;)Alexvrb - Thursday, June 21, 2018 - link
I couldn't help it, I mean random stuff like that is OK to an extent but cripes. I scrolled down and there was literally no discussion of the actual hardware and I had to check and make sure I was still on AnandTech.