GIGABYTE Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus Motherboard Review - Right in the sweet spot

TweakTown Rating: 91%

Our Verdict

Users looking for a mature and feature-rich Z890 board for use with a 200 Plus series CPU should check out this affordable GIGABYTE option.

Pros

• Relative affordability
• 5G LAN and 320MHz WiFi 7
• Good VRM cooling
• Three PCIe expansion slots
• Platform maturity

Cons

• No future for LGA1851
• Primary M.2 heatsink has regressed
• No 20Gbps front USB

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon for $269.99 USD

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

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GIGABYTE has produced some excellent boards in recent times, not least the stunning X870E Aero X3D Wood. While AM5 is still a favorite of gamers, the release of Intel's Core Ultra 200 Plus processors has brought new life and attention to the LGA1851 socket, and manufacturers like GIGABYTE have used the launch to reinvigorate their lineups. A case in point is the GIGABYTE Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus.

The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus really does deserve the Plus nomenclature. It received several upgrades over its non-Plus counterpart, including full-speed 40Gbps USB4, 5G LAN, 320MHz WiFi 7 with an integrated driver, and support for faster memory.

Other key features include four M.2 slots, three PCIe x16 expansion slots, lots of DIY-friendly features, and a 16-phase VRM. This is the black version. At the time of writing, there was no confirmation that a white ICE version would appear.

GIGABYTE set the board's price to a very reasonable $269. That puts it in a good sweet spot for value and features. But first-generation Z890 boards are available at heavy discounts, putting the Z890 AORUS Elite Plus under pressure.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

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GIGABYTE's AORUS eagle dominates the front of the box. Is that a fist? A claw? Not that it matters.

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The rear of the box is packed with all the highlighted features and specifications.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus comes with a standard set of accessories. The WiFi antenna is a screwless plug-and-play affair with a magnetic base.

You get two SATA cables, some M.2 bits, a quick setup guide, regulatory notices, a case connector, and an AORUS case badge.

The days of CDs and DVDs with drivers and utilities are behind us. Only high-end motherboards come with a bundled flash drive these days. A visit to the AORUS website will give you access to the latest drivers and utilities, or you can rely on the GIGABYTE Control software.

Motherboard Overview

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The Z890 AORUS Elite WiFI7 Plus is an ATX offering with a good-looking, mostly black design. There are two small ARGB areas. One is atop the I/O area, and the other is underneath the chipset heatsink. I like the way GIGABYTE hasn't forced in-your-face RGB branding everywhere. In addition to the onboard ARGB, there are three ARGB headers and a single RGB header, so you're all set to choose colors that suit your build.

Other important headers include six 4-pin fan and pump headers, and reset and CMOS clear jumpers. The latter two are unlikely to be used much, as the board includes easily accessible power, reset, and CMOS clear buttons on the back panel. A debug LED readout is always welcome.

There are headers for a single Type-C 10Gbps port, two 5Gbps ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. Sadly, 20Gbps and USB PD are omitted.

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A backplate covers the rear of the board. It adds rigidity and helps to cool the rear of the VRM area.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus supports higher memory speeds than its non-Plus predecessor. Its four DIMM slots support DDR5-9466+ speeds, with up to 256GB of memory. To reach such speeds, you'll need CUDIMMs. That's a high speed for a board with four slots.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus comes with an unremarkable 16+1+2 phase VRM with 60A stages. Core Ultra 200 Plus CPUs are not as demanding as 14th Gen CPUs are, and it's more than sufficient to power an overclocked Core Ultra 7 270K Plus.

The board's VRM heatsinks are also more than capable of taming the VRM. We saw a peak temperature of 58 degrees, which is in the same ballpark as the results we saw when testing the 285K across a range of boards. GIGABYTE boards usually include very good VRM cooling, and the Z890 AORUS Elite Plus lives up to this standard.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus has four PCB-mounted M.2 slots, which is a common number for a mid-range board. The primary M.2 slot supports PCIe 5.0 drives, while the other three support PCIe 4.0. Four SATA ports join the four M.2 slots.

The board features three PCIe slots, all of which are x16 physically. The primary slot is reinforced for heavy graphics cards and runs at PCIe 5.0 electrically. The other two slots are connected to the chipset and support PCIe 4.0 x4.

As the primary PCIe x16 slot and primary M.2 slot support PCIe 5.0, and the other three M.2 slots support PCIe 4.0, there doesn't appear to be any lane-sharing compromises, which is good news for users looking to fully populate their system.

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The primary M.2 slot has its own dedicated cooler, while the other three share a single large plate. Both heatsinks are completely toolless.

While the Z890 AORUS Elite Plus features several key upgrades, the primary M.2 cooler is not among them. Its surface area is significantly less than that of the one included with the Z890 AORUS Elite, and particularly the X870 AORUS Elite. It's not enough to drastically affect temperatures, but our temperatures were a few degrees higher than those on other AORUS Elite and AORUS Pro boards. As long as your case airflow is adequate, it's ok, though.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus offers a good set of rear I/O ports. The USB complement includes a single 40Gbps USB4 port with DP support. While the Z890 AORUS Elite supported 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4, this port was limited to 20Gbps USB speed. You also get two 10Gbps ports, three 5Gbps ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. I do wish the USB ports were labeled better.

I don't mind seeing four USB 2.0 ports. They're great for devices like keyboards and mice, which don't require the bandwidth of high-speed ports.

GIGABYTE upgraded the Z890 AORUS Elite Plus with a Realtek RTL8126 controller for the 5G LAN port. 5G is becoming mainstream now. An Intel BE200NGW WiFi 7 controller supports 320MHz connections and also provides Bluetooth 5.4 support.

Next are the audio ports, which consist of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports and S/PDIF. A Realtek ALC1220 codec drives these. It's an older codec, with many makers opting for ALC4080 chips, but it offers some enhancements, including WIMA capacitors.

Next up are CMOS clear, BIOS flashback, power, and reset buttons. I think it makes a lot of sense to place the power and reset buttons on the back rather than on the PCB. They can be accessed without opening the case.

Finally, there's a single DP 2.1 connector for use with CPUs with integrated graphics.

UEFI and Test System

UEFI

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GIGABYTE's Aorus-themed BIOSes haven't changed much in recent years, so their layout will remain familiar to anyone who's owned a GIGABYTE board. The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus features some design tweaks that match the board's theme. It features an attractive color scheme, and most options are easy to find.

I particularly like the fan control page, which is highly customizable, and it displays temperatures from all the board's onboard sensors.

Test System

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2024 is a reliable, widely used benchmark that measures both single- and multi-threaded performance. Note that all our benchmark testing used the latest available Windows updates.

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We have switched over to the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus for ongoing Z890 motherboard reviews. So far, the number of results is a little limited. It's a good start for the Z890 AORUS Elite Plus, though, which leads in both the multi-threaded and single-threaded tests.

Blender

Intel's Core Ultra CPUs perform well in this test thanks to their high core count. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.

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That's 2 from 2 for the GIGABYTE. Though, in fairness, the margins aren't significant in percentage terms.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, where a higher value indicates the task will take less time to complete.

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182.9 FPS is another strong result.

Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory Latency

7Zip

7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's very sensitive to changes in memory speed and latency, and scales with the number of CPU threads.

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This is interesting as 7Zip is strongly affected by memory performance. The GIGABYTE has a decent lead here.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency has been an area where Intel has traditionally held an advantage. Chiplet architectures inevitably add some latency compared to monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.

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That memory performance is borne out by the Z890 AORUS Elite Plus's impressive memory latency result. Well, it's good for an Arrow Lake CPU, that is.

Benchmarks - 3DMark

3DMark Storage

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite Plus is finally knocked out of the top spot. Though, as is almost always the case with motherboard benchmarks, the margins are insignificant.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme

Time Spy Extreme has lost favor as a graphics benchmark to Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.

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The margins are again small, with only a few hundred points separating the boards when measured by CPU score.

Benchmarks - Gaming

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.

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It's impressive to see the uplift the 270K Plus achieves over the supposedly faster 285K. Also, it's no surprise that the motherboard makes little difference in graphically limited scenarios.

Horizon Zero Dawn

When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.

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The differences here are negligible in percentage terms. If you're lucky enough to own an RTX 5090, the margins would be a little larger. Again, these results show the boards with the 270K Plus easily outperform the more expensive 285K.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

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Only a few frames cover the 270K-equipped boards in this test.

VRM and SSD Temperatures

These tests are performed to show off the differences between each motherboard's cooling assemblies. Each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.

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A peak temperature of 58 degrees is a decent result. GIGABYTE boards usually have high-quality VRM heatsinks, and the GIGABYTE isn't far behind the much more expensive ASRock Z890 Aqua.

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The Z890 AORUS Elite's primary M.2 heatsink has less surface area than its predecessor, which undoubtedly costs it a few degrees of temperature. Though not an apples-to-apples comparison, we tested the X870 AORUS Elite, and with the same SSD, it was some 9 degrees cooler thanks to its larger heatsink, which has perhaps three times as much surface area.

Final Thoughts

The GIGABYTE Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus is a solid motherboard that offers good value for money, an attractive feature set, and somewhat subtle good looks. It's not merely a board with a fresh coat of paint. But some context is required. The board's biggest problem is its price relative to first-generation boards. But unless you score a whopping discount, those first-gen boards are generally inferior within a given price range.

The board offers a lot at its $269 price point. Buying a first-generation Z890 board in 2024 with USB4, 320MHz WiFi 7, DDR5-9466 support, and 5G LAN, along with DIY-friendly features, was difficult, if not impossible, without spending more. Excluding expensive options such as 10G LAN, an extra M.2 slot, or a top-end VRM with 110A stages, there's not much more you can expect from a mid-range board. When viewed in those terms, the GIGABYTE emerges strongly.

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I do wish GIGABYTE hadn't cut back on the quality of the primary M.2 heatsink, and a front 20Gbps port, with or without PD, would have been welcome, but maybe I'm expecting too much.

Though LGA1851 has a short life ahead of it, the launch of Core Ultra 200 Plus CPUs has breathed new life into the socket. Apart from the excellent gaming performance offered by AMD's X3D processors, a chip like the 270K Plus is very competitive in other areas. When it comes to multithreading, it truly excels, even against the much more expensive Ryzen 9 9950X. The AM5 and LGA1851 platforms have feature parity, and a system with a good-spec, mature board like the Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus won't become obsolete overnight, even if there are no more CPU upgrades coming. Or will there? Arrow Lake is modular. Given how the hyperscalers are stealing everything from consumers...

The Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus Ice is a board that offers a solid feature set, an attractive design, and strong performance when paired with a Core Ultra 200 Plus CPU. It just needs a tenner or two off the price to elevate it above discounted higher-end boards. In time, that will surely happen.