Gigabyte Aorus 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Motherboard Uncovered And Hands-On At CES 2018
AMD and its hardware partners are not letting any grass grow underneath their collective feet. That much was made evident at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where AMD announced its 2nd generation Ryzen and Threadripper processors. That means new motherboards are on the horizon as well. We had a chance to look at one in person, Gigabyte's upcoming Aorus X470 Gaming 7 WiFi.
Gigabyte said it listened to a lot customer feedback when designing this motherboard. Apparently Gigabyte really does frequent the comments sections in articles, as well as look at what people are saying in web forums and on YouTube.
"We really do pay attention to what you guys want to see on a motherboard," Gigabyte told us.
For the Aorus X470 Gaming 7 WiFi (the X470 designation is not official, though leaks and logic point to that being the nomenclature, both for AMD's second generation flagship Ryzen chipset and this motherboard), Gigabyte redesigned its heatsinks, giving them fins to allow for air to flow through and improve the overall cooling performance. There's also a copper heatpipe that makes direct contact with the heatsinks on the front and back.
As with many high-end motherboards these days, Gigabyte opted to reinforce the three PCIe x16 3.0 slots that are on the Aorus X470 Gaming 7 WiFi. Users will also find dual M.2 slots for fast storage drives (up from one on the previous generation), plenty of fan headers that are strategically placed to route wires, and RGB headers for fancy lighting.
One of the features we really like is having an integrated rear I/O shield. That means not having to fuss with a removable shield and trying to line up the ports, while also linting up the holes in the motherboard to the standoffs in your case.
The rear I/O offers a generous assortment of USB connectivity and other inputs, including a spot to plug in the 2x2 Wi-Fi antenna. It also has power and clear CMOS buttons. Users can configure the power button to act as a reset button instead, which can be handy when overclocking. Same goes for the dual BIOS implementation.
Gigabyte didn't say when this board will be out or how much it will cost, but we suspect it will be available around the same time that AMD's 2nd generation Ryzen processors hit retail.
