Gigabyte's Sexy X870I Aorus Pro Ice Motherboard Arrives For Compact Ryzen Gaming PCs

Angled top render of Gigabyte's X870I Aorus Pro Ice motherboard.
Gigabyte has gone and quietly introduced its first mini-ITX form factor motherboard based on AMD's X870 chipset, and from the renders we've seen, it's quite the looker. As the model name implies, Gigabyte's new Aorus X870I Pro Ice mostly ditches a darker colorway for a white (and off-white) motif that, in the right build, could make a small form factor (SFF) gaming PC really pop.

The caveat is that since this is a smaller motherboard, there might not be a whole lot to look at once you've crammed a pile of gaming hardware inside. Even so, some parts of the board will inevitably stick out, like the I/O housing.

Gigabyte X870I Aorus Pro Ice motherboard with retail box and Wi-Fi antenna on a black and gray gradient background.

Beyond the aesthetics, the X870I Aorus Pro Ice is based on AMD's X870 chipset with support for the latest-generation Ryzen 9000 series processors, as well as other socket AM5 (LGA 1718) chips. That means you could piece together a potent gaming PC around AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D, provided you can find one in stock, as well as a wide range of other CPUs.

One of the trade offs with a mini-ITX board like this is you only get two DIMM slots. Fortunately, memory makers have started pushing out more capacious memory modules, with this board supporting up to 128GB (2x64GB) of DDR5-8800 memory.

Front and angled views of Gigabyte's X870I Aorus Pro Ice motherboard.

There's a single, full-length PCI Express 5.0 x16 slot for your graphics card, which is a single-piece design that's anchored to a backplate for a 10X load-bearing capacity to accommodate heavier GPUs. Gigabyte calls this a PCIe UD Slot X, and it also includes an inner lining (a rubber strip) to prevent scuffing your graphics card's printed circuit board (PCB).

Rear I/O ports on Gigabyte's X870I Aorus Pro Ice motherboard.

Other notable features include two M.2 slots (1x PCIe 5.0 on the front and 1x PCIe 4.0 on the back) with screwless designs, two SATA 6Gbps ports, Wi-Fi 7 support, a 2.5Gbps LAN port for wired connections, and generous I/O connectivity on the rear that consists of the following...
  • 1 x Q-Flash Plus button
  • 1 x HDMI port
  • 2 x antenna connectors (2T2R)
  • 1 x USB4 USB Type-C port (DisplayPort
  • 1 x USB Type-C port, with USB 3.2 Gen 2 support
  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (red)
  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports
  • 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 
  • 1 x RJ-45 port
  • 2 x audio jacks
There are also various headers for more expansion options and for different types of cooling setups, as well as a reset jumper, a clear CMOS jumper, a chassis intrusion header, and a few other odds and ends.

Closeup of the AM5 socket on Gigabyte's X870I Aorus Pro Ice motherboard.

The board itself employs an 8+2+1 (CPU vCore + SOC + MISC) phase VRM design, as well as 10-layer PCB with premium components, according to Gigabyte.

From our vantage point, the Gigabyte X870I Aorus Pro Ice looks like a promising motherboard option for power users and gamers who want to build a pint-sized powerhouse. So far we've only seen it listed at B&H Photo, where it's available on special order for $299.99, with expected availability in 6-10 weeks.