We continue to test motherboards for the new Intel Core Ultra (Arrow Lake) processors, and this time we will talk about the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice – a more affordable product compared to the MSI MPG Z890 Carbon WiFi board we previously reviewed. However, this is also far from the most affordable motherboard, because, firstly, we are talking about a “hot” new product with an LGA1851 processor socket, and secondly, about a richly equipped platform for powerful systems. Its recommended price is set at $400, and although this is less than the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K, the most affordable boards based on the Z890 chipset will cost half as much.
However, even a quick glance at the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is enough to understand that there is something to pay for. Quite recently we tested a similar board from the same manufacturer on the AMD X870E chipset (X870E Aorus Pro Ice), and it made quite a strong impression both with its capabilities and extraordinary appearance. Its sister for the new Intel platform is no worse: it has a multiphase power converter with powerful power stages, supports a 5-Gbit/s local network and Wi-Fi 7, has Thunderbolt 4 ports, and is also equipped with five M.2 slots for PCIe- drives.
The Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is not without the main thing that makes it so easy to love the current generation of Gigabyte motherboards – its special white exterior. There are quite a few motherboards with light-colored PCB on the market, but Gigabyte has taken the idea to the extreme – even all the slots and connectors on its boards are whitewashed. And this is what makes them very attractive to those users who view their PC not as a soulless unit collecting dust under the desktop, but as a point of creativity and an object of decorative art.
⇡#Specifications and scope of delivery
Those who follow the range of Gigabyte motherboards are very familiar with products with the words Aorus Pro in the name. The new Z890 Aorus Pro Ice continues this dynasty, and its characteristics are in many ways similar to those of the LGA1700 predecessor Z790 Aorus Pro X. Although there are also plenty of innovations. In addition to supporting the new family of Arrow Lake processors, the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice can boast a wider range of supported memory, as well as the appearance of Thunderbolt 4 ports. In addition, the new board has a different line distribution scheme for PCIe and M.2 slots: for example, installation in a slot M.2 of a PCIe 5.0 drive no longer causes eight lanes to be disabled in the PCIe x16 graphics card slot.
But we will talk about all this in more detail below, but for now let’s get acquainted with the official list of specifications.
1 × PCIe x16 (4 PCI Express 4.0 lanes)
2 × M.2 (2280/22110) with PCIe x4 4.0 support
1 × M.2 (2280) with PCIe x4 4.0 support
1 × M.2 (2280) with PCIe x4 4.0 and SATA support
1 × USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type C (20 Gbps)
1 × USB 3.2 Gen1 Type A (5 Gbps)
2 × USB 2.0
1 × F-Audio
1 × HDMI
1 × SPI TPM
3 × ARGB LED
1 × RGB LED
Additionally:
1 × noise sensor
4 × USB 3.2 Gen1 Type A (5 Gbps)
2 × USB 3.2 Gen2 Type A (10 Gbps)
2 × Thunderbolt4 Type-C (40 Gbps, DisplayPort)
1 × RJ-45
2 x Antenna Wi-Fi
1 × S/PDIF Out
As follows from the table, Gigabyte skimped on a scattering of additional controllers when equipping the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice. In fact, in this case, the engineers limited themselves to only adding a Wi-Fi 7 adapter and a Realtek network controller with a speed of 5 Gbps. However, this is still a little more than Intel recommends for Z890 boards. The basic hardware package includes a slower network controller with 2.5 Gbps bandwidth. And Gigabyte, by the way, also has such a canonical board – it’s called the Z890 Aorus Elite X Ice and costs $70 less, since it saves not only on additional controllers, but also on a whole range of circuit solutions.
But let’s return to today’s heroine. If its characteristics look generally as expected, then the same cannot be said about the delivery package. In addition to a set of manuals and stickers, SATA cables (white), Wi-Fi antenna (also white), the box contains two remote temperature sensors, a sound pressure sensor, a plastic clamp to simplify the connection of case buttons and LEDs, and (surprise!) white fan with a diameter of 50 mm.
Using the included mount, it can be installed in the system so that it blows air over the DIMM slots – a really useful addition for those who want to use DDR5 modules at high frequencies, and Core Ultra processors are willing to be friends with them.
⇡#Design and Features
There is no doubt that by releasing motherboards in a white design, Gigabyte will attract many new supporters. It seems that the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice has just the perfect appearance for lovers of light builds. The colors of all its elements go well together: white slots and connectors do not create any visual noise, and massive unpainted aluminum radiators with white inserts and a luminous Aorus logo on the rear panel casing blend seamlessly into the exterior.
The cooling system for the processor power circuit is made of two simple-shaped aluminum radiators with oppositely mounted horizontal fins and connected by a copper heat pipe. They are pressed to the power stages and chokes using a reliable screw fastening, and a first-class thermal pad with a thermal conductivity of 7 W/m∙K is used as a thermal interface. Gigabyte didn’t skimp on the amount of metal either.
The radiator smoothly flows into the rear panel casing, which, on the one hand, significantly increases its surface area and, accordingly, efficiency, and on the other hand, protects the port area much better than all kinds of plastic covers.
The heatsink on the first M.2 slot develops the style set by the VRM heatsinks, and it is finally reinforced by the lower part of the board, which is covered by a single aluminum panel that acts as a heatsink for the M.2 slots and the chipset. It would not be an exaggeration to say that approximately half of the surface of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is covered with one or another aluminum parts, due to which the board acquires some brutality. However, it turned out to be strong and rigid even without this, since it uses eight-layer textolite with thickened copper layers.
It’s difficult to make any complaints about the layout of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice: all the connectors on it are arranged logically, and you don’t have to look for them during assembly. The only pity is that Gigabyte did not move the 8-pin processor power connectors closer to the DIMM slots, as is done in the new MSI boards. This could make the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice even more convenient when building a PC.
The LGA1851 processor socket uses an RL-ILM mounting mechanism, which bends processor heat dissipators less, and there is enough space in the area around it for installing processor coolers. Even massive supercoolers like the Noctua NH-D15 or be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 will fit on the board in question without any problems.
The processor power supply circuit on the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is assembled using a Renesas RAA229130 12-phase PWM controller. Eight phases are driven directly by the CPU, but each of them uses a pair of dual ISL99390 power stages designed for a peak current of 90 A. Therefore, the result is a fairly powerful, albeit not uncompromising, circuit. Even Gigabyte has boards in which sets of 18 and even 20 power stages with higher peak currents are responsible for powering the processor. Nevertheless, for normal non-extreme overclocking, the power circuit of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice has sufficient reserve.
In addition, the power supply circuit of the processor system agent on the board in question uses two full-fledged phases on ISL99380 80 A assemblies, while often on even higher-level motherboards you can find only one phase (this was the case, for example, on the MSI we recently reviewed MPG Z890 Carbon WiFi).
On the opposite side of the socket there are four DDR5 DIMM connectors, into which a total of up to 256 GB of memory can be installed. Since they are now surface-mounted on the PCB, Gigabyte has paid attention to strengthening them. The pair of slots that are used first have metal frames installed, increasing their durability and extending their lifespan when modules are frequently replaced. At the same time, Gigabyte promises compatibility of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice with modules up to DDR5-9500, but here, of course, we mean CUDIMM, and not ordinary unbuffered DDR5 sticks.
The PCIe x16 slot, which is intended for installing a video card, is also additionally reinforced. Its frame is even screwed through the board to a special metal plate located on the back.
This slot is connected directly to the processor and is ready to accept the latest PCIe 5.0 graphics cards. And to make it easier to remove the video cards installed in it, Gigabyte has provided a special pusher button moved to the DIMM slots.
The remaining two PCIe slots, for which the chipset is responsible, have been moved down three positions. Although the second and third PCIe slots are full-size, they are designed for peripherals, not graphics cards. Therefore, they have only one and four PCIe 4.0 lanes, respectively. But they do not share their resources with any other components and always operate in PCIe 4.0 x1 and PCIe 4.0 x4 modes.
In addition to three PCIe slots, the board in question has five M.2 slots. The first of them, located directly under the LGA1851, is connected directly to the processor and supports PCIe 5.0 SSD. It has its own high heatsink and a heat dissipation plate at the bottom, which means you can safely install flagship SSDs on the Phison E26 controller.
The remaining slots for drives are located below the first PCIe x16 and to access them you will have to remove the video card from the system. They all support PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but there are still some differences between them. The slot closest to the video card is connected to the processor, the rest are connected to the chipset. At the same time, the lower right slot can work not only with PCIe, but also with SATA drives. You can also connect SATA drives with cables to the four SATA ports on the board.
The four M.2 slots listed in the last paragraph are covered by a single heatsink, the effectiveness of which is beyond doubt due to its size. But for some reason there are no heat dissipators for the bottom side of the drives. But any of the drives can be installed or removed without using a screwdriver. All radiators, like SSDs, are secured with latches.
The number of USB ports on the rear panel of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is 12. This is slightly more than is found on boards from other manufacturers in the same price category. However, you need to keep in mind that there are only two Type-C connectors, and both of them belong to the Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 interface, which, when USB 3.2 devices are connected to it, produces a speed of no higher than 10 GB/s. As for the Type-A ports, only six of them are high-speed – two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) and four USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps). At the same time, the only USB port with a bandwidth of 20 Gbps implemented on the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice can only be obtained on the front panel of the case – an internal connector is provided for its connection.
In addition to the USB ports, the rear panel has an RJ-45 network connector, which is controlled by a 5-Gbit/s Realtek RTL8126 controller. Nearby is a proprietary EZ-Plug connector for a Wi-Fi antenna with a plug connection. The wireless network on the Gigabyte board works thanks to the Intel BE200 adapter, which means it supports the Wi-Fi 7 standard: three frequency ranges (2.4/5/6 GHz), 320 MHz channels and bandwidth up to 5.8 Gbps. However, you need to keep in mind that Wi-Fi 7 support is currently only implemented in Windows 11 24H2.
Connecting monitors to the integrated processor graphics on the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is only possible via Thunderbolt ports. There are no usual DisplayPort or HDMI connectors on the rear panel of the board. But the HDMI connector can be found in another unexpected place – on the right edge of the board not far from the SATA ports. This is a special port for the internal information panel, on which system monitoring information can be displayed in 1920×1080 resolution.
Sound on the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice works through a standard 7.1-channel Realtek ALC1220 codec. The audio path is electrically separated from the rest of the board and uses high-quality Nichicon Fine Gold electrolytic capacitors and WIMA film capacitors. At the same time, Gigabyte has reduced the number of audio connectors on the rear panel – only two analog 3.5 mm jacks and a digital S/PDIF output remain. Therefore, when connecting analog speakers with more than four speakers, you will have to use the audio outputs of the front panel of the case. But this is nothing out of the ordinary – in the new generation of motherboards, all manufacturers, without exception, have reduced audio outputs.
Also, another familiar attribute has disappeared from the rear panel of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice – buttons for returning BIOS settings to the factory state and autonomously updating the firmware from a flash drive. If you need to reset the settings, Gigabyte suggests doing it the old fashioned way, closing the jumper on the board with a screwdriver, which is, to put it mildly, not very convenient in a fully assembled system. But the button for updating the firmware still remains, however, it is now located directly on the board – in the upper right corner in the area of the DIMM slots.
This button ended up in a kind of “experimenter’s corner”, where Gigabyte collected all the diagnostic and control tools. For example, there are hardware Power and Reset buttons, LED indicators showing polling of the main components of the system when it starts, as well as a POST code indicator for advanced diagnostics. A Clear CMOS jumper would also be useful here, but it is located in the lower corner next to the connectors for connecting the case buttons.
When organizing cooling, the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice allows you to connect up to eight fans (two of which belong to the processor cooler). All of them are tracked and managed. The maximum power of devices that pull fan connectors is 24 W. At the same time, the board is generously studded with thermal sensors: in addition to the processor and chipset, the temperature of the PCIe slots, the VRM circuit and two more points at the bottom of the board are monitored. And this is not counting the ability to connect two more remote sensors included in the package. All of these multiple temperature readings can be used to adjust fan speed.
⇡#Test system
Testing of the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice was carried out in a system composed of the following set of components:
Testing was performed on the Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (23H2) Build 22631.4112 operating system using the following set of drivers:
Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice was tested with BIOS version F10e dated November 29, 2024.
⇡#BIOS
The BIOS shell currently used by Gigabyte is named after the abbreviation UC, which stands for User-Centered. This addition reflects the company’s desire to make system configuration easier for the end user, and in many ways it really succeeded. At least the simplified Easy Mode, which greets the user when entering the BIOS for the first time, has become informative and functional. In many situations, you can get by with it alone, without resorting to the help of the Advanced Mode.
However, enthusiasts who want to keep everything under control will like the advanced mode much more. Here, in the usual hierarchical menu for Gigabyte motherboards, all possible settings are collected. The most interesting section is Tweaker, through which you can configure processor and memory parameters that directly affect performance.
The above screenshots clearly show that Gigabyte has seriously worked on the visual appearance of its BIOS, making it match the board itself – friendly and beautiful. However, the transformation led to a rather unpleasant side effect – the shell lost its former agility and became “sticky”, when any key press is processed with a delay, and this is clearly felt. Fortunately, this effect is easy to eliminate. The BIOS provides several themes, and choosing the Grayscale theme, which removes unnecessary decorations from the environment, returns the BIOS to the desired responsiveness. Therefore, if you plan to spend more than a couple of minutes changing settings, do not be lazy and immediately change the standard Aorus Bright theme to Grayscale.
In addition, you can further speed up working with the BIOS by creating a summary page of “favorite options” Favorites – you can add all the necessary settings to it. This page is instantly opened from anywhere in the BIOS by pressing the F11 key, and thanks to this, you can avoid multiple movements through the multi-level partition structure, for example, during overclocking experiments.
In the BIOS of modern motherboards, manufacturers often add simple tools to improve performance, accessible to ordinary users who do not want to engage in lengthy experiments. The Z890 Aorus Pro Ice has several such features. To increase processor speed, there is Gigabyte PerfDrive technology, and to improve memory performance, XMP AI Boost profiles are provided, as well as High Bandwidth and Low Latency parameters to increase throughput and reduce latency, respectively. All these “quick settings” are available even in simplified BIOS mode and can be activated with just one click. The only problem is that at the moment they are not fully completed.
Gigabyte PerfDrive offers a choice of six performance profiles. The first three – BaseLine, Performance and Extreme – are defined by Intel itself and set different limits for processor consumption. For example, for Core Ultra 9 285K, the BaseLine profile sets PL1/PL2 to 125/177 W, Performance to 250/250 W, and Extreme to 250/295 W. At the same time, the three profiles added by Gigabyte (Spec Enhance, Optimization and Unleash) so far do the same thing – they simply cancel the PL1/PL2 restrictions without making any other changes to the system operating parameters. In motherboards of previous generations, such profiles additionally and differently adjusted the operating frequency of the processor, but this functionality has not yet been implemented in the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice.
The situation is approximately the same with the Low Latency and High Bandwidth settings for memory. The first of them does absolutely nothing, and the second only increases the single tREFI timing. But to overclock memory, you can fully use DDR5 XMP Booster profiles.
Here everything works as it should – this setting allows you to quickly adjust the primary timings, frequency and voltage of DDR5 modules. At the same time, you don’t have to worry about setting inappropriate parameters for modules. The board handles such situations normally and does not require a full reset using a jumper. If you can’t boot with a certain profile, it will offer to return to the BIOS and correct something. True, sometimes you have to wait a couple of minutes for this offer.
You can thoroughly study how the BIOS of the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is organized and what settings it offers using the gallery of screenshots.
The voltage change intervals available to the user are shown in the table.
Thus, in terms of the wealth of available settings, the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice clearly does not lag behind flagship-level motherboards.
⇡#VRM testing
Arrow Lake processors are not as power hungry as members of the Raptor Lake family. And although the maximum consumption of the Core Ultra 9 285K with the PL1/PL2 restrictions removed can exceed 300 W, the power converter in the LGA1851 platform has a little easier time than the converters on LGA1700 boards. This is clearly visible when testing the heating of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice power converter with a flagship processor installed in it. Even if the tests were carried out on an open bench and with a life support system, that is, without any blowing of the VRM radiators, the temperature of the power circuit did not rise above 70 degrees, despite the fact that the load was stressful and was formed by half an hour of multi-threaded rendering in Cinebench R23.
This is a good result, since the MSI MPG Z890 Carbon WiFi board we tested earlier with 20 phases in the power circuit, which belongs to a higher price category, had much more pronounced heating. So it is impossible to make any complaints about the implementation of the VRM circuit on the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice and its cooling system.
In addition, the power converter on the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice also differs in that it has advanced monitoring tools. In particular, it allows you to monitor not only the temperatures and currents on the PWM controller, but also the efficiency of voltage conversion. For example, when testing the board in Cinebench R23, it was about 80-85% – this value is monitored by the HWInfo64 utility.
And here’s what heating of the VRM zone looks like if you look at it through a thermal imager. It is noticeable here that due to the built-in heat pipe, the heat is distributed evenly across the two radiators. In addition, you can make sure that the printed circuit board in the vicinity of the processor socket is not prone to excessive heating.
The outside temperature of the radiators remains slightly below 60 degrees. It is curious that on the sister board Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro Ice for Ryzen processors, the heatsinks get hotter, although AMD processors are significantly less power-hungry compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K.
⇡#Memory overclocking testing
The specifications talk about the ability of the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice to work with CUDIMM modules with frequencies up to 9500 MHz, and in advertising materials the manufacturer refers to the involvement of AI in its design precisely at the stage of optimizing the routing of signal lines going from the processor to the DIMM slots. In practice, this resulted in our G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-7600 test kit consisting of a pair of 16 GB modules on SK hynix A-die chips working in DDR5-8200 mode on this board without any problems.
This is not a record for this kit; on some LGA1851 boards it can work in DDR5-8400 mode, but the result is still impressive. In systems based on Raptor Lake processors, such a memory frequency could only be achieved on special overclocking boards with one DIMM slot per channel. In this case, the DDR5-8200 mode was conquered by a motherboard with four DIMM slots, which, moreover, does not have a clear overclocker focus.
Separately, it should be noted that to obtain a stable system with memory operating in DDR5-8200 mode, we did not have to experiment long and tediously with the settings. Everything worked in literally a couple of clicks – by using the ready-made DDR5 XMP Booster profile available in the BIOS.
⇡#Performance testing
We tested the performance of the system with the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice motherboard and Core Ultra 9 285K processor in two modes. Firstly, with the “default” settings, when the Intel Default – Performance profile is selected for the processor, and XMP settings are selected for the memory. And secondly, with optimized settings from Gigabyte, when the Optimization profile is selected for the processor, and the DDR5-8200 mode is selected for the memory, set via DDR5 XMP Booster.
DDR5-7600 XMP
Nominal modeCore Ultra 9 285K
DDR5-8200
Optimizations GigabyteCore i9-14900K
DDR5-6400 XMP
The settings optimizations offered by Gigabyte increased system performance by approximately 3-5%. However, their use did not lead to any stability problems, at least in our case.
However, as follows from the table above, it is not possible to make the Core Ultra 9 285K universally faster than the Core i9-14900K even by tweaking the settings. The previous generation processor shows better performance in games and some applications, and the advantage of the Core Ultra 9 285K only appears in certain cases. However, this is not Gigabyte’s fault at all – this is how Intel has turned out with the current change in CPU generations.
⇡#Conclusions
There is no need to say a lot about the details of getting to know the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice. This board immediately captivates with its appearance, and for many this is a very strong argument in its favor. You simply cannot find other such options: LGA1851 boards with a consistent and clean white design are made only by Gigabyte, and the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice is the best among them in terms of capabilities.
Of course, the price of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice, which is around 50 thousand rubles, can hardly be called affordable. Moreover, the same Gigabyte assortment also includes more affordable boards in the same style, for example, Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice. However, the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice reviewed in this review is distinguished by a set of properties that puts it a step higher and largely justifies its relative high cost. This board features an 8-layer PCB, a powerful power converter with high-quality cooling, support for high-speed memory up to DDR5-9500 CUDIMM, and a 5-Gbit/s wired network controller. That is, it offers the capabilities and equipment typical of flagship platforms.
At the same time, speaking about the advantages of the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice, it is not at all necessary to appeal to the uniqueness of its appearance. In fact, it doesn’t stand out even when compared to boards without a clearly defined style. During the testing process, we were convinced that Gigabyte engineers managed to create a high-quality, convenient and functional platform that is no worse than motherboards from other manufacturers. Moreover, the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice power converter stands out from many alternatives because it generates less heat during operation. Gigabyte also equips its board with an extremely useful gadget – an additional fan for blowing DIMM modules.
In other words, even if the reviewed Gigabyte board looked more ordinary, it would still remain an attractive choice for LGA1851 systems. One thing is bad: Arrow Lake processors do not yet evoke an irresistible desire to build new PCs based on them.
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