Introduction
2026 has opened up with a flurry of new motherboard releases featuring AMD Socket AM5. Today, we are reviewing one of the latest releases from GIGABYTE, the X870E AERO X3D WOOD. The AERO-branded motherboards are generally a singular release per chipset. GIGABYTE has made 11 such boards in the last few years, and they tend to be more creator-professional oriented in aesthetic. The AERO boards are generally full-featured, have abundant connectivity, and also have a rather custom look.
The GIGABYTE X870E AERO X3D WOOD certainly fulfills that checklist. This board has every feature you could squeeze out of the X870E chipset: overclocking potential, gaming lineage, and a genuinely unique aesthetic. GIGABYTE has chosen to emphasize Ultradurable PCB construction, 16 power phases, heatsink design, Gen5 PCIe and M.2, backplate inclusion, and connectivity, along with a very interesting design aesthetic. This motherboard arrives with a price tag of $499 and carries a three-year warranty. We will discuss all the features we can to see if the board lives up to the price. For a review of the AMD chipset hierarchy, please have a look here.
Packaging and Contents
The motherboard arrived directly from GIGABYTE in a sealed retail box. This box and its construction is a bit more rugged than we generally have seen in recent releases. The package overall is quite heavy. GIGABYTE has chosen to use a double-boxed technique to protect the board. The box opens from the front to display the motherboard protected by a small empty carton covering about half the board. This little empty carton serves to protect the lower portion of the board.
Accessories are found underneath the motherboard, which is in a thick anti-static bag. Quite honestly, the accessories are scarce for $499: two SATA cables, one front panel quick-connector, three packs of rubber bumpers for M.2 slots, the WiFi antenna, and a couple of booklets. Oh, wait, there’s an “AERO” keychain, too.
Discussion (4 replies)
Join Discussion →But does it use "wood screws"
(old GPU meme)
I remember that.....it was an nvidia card mock-up, right? had wood screws in it somewhere.
There were no wood screws on this motherboard that I could see.
This could go well in my antec C7 wood case. But the wood color is wrong... too bad.
Yeah, lol, GIGABYTE missed an opportunity to put in actual wood screws :P Or maybe wood-tipped screws, actually, that would be an interesting look!