GIGABYTE B650I AORUS Ultra Mini-ITX AM5 Motherboard with DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E, 5-Year Warranty

About a year ago I purchased Asus Rog Strix B650E-I for $340. It's a fine MB but it has a loud and annoying coil whine. Just recently bought this Gigabyte B650I AORUS ULTRA used for $170, and it's super silent, boots faster, works great and has 3 NVME drive slots. I'm supper happy with this purchase, thank you Gigabyte and Amazon.

This board was almost plug and play. I didn't require the SATA daughterboard, so it was just a matter of installing the CPU and memory, mounting the cooler, installing the rear NVME, and mounting to the case. The entire back of this board acts as a heatsink for a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, so make sure to install that first before putting it in your case.Make sure to update your BIOS to the latest version. This can be done at any time, even after installing Windows. Some CPUs run hot until you update, so don't skip it. This board includes a backup bios, so if you somehow screw up you can restore everything and try again. You can download the BIOS from Gigabyte's website, and you can find your board's version number on the box's sticker or silkscreened in the corner of the board itself.I don't understand the complaints about cable management. Mine's messy, but only because I crammed a SFX PSU (SF1000L) into a Fractal Terra and chose to use its included flat cables instead of ordering shorter customs. You'll be fine. If you're building a Mini-ITX PC in a windowed case and are concerned about aesthetics, then you should know that custom PSU cables are common, if not expected. If in doubt, there are plenty of videos featuring this board on Youtube and the manuals can be downloaded from Gigabyte, so you should be able to plan your route in advance.Boot times are about 35-40 seconds with ultra fast boot enabled, which is slower than I'd hoped. I never had the memory training problem with my G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 64GB 6400MT/s. If you care about enabling XMP/EXPO for your ram, make sure your ram is on the QVL list before you order (Google "B650I AORUS QVL"). This board supports both XMP and EXPO, but better safe than sorry.

For the price, this is the BEST Mini-ITX AM5 motherboard. The build quality is exceptional. This thing is HEAVY because it comes with a 12-layer PCB with serious cooling as well as a metal back-plate and integrated IO shield. This board has surprising cooler compatibility, even if it comes close to not fitting some larger coolers. Everything is robust and reinforced, and the ports are solid and satisfying. I had minor issues with the included WiFi which seems to have sorted itself out. However, the WiFi signal quality and speed are among the best I've ever seen! The included antenna is not one to throw away. It's actually nice because it can fold to different positions, and attach with solid magnets. Another thing I really appreciate is that it can hold 3x NVME drives, which I find very impressive. One star off for the lack of an included user manual and the terrible instructions for a BIOS upgrade. A user manual is important because this board makes some really strange design choices to fit all of the expected connectivity on this board. For example, I had to remove the M.2 cooling shroud to get to the HD audio connector. I recommend using the Q-Flash Plus button on the back of the motherboard for BIOS upgrades because it makes it very easy. Just note there are very specific instructions that you have to follow, easily found online. I feel that $260 was a fair price considering how premium this motherboard is. It easily matches or surpasses the quality of some $500 motherboards.

I read the reviews and still thought it was just them. Boy I was wrong. I Received the board fairly fast, that was the only positive. The day I got it, I was thrown off by the sister board and how it was needed for the f-pannel, sata and fan headers. This right here causes a cable routing nightmare. Also the 2 m.2 drives that put one card and top of the other makes the heat sink really fat and my air cooler would rub. This board has some weight to it and I think its from all the heatsinks because i've read this board runs hot. I never finished building in it because within 1 hour in on the same day I got it, I boxed it right back up and sent it back. Not the worst mobo i've had hands on, but this ranks up there with one of the worst. Of course ymmv, but for tight sff builds avoid this board. Unless you like difficult cable management and very tight cooling options.