The Aorus B650E Stealth Ice is a unique motherboard from Gigabyte, their first back-connect design. As the inaugural model in this series, the B650E Stealth Ice sets the benchmark for future Gigabyte back-connect motherboards.
Back-connect motherboards, as the name suggests, have most of their connectors located on the rear of the board. This creates a clean and uncluttered appearance with minimal distractions on the surface. This concept was first introduced by Asus with their BTF motherboard design, followed by MSI’s Project Zero, and now Gigabyte.
In this overview, we’ll examine the components of the Aorus B650E Stealth and its back-connect design.
Aorus B650E Stealth Ice CPU support + Chipset
With AMD’s renowned backward compatibility, the Aorus B650E Stealth Ice supports up to Ryzen 9950X, from the latest Ryzen 9000 series to the earlier AM5 7000 series.
The B650E chipset is largely similar to the X870 chipset, including support for overclocking and PCIe 5.0 x 16 for both GPU and M.2 slots. The main difference is that the B650E only has optional support for USB4 Gen 3×2 and uses an older WiFi 6 chipset. However, the Stealth Ice B650E is comparable to an X870 chipset, as its USB-C port supports a maximum speed of 40 Gbps with the right CPU, and Gigabyte has already included a WiFi 7 chip.
VRM Design
Like any modern motherboard, the Aorus B650E Stealth Ice motherboard features a robust VRM design. The VRM configuration consists of a 12+2+2 design, utilizing DrMOS 60A power stages for Vcore and SOC phases. This parallel arrangement effectively doubles the current capacity, providing ample power to handle demanding workloads.
Assuming a default Vcore voltage of 1.35V, the Stealth Ice could deliver over 972W, easily handling even the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPU.
RAM
The Stealth Ice supports up to a maximum of 256GB DDR5 RAM, with a maximum frequency of 8000 MHz via AMD EXPO and XMP. For those who prefer a less hands-on approach, Aorus offers an auto overclocking feature in the BIOS to automatically overclock memory kits for better performance.
Cooling
The Stealth Ice stands out from other back-connect motherboard designs that utilize a zone-like design. It blends everything together into a unified panel, visually merging the board into a single component.
The VRM cooler is also visually merged into one block, but beneath the panel are two blocks of aluminum heatsinks. The heatsinks are fabricated with multiple layers to increase their surface area, and airflow is further channeled through multiple cuttings that maximize contact and heat dissipation. The two blocks of heatsinks are connected with a single 6mm heatpipe to balance out the thermal load.
A similar multi-layer heatsink is also featured on the NVMe 5.0 slot. This will help with the generous amount of heat generated by the drive. However, Aorus opted for a simpler but effective cooling solution for the NVMe 4.0 slots, a large block of aluminum. With the minimal heat generated by NVMe 4.0, this should be sufficient to dissipate the heat.
Expansion
This is perhaps my most controversial opinion about the Aorus B650E Stealth Ice: it only has a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot. While the B650E still officially supports AMD CrossFireX, there is hardly any modern graphics card that requires more than a single slot, so this might not be a major concern.
However, I would also be worried about the board’s future expandability. Without an extra slot, users may face limitations in terms of I/O expansion, networking, additional graphics cards, or sound cards. Based on my experience building PCs, a second slot is rarely necessary, so this might not be a significant issue.
Storage
On the storage front, the motherboard offers a total of 3 x M.2 slots and 4 SATA ports. One of the NVMe slots is NVMe Gen 5, while the rest are Gen 4. As mentioned earlier, all of the NVMe slots are cooled by heatsinks and hidden beneath the heat sink.
The SATA ports are tucked neatly at the back of the board, hidden from view. However, the SATA ports are not angled, which might cause wiring issues.
Networking
Interestingly, on the networking front, the Aorus B650E Stealth Ice features Wi-Fi 7 powered by MediaTek. While we are unable to access the back panel, the network chip is likely the MediaTek MT7927 Filogic 380 card. Aorus no longer uses the common pigtail screw-in ports, but rather a unique EZ-Plug port to connect with the antenna.
For wired network connections, Aorus includes a 2.5 Gbps LAN port. There are no flashy features here.
Aorus B650E Stealth Ice Audio Solution
The Aorus B650E Stealth Ice has a simple audio solution. With just an Realtek ALC897, there are no bells and whistles other than the usual premium chokes, but it will gets the job done.
I/O
Back Panel
- 1 x Q-Flash Plus button
- 2 x SMA antenna connectors (2T2R)
- 1 x HDMI port
- 1 x USB Type-C® port (DisplayPort)
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (red)
- 5 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports
- 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
- 1 x RJ-45 port
- 3 x audio jacks
Internal
We also want to highlight that Aorus B650E Stealth Ice is currently the only back-connect motherboard with a back-plate. The back-plate for showing off, it can also serve and shielding against pins touching casing with risk of shorting.
- 1 x CPU fan header
- 1 x CPU fan/water cooling pump header
- 3 x system fan headers
- 1 x system fan/water cooling pump header
- 2 x addressable RGB Gen2 LED strip headers
- 1 x RGB LED strip header
- 3 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors
- 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
- 1 x front panel header
- 1 x front panel audio header
- 1 x USB Type-C® header, with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support
- 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 header
- 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
- 1 x HDMI port (Note2)
Oddly this board have two back panel, since most of the on-board ports are tuck away at the back of the board.
Aorus B650E Stealth ICE Overview Conclusion
The Aorus B650E Stealth ICE is a unique motherboard, being the first entry of Gigabyte’s into back connect motherboard, they offer a unify design with clean and uncluttered approach. Despite its minimalistic, it provides a robust VRM design, strong networking capabilities, and ample storage options.
While the lack of a second PCIe slot might be a concern for some users, the overall performance and features of the Stealth Ice make it a compelling choice for those seeking a high-quality AM5 motherboard with a distinctive aesthetic.
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