CONCLUSION

   There are 3 key differences between the X670E and B650E chipsets, total PCIe lanes (44 for the X670E and 36 for the B650E), supported number of native SATA ports (8 for the X670E and 4 for the B650E) and supported number of USB 10/20Gbps ports (twelve 10Gbps and two 20Gbps for the X670E and six 10Gbps and one 20Gbps for the B650E). Still even though the X670E does seem as a more solid choice as you can see from today’s charts the B650E AORUS TACHYON has nothing to be jealous of the X670E Taichi, at least not in terms of performance. Quite the opposite really since thanks to various "tweaks" the team over at GIGABYTE has done (including using just 2 DIMM slots) the B650E AORUS TACHYON squeezes considerably more bandwidth from the same exact RAM kit. On the other hand, in terms of CPU performance both motherboards exchange blows and that too is a very good result considering the different tiers these two models belong to. Overall quality is also very good, minus the lack of a rear backplate which is regrettable for such a motherboard model. The BIOS, well, not much more i can say, i think my screenshots easily reveal that GIGABYTE went the extra mile in order to fill it with settings for even the most demanding overclockers out there. Of course, not all is perfect and so it actually took me almost 2 hours playing around with all the BIOS settings in order to stabilize all cores at 5.4GHz (by stabilize i mean passing all of the tests listed in this review and a stress test), something which only took me like 20 minutes on the X670E Taichi. Now i don't really know the why, perhaps it's my sample or perhaps a bug with the 2 latest BIOS versions which I used during my tests? Whatever the reason however i was expecting things to be much easier, especially from a model aimed towards the overclocking community.

   Even though the B650E AORUS TACHYON was officially released almost 4 months ago it’s not available anywhere, at least not in the USA and the EU (not in the places I usually search for products anyways). I was able to spot it in Japan for a price tag of just over USD650/600Euros but I seriously doubt this is what we’d see it going for in the USA and the EU (if it ever makes it in either place that is). Availability aside there’s no doubt the B650E AORUS TACHYON is a very capable AM5 motherboard not just due to its overclocking potential but also build quality and features and for all of these it clearly deserves the Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Build Quality
- CPU & RAM Performance
- Reinforced & EMI Shielded PCIe slots (1x5.0 x16 / 1x4.0 x4)
- 2 x M.2 PCIe 5.0 Slots / 1 x M.2 PCIe 4.0 Slot
- Overclocking Potential (16+4 Phase Digital VRM)
- Support For Up To 6666MHz+ RAM
- HDMI v2.1 Output
- USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Port
- 2.5GbE Ethernet Port & WiFi 6E Wireless Connectivity
- Available Buttons, Switches & BIOS Settings
- Bundle

CONS

- Availability
- Price (?)
- Only 2 PCIe Slots