Gigabyte’s anime PC components unveiled

Typically, getting anime-inspired components for your PC meant reaching into the third-party market for customised designs. That’s changing, however – Asus ROG’s Hatsune Miku collab from last year comes to mind as a recent example.

That adoption of the otaku aesthetic by mainstream manufacturers has taken another stride with Gigabyte’s B850 Aorus Elite-P Ice, a motherboard that the company pitches as being “the brand’s boldest step yet into anime-inspired PC hardware”. 

Gigabyte Aorus Elite-P Ice

The mobo features Ari, the eponymous anime mascot of Gigabyte’s ‘Aorus Ari’ line of motherboards. It’s the third board in this lineup, the second to feature AM5 sockets, and the first to be a full-size B850 ATX board. You can find four DDR5 slots on the board, with the supported overclocking speed topping out at 8200MT’s, alongside four M.2 slots, including one that’s PCIe 5.0 x4. M.2 storage can be installed tool-free via Gigabyte’s EZ-Latch Plus system.

As for wired and wireless connectivity, you can find a 5GbE LAN port and support for Wi-Fi 7 on the board as well. The Aorus board also comes packaged with Gigabyte’s ultra-high gain antenna, which supports wireless connections of up to 5800Mbps.

Of course, the star of the show would be the looks. Beyond the anime girl being front and centre, there’s also a few subtle details that round out the design of the board as a whole. For instance, you can spot a couple paw prints on the PCB itself, as well as two cats poking out of the M.2 heatsink.

A rise in anime mascots for PC parts

Gigabyte is certainly not the first to push an anime mascot with its products, but it’s a sign of the amount of influence otaku culture has over the consumer tech industry, shaping how certain products are made and marketed.

You don’t have to look far to see other companies doing the same; just take a look at Moondrop and how they’ve branded their IEMs for the past few years. If you do want to go back even further, you’ll find Microsoft’s Nanami Madobe, who starred in a couple Japanese commercials for Windows 7, and even featured in a special edition CD theme pack for the OS.

While it’s certainly notable that this has extended to something like the PC component space, perhaps it was bound to happen, given the gradual shift in PC builds from being functional to aesthetically pleasing.

Manufacturers like XPG, MSI, and PowerColor have already hopped on this trend, and from the perspective of the component makers, it looks like a logical step. Especially if the primary markets these companies are targeting are APAC and the United States – which according to a report by marketing agency Dentsu, are the two regions where anime is viewed the most – and they already have the capacity to manufacture components in their brand’s colours.

Pricing and Availability

Back to the Aorus, Gigabyte hasn’t said when exactly its newest anime motherboard will hit the shelves. However, it did state that it would be released “shortly after” Computex 2026 (2 to 5 June), where the board is being showcased.

As for how much it’ll cost, the company didn’t specify either, though comparable B850 Aorus boards are priced around the S$400 to S$500 ballpark on Gigabyte’s Shopee and Lazada pages, so do keep that in mind.