discussion GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5 AM4 Motherboard Review

[MAC]

Feature Testing: RGB Fusion

Feature Testing: RGB Fusion

The AX370-Gaming 5 has the coolest LED lighting implementation of any motherboard that we have tested since the Z270X-Gaming 5...since they are identical. There are RGB LEDs placed not only under the little plastic strip that covers the audio section, but under the chipset cooler, under the PCI-E x16 slots, and even near the CPU socket. There is also a really cool lighting strip on the top-right edge of the motherboard near the memory slots, and even a bunch of LEDs directly in between each memory slot. These different light zones can also be programmed to each display different colours or effects.

There is also a header on which you can plug an aftermarket RGBW LED light strip. This is a neat addition since it replaces the need for a separate controller or power source. You can simply attach a standard 5050 RGB LED strip to the included extension cable, and attach that cable to the header. This approach not only saves you money, and reduces clutter inside your system, but also gives you full control over that strip from inside the RGB Fusion application, which you can see below.

​

The RGB Fusion application allows users to control the RGB LEDs that are placed under the little plastic strip that covers the audio section, under the chipset cooler, under the PCI-E x16 slots, under the clear plastic strip near the memory slots, and even the bunch LEDs that are directly in between each memory slot. The LEDs can be adjusted to any number of different colours and customized to create cool lighting effects, like fading in and out, syncing with your music, cycling through all of the colours, flashing on and off, flashing sections randomly, or even just displaying one static colour.

Click on image to enlarge​

As you can see, the overall effect is pretty eye catching. If you put this motherboard in a glass case, or just a case with a large side panel it will provide quite the lightshow. The unique patterned light strip and the LEDs in-between the memory slots create a look that we have never seen before. They also aren't likely to be blocked by any components like the other LEDs usually are.

Once you do make use of the huge amount of customizability, you can create some very striking visuals that will add a ton of flair to your build. Below is a little overview of the motherboard's lighting in static mode:

<iframe width="700" height="394" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fk-7yVm_hFc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>​

 

[MAC]

Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Since fewer and fewer consumers seem to be buying discrete sound cards, the quality of a motherboard's onboard audio is now more important than ever. As such, we figured that it was worthwhile to take a closer look at the quality of the analog signal coming out of the AX370-Gaming 5's onboard audio subsystem. As mentioned earlier, this model features dual Realtek ALC1220 codecs, which is an incredibly unique design choice that we have only seen once before. Despite the lack of an EMI cover, there is a PCB-level isolation line that should help protect from electromagnetic interference (EMI).

Since isolated results don't really mean much, but we have also included some numbers from the plethora of motherboards that we have previously reviewed. All of the Z170 models feature onboard audio solutions that are built around the Realtek ALC1150 codec, while the X370 and Z270 motherboards all feature the newer Realtek ALC1220 codec. While they may all have similar codecs, there are vastly different hardware implementations that feature different op-amps, headphone amplifiers, filtering capacitors, secondary components and layouts.

We are going to do this using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, since sound quality isn't really something that can be adequately explained with only numbers. To do the quantitative portion, we have turned to RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA), which the standard application for this type of testing.

Since all modern motherboards support very high quality 24-bit, 192kHz audio playback we selected that as the sample mode option. Basically, what this test does is pipe the audio signal from the front-channel output to the line-in input via a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male mini-plug cable, and then RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) does the audio analysis. Obviously we disabled all software enhancements since they interfere with the pure technical performance that we are trying to benchmark.

​

Although the AX370-Gaming 5's audio results are not quite as good as that of the ASRock X370 Taichi, the differences are fairly minimal. Furthermore, the overall rating was still "Excellent", which is something that only a handful of motherboards that we have tested have ever achieved. As we have mentioned in the past, we aren't experts when it comes to sound quality, but at this high level we suspect that just about anyone should be satisfied. We listened to a variety of music and spoken word content using a mix of Grado SR225i and Koss PortaPro headphones, Westone UM1 IEMs, and Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers, and the playback was clean and loud. Frankly, we have no criticisms whatsoever. You can expect identical audio performance out of the front-panel audio jack thanks to the second audio CODEC, which is great for those who often use a headset or headphones.

 

[MAC]

Feature Testing: M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4

Feature Testing: M.2 PCI-E 3.0 x4

One of the more disappointing aspects of this new Ryzen + X370 combo is the limited amount of PCI-E lanes. While the processors themselves have a respectable 24 PCI-E 3.0 lanes - compared to 20 total on Kaby Lake - the AMD X370 chipset itself only has eight PCI-E 2.0 lanes. By comparison, the Intel Z270 PCH has an incredible 24 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, and thus almost 6 times the bandwidth capabilities. This disparity makes itself apparent when divvying up the lanes for high-speed storage.

Now what is interesting is that unlike Intel which leans heavily on its chipset for all storage connectivity, AMD made the decision to allocate four of those CPU-based PCI-E 3.0 lanes for storage purposes, which every motherboard manufacturer is using to add one full-speed M.2 slot to their AM4 models. While we don't have an SSD capable to testing the upper limits of a PCI-E 3.0 x4 interface (~3.5GB/s), we settled on one that can crack the 2000MB/s barrier: the Samsung SSD 950 PRO 256GB.

​

Despite now being usurped by the SSD 960 PRO, this high performance NVMe PCI-E SSD combines Samsung's awesome UBX controller with its industry-leading 3D V-NAND and is capable of sequential read speeds of up to 2,200MB/second and write speeds of up to 900MB/sec.

One of the ways that we will be evaluating the performance of a motherboard's M.2 interface is by verifying that is capable of matching or exceeding these listed transfer rates. The other is by checking to see whether the slot performs as well as a ASUS Hyper M.2 x4 expansion card plugged directly into a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot. As mentioned above, on this platform the PCI-E lanes that the M.2 slot requires directly come from the processor, and we are interested to see whether there is any unusual lane splitting/switching occurring.

Without further ado, here are the results:

M.2 x4 3.0 slot vs. PCI-E x4 3.0 card​

As can see, for all intents and purposes, the M.2 slot performed on-par with the M.2 adapter in the PCI-E slot. Obviously, this is a sign that the M.2 slot has been properly implemented.

While transfer rates are obviously an important metric, we figured that it was also worthwhile to take a peak at instructions per second (IOPS) to ensure that there wasn't any variance there either:

M.2 x4 3.0 slot vs. PCI-E x4 3.0 card​

Once again, the differences are essentially non-existent and well within the margin of error for this benchmark. As a result, it is clear that the M.2 interface on the AX370-Gaming 5 has been very well implemented and should ensure that you get optimal performance from any current or future M.2 x4 solid state drive.

 

[MAC]

Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

Unlike the ASRock X370 Taichi, which had no automatic overclocking feature at the time we reviewed it, the GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5 does come with that feature. However, as you will see below it, it doesn't provide much of an overclock. Then again, that shouldn't come as a big surprise since as you probably already know, there really isn't that much additional headroom on these eight-core Ryzen processors since AMD is already shipping them at faster than optimal frequencies given the manufacturing process that was utilized. So squeezing that little bit of extra performance is exceptionally easy even for a novice overclocker. Simply set the CPU voltage to 1.35V-1.40V and start increasing the CPU multiplier until it crashes in your preferred stress test, then back off a little bit.

With all that out of the way, let's see what we were able to hit.

Auto Overclocking

The AX370-Gaming 5 comes with one type of automatic overclocking, and regrettably it is not the tried-and-true 'smart' AutoTuning feature. Instead, in the EasyTune application, there is an OC preset next to the Default preset. Enabling that OC preset is super simple; you just click on the icon, the system reboots, and the overclock is applied. Or... if your motherboard is on a test bench, you can just click on the physical OC button in the top-right hand corner of the motherboard and it will also apply the same OC preset.

What kind of overclock do you get? Let's check that below:

Click on image to enlarge​

As you can see above, the OC preset won't blow your hair back when it comes to increased performance. However, it does apply that 3.8GHz core clock to all the cores, so in highly multi-threaded applications you will be getting an up to 5.5% performance boost. The downside is obviously that in lightly threaded applications you won't get the frequency advantages of TurboCore and XFR, so performance will fall below that of a stock Ryzen processor. We would have loved to see a memory overclock as well, but given the immaturity of this platform it is probably wise to not implement that into a 'dumb' preset.

Ultimately, whether this overclock is worth applying depends entirely on what kind of applications you use most often.

Manual Overclocking

Click on image to enlarge​

Just like on the ASRock X370 Taichi, we were able to overclock our Ryzen 7 1800X to 4.1GHz. Basically, we were able to match the 1800X's XFR frequency, but applied to all eight cores instead of just two. This is essentially a 500MHz overclock over the stock 3.6GHz that the CPU would normally operate at when all the cores are loaded.

In order to achieve this overclock we obviously needed to tweak the system voltages a bit, and we set the CPU voltage to 1.40V, the SOC voltage to 1.20V, and the RAM voltage to 1.35V. The SOC voltage relates to the system-on-chip (SoC), which is to say the part of the processor that features the memory controller, PCI-E controller, and on-die storage connectivity. While the SOC voltage usually defaults to around 0.85-0.86V, we needed to increase that to 1.20V in order to run at DDR4-3200 with full stability. While that is quite the increase, we have been told that is safe for 24/7 use.

The memory kit that we used was half of a 4x8GB G.Skill Trident Z F4-3200C14Q-32GTZSW kit. It features a DDR4-3200 XMP profile with 14-14-14-34 timings. The AX370-Gaming 5 has an option to enable XMP profiles, and we used it to automatically set the memory frequency and timings, but we did have to manually set the aforementioned DRAM and SOC voltages. Manual intervention was not strictly needed, but we just wanted to run at lower voltages than the 1.368V DRAM and 1.236V SOC that the motherboard had automatically applied.

This motherboard has no BCLK chip/external clock generator, so there is no way to adjust the BCLK at the moment. Obviously this is not ideal for those who want to eek out every last megahertz, but for everyone else it's not a big deal. Increasing the BCLK on this platform also causes an increase in the PCI-E frequency, and most PCI-E devices don't necessarily work correctly above 105Mhz...at least not in PCI-E 3.0 mode.

Overall, the GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5 was a pleasure to overclock. It did not give us any troubles when we set our manual overclock, and obviously the automatic overclock was a flawless process as well. Even when we intentionally pushed things too far, like setting a 4.5GHz clock speed, the boot failure detection mechanisms worked perfectly and we were automatically ushered into the UEFI, with a warning that the previous boot attempt has failed.

 

[MAC]

System Benchmarks

System Benchmarks

In the System and Gaming Benchmarks sections, we reveal the results from a number of benchmarks run with a Ryzen 7 1800X and GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5 at default clocks (with the three different memory speeds) and using own our manual overclock. This will illustrate how much performance can be achieved with this motherboard in stock and overclocked form. For a thorough comparison of the Ryzen 7 1800X versus a number of different CPUs have a look at our "AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Performance Review" article.

SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP

When running the SuperPI 32MB benchmark, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. We are running one instance of SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP. This is therefore a single-thread workload.

wPRIME 2.10

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. This is a highly multi-threaded workload.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 64-bit
Test1: CPU Image Render
Comparison: Generated Score

The latest benchmark from MAXON, Cinebench R15 makes use of all your system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene using various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. This particular benchmarking can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

WinRAR x64

WinRAR x64 5.40
Test: Built-in benchmark, processing 1000MB of data.
Comparison: Time to Finish

One of the most popular file archival and compression utilities, WinRAR's built-in benchmark is a great way of measuring a processor's compression and decompression performance. Since it is a memory bandwidth intensive workload it is also useful in evaluating the efficiency of a system's memory subsystem.

FAHBench

FAHBench 1.2.0
Test: OpenCL on CPU
Comparison: Generated Score

FAHBench is the official Folding@home benchmark that measures the compute performance of CPUs and GPUs. It can test both OpenCL and CUDA code, using either single or double precision, and implicit or explicit modeling. The single precision implicit model most closely relates to current folding performance.

HEVC Decode Benchmark v1.61

HEVC Decode Benchmark (Cobra) v1.61
Test: Frame rates at various resolution, focusing on the top quality 25Mbps bitrate results.
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

The HEVC Decode Benchmark measures a system's HEVC video decoding performance at various bitrates and resolutions. HEVC, also known as H.265, is the successor to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) standard and it is very computationally intensive if not hardware accelerated. This decode test is done entirely on the CPU.

LuxMark v3.1

Test: OpenCL CPU Mode benchmark of the LuxBall HDR scene.
Comparison: Generated Score

LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmarking tool that utilizes the LuxRender 3D rendering engine. Since it OpenCL based, this benchmark can be used to test OpenCL rendering performance on both CPUs and GPUs, and it can put a significant load on the system due to its highly parallelized code.

PCMark 8

PCMark 8 is the latest iteration of Futuremark’s system benchmark franchise. It generates an overall score based upon system performance with all components being stressed in one way or another. The result is posted as a generalized score. In this case, we tested with both the standard Conventional benchmark and the Accelerated benchmark, which automatically chooses the optimal device on which to perform OpenCL acceleration.

AIDA64 Memory Benchmark

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a diagnostic and benchmarking software suite for home users that provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives.

The benchmarks used in this review are the memory bandwidth and latency benchmarks. Memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achievable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86/x64, x87, MMX, MMX+, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE4.1, AVX, and AVX2 instruction set extension.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.

 

[MAC]

Gaming Benchmarks

Gaming Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark (2013)

3DMark v1.1.0
Graphic Settings: Fire Strike Preset
Rendered Resolution: 1920x1080
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark is the brand new cross-platform benchmark from the gurus over at Futuremark. Designed to test a full range of hardware from smartphones to high-end PCs, it includes three tests for DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 hardware, and allows users to compare 3DMark scores with other Windows, Android and iOS devices. Most important to us is the new Fire Strike preset, a DirectX 11 showcase that tests tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Like every new 3DMark version, this test is extremely GPU-bound, but it does contain a heavy physics test that can show off the potential of modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark 11

3DMark 11 v1.0.5
Graphic Settings: Extreme Preset
Resolution: 1920x1080
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark 11 is Futuremark's very latest benchmark, designed to tests all of the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. At the moment, it is lot more GPU-bound than past versions are now, but it does contain a terrific physics test which really taxes modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage v1.1.2
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280x1024

Test: Specific CPU Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score

3DMark Vantage is the follow-up to the highly successful 3DMark06. It uses DirectX 10 exclusively so if you are running Windows XP, you can forget about this benchmark. Along with being a very capable graphics card testing application, it also has very heavily multi-threaded CPU tests, such Physics Simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which makes it a good all-around gaming benchmark.

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark
Resolution: 1920x1080
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Anisotropic Filtering: 8X
Graphic Settings: High

Comparison: Particle Performance Metric

Originally intended to demonstrate new processing effects added to Half Life 2: Episode 2 and future projects, the particle benchmark condenses what can be found throughout HL2:EP2 and combines it all into one small but deadly package. This test does not symbolize the performance scale for just Episode Two exclusively, but also for many other games and applications that utilize multi-core processing and particle effects. This benchmark might be a little old, but is still very highly-threaded and thus will keep scaling nicely as processors gain more and more threads. As you will see the benchmark does not score in FPS but rather in its own "Particle Performance Metric", which is useful for direct CPU comparisons.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3: Terran Conflict 1.2.0.0
Resolution: 1920x1080
Texture & Shader Quality: High
Antialiasing 4X
Anisotropic Mode: 8X
Glow Enabled

Game Benchmark
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

X3: Terran Conflict (X3TC) is the culmination of the X-series of space trading and combat simulator computer games from German developer Egosoft. With its vast space worlds, intricately detailed ships, and excellent effects, it remains a great test of modern CPU performance. While the X3 Reality engine is single-threaded, it provides us with an interesting look at performance in an old school game environment.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Benchmark

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
Resolution: 1920x1080
Texture & Shader Quality: Maximum IQ
DirectX 11
Fullscreen

Game Benchmark
Comparison: Generated Score

Square Enix released this benchmarking tool to rate how your system will perform in Heavensward, the expansion to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. This official benchmark software uses actual maps and playable characters to benchmark gaming performance and assign a score to your PC.

Grand Theft Auto V

DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Resolution: 1920x1080
FXAA: On
MSAA: X4
NVIDIA TXAA: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: X16
All advanced graphics settings off.

In GTA V, we utilize the handy in-game benchmarking tool. We do ten full runs of the benchmark and average the results of pass 3 since they are the least erratic. We do additional runs if some of the results are clearly anomalous. The Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) is ostensibly multi-threaded, but it definitely places the bulk of the CPU load on only one or two threads.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Resolution: 1920x1080
Graphical Quality: Custom
Mesh/Shadow/Texture Filtering/Vegetation Range: Ultra
Lighting/Texture Quality/Ambient Occlusion: High
Depth of Field/Order Independent Transparency/Tesselation: Enabled

With its high resolution textures and several other visual tweaks, Shadow of Mordor’s open world is also one of the most detailed around. This means it puts massive load on graphics cards and should help point towards which GPUs will excel at next generation titles. We do three full runs of the benchmark and average the results.

 

[MAC]

Voltage Regulation / Power Consumption

Voltage Regulation

Since it is a gaming-oriented model, we aren't surprised that the AX370-Gaming 5 does not have any onboard voltage measurement points, which is what we usually rely on in order to accurately measure the various system voltages. As a result, in this abbreviated overview, we utilized the AIDA64 System Stability Test to put a very substantial load on the system while also monitoring the stability of the all-important CPU vCore line. This was achieved with a 60 minute stress test, and in order to further increase the strain on the motherboard's voltage regulation components, we overclocked our Ryzen 7 1800X to 3.9Ghz with the CPU voltage as close as possible to 1.35V. We also utilized the Load-Line Calibration (LLC) settings in order to see if this motherboard is able to maintain a rock steady vCore line.

Click on image to enlarge​

Although the above only represents an approximately 15 minute portion of the 60 minute run, it adequately represents how the CPU voltage line acted throughout the stress test. The Vcore overwhelmingly stayed at 1.344V with the occasional spike up to 1.356V. By the way, with the Load-Line Calibration (LLC) set to Extreme, we actually had to set the Vcore to 1.325V in the UEFI in order to get a load Vcore that was as close to 1.35V as possible for this test. Regrettably, we cannot make any direct performance comparisons with the ASRock X370 Taichi since the previous version of AIDA64 wasn't fully compatible with that model when we reviewed it and it would not recognize the Vcore line.


Power Consumption

For this section, every energy saving feature was enabled in the BIOS and the Windows power plan was changed from High Performance to Balanced. For our idle test, we let the system idle for 15 minutes and measured the peak wattage through our UPM EM100 power meter. For our CPU load test, we ran Prime 95 In-place large FFTs on all available threads, measuring the peak wattage via the UPM EM100 power meter. For our overall system load test, we ran Prime 95 on all available threads while simultaneously loading the GPU with 3DMark Vantage - Test 6 Perlin Noise.

When compared with the ASRock X370 Taichi, the GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5's power consumption numbers are definitely in the same ballpark. While the Gaming 5 posted higher numbers at stock settings, it proved to be a fair bit more efficient when we set our manual overclock. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that it has a smaller and more efficient VRM, and obviously the fact that we were able to achieve our manual overclock with a tiny bit less voltage than on the ASRock.

 

[MAC]

Conclusion

Conclusion

Overall, this is a fantastic motherboard. This shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone since it is largely a clone of the Intel-based AORUS Z270X-Gaming 5 model, which is a motherboard that we really liked. There is no reason to start from scratch when you have a great base upon which to build and improve.

The AX370-Gaming 5 has very good storage and networking connectivity, fantastic USB connectivity, excellent onboard audio, the best RGB LED lighting that is currently available, strong overclocking capabilities, a user-friendly layout, a rich software suite, and a ton of little add-on features like additional buttons and headers that are extremely useful.

Ultimately, our only real point of contention is with the PCI-E limitations that GIGABYTE have created due to their lane splitting. You cannot occupy the PCI-E 2.0 x16 (x4 actual) slot with an x4 device otherwise you disable all of the PCI-E x1 slots. This seems like an inferior design compared to what ASRock did with the X370 Taichi, whereby you could choose between the PCI-E x4 slot or a secondary M.2 slot, and the PCI-E x1 slots worked no matter what. While we are on the subject, we are slightly disappointed that this model only has one M.2 slot. While this platform is realistically limited to only one full-speed M.2 slot, we do like the idea of having a slower secondary slot for storages purposes.

When it came time to overclock, everything went surprisingly smoothly. Perhaps it is because we waited to do this review until a mature BIOS with the latest AMD AGESA CPU microcode was available, but the F5 BIOS proved to be absolutely trouble-free. Since we had already established the frequency limits of our particular Ryzen 7 1800X sample, all we had to do was select the proper multipliers, apply the appropriate voltages, and then save and reboot. The AX370-Gaming 5 had no problems running our 1800X at 4.1GHz with 1.40V, and it was also had no issues running our 16GB G.Skill memory kit at DDR4-3200 14-14-14. We were even able to apply that Intel-focused memory kit's XMP profile, and it worked without any manual intervention.

Since this motherboard has no external BCLK chip, there was no way to push the memory frequency any higher since the DDR4-3200 setting is the platform limit at the moment. In our opinion, the lack of BCLK control on this motherboard is really not a big deal since the processor can already be overclocked at 25MHz increments and memory stability above DDR4-3200 is rather poor anyways. Having said that, if BCLK control is a must-have feature for you, and you prefer a black-on-black colour scheme, the AX370-Gaming K7 that we mentioned in the introduction is an easy recommendation.

The RGB Fusion LED lighting feature that GIGABYTE have added to this model is without a doubt the best that we have ever seen that any non-AORUS motherboard. Not because of how many colours it can display or the type of lighting effects that it supports, but because of how many lighting areas there are. There are LEDs near the onboard audio section, under the chipset cooler, directly below the two primary PCI-E x16 slots, and there's even a few near the power chokes around the CPU socket. The most impressive is the unique patterned light strip next to the memory slots, as well as the RGB LEDs in-between the actual memory slots that create a unique look that we have never seen before. We have reviewed a number of motherboards with lighting features, and these AORUS models do it best.

Another thing that these AORUS motherboards seem to do exceptionally well is post excellent audio numbers. The AX370-Gaming 5 follows that tradition, but it does so with a significantly different onboard audio implementation. This is only the second motherboard that we have ever tested that has two audio codecs. This is apparently done so that gamers can use headphones and speakers at the same time, which still seems odd to us, but we are not hear to judge that part. The part that matters is that this is only the third motherboard that we have ever reviewed to receive an overall rating of "Excellent" in RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA). Ironically, the ASRock X370 Taichi was the second, and the AORUS Z270X-Gaming 5 was the first.

While some people may lament the absence of onboard Wi-Fi, given this model's gaming aspirations we can view the addition of Killer E2500 LAN controller as a worthwhile substitution, especially for those who take the time to make proper use of its included networking management utility. It is not a feature that everyone will make use of, but it is there for those who want to. There's a lot of that going on with this motherboard. We also love the four onboard power/reset/CLR_CMOS/OC buttons, but then again we use a test bench. There are a grand total of eight 4-pin PWM fan headers, two of which are of the high amperage variety that can handle water pumps, which is way more than most motherboard offer.

There are six onboard temperature sensors, and two onboard thermal sensor headers, which is useful since GIGABYTE have included two thermal probes in the accessories bundle. Speaking of accessories, we love the addition of the pricey high bandwidth SLI HB bridge. We also love the DualBIOS feature and the fact that it features two different switches, which allow you to select which BIOS chip to use and whether both chips are identical or can run different BIOS versions or just different settings.

In conclusion, we definitely enjoyed our time with the AX370-Gaming 5. The latest BIOS versions have definitely significantly improved this model since the Ryzen launch date - same goes for every other AM4 motherboard - and we did not encounter any oddities at all. As long as you do your homework and buy a validated memory kit, you should have a great experience with this fully featured product. Overall, the GIGABYTE AORUS AX370-Gaming 5 is an excellent foundation on which to build a Ryzen gaming system.