Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming 5 Preview

Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 preview

Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview

 
With AMD’s Ryzen CPUs comes the new AM4 platform, bringing with it a modern feature set and a crazy amount of upgrades to AMD’s older FM2 and AM3 lineups.  
 
Today we have received our first Gigabyte Ryzen ready motherboard, the Aorus GA-AM370-Gaming 5, coming with all of the expected Gigabyte trimmings like reinforced PCIe lanes/DDR4 DIMM slots and support for both M.2 and U.2 storage devices.    

  

Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview  Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview

 

On the packaging, we can see that the Gaming 5 can support AMD’s new Ryzen CPUs, USB 3.1 Gen 2 and is compatible with Gigabyte’s RGB fusion technology, though looking at this motherboard’s spec sheet we can see that Gigabyte’s new board offers a lot more than that.  

The Gaming 5 will support both SLI and crossfire, with the top two PCIe 16x lanes running in an 8x,8x configuration. With a single GPU in the top PCIe 16x slot, the system runs that PCIe lane at 16x speeds. The bottom PCIe lane runs at 4x speeds, though it shares PCIe bandwidth with the three PCIe 1x slots, so the slot’s PCIe speeds will be lowered if these slots are occupied.

Like most AM4 boards we can see that M.2 cards are supported, with the Gaming 5 also coming with support for U.2 storage devices. Both slots support PCIe 3.0 4x speeds but share the same bandwidth, with only one being usable at a time. 

  
Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview  Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview

 

Storage wise we can see that the Aorus supports two SATA Express connections, with a total of 8 SATA slots if the two SATA Express are not in use. We can also see that this motherboard has two internal USB 3.0 headers and two USB 2.0 headers, which should be enough for most PC cases/hardware.  

At the base of the board, we can see that this motherboard comes with a single RGBW connection, with another single RGB connection above the PCIe slots. This second RGB connection is likely for use with AMD’s new RGB compatible stock coolers, though we would have preferred to see this connection closer to the edge of the motherboard for use with RGB LED strips or fans.   

On the Gaming 5, we can also see a single power button, reset button, Clear CMOS button and an OC button, with a BIOS switch at the base of the motherboard. This product will contain two BIOS chips on the motherboard, giving users a backup in the even that one is corrupted during use.   

  
Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview  Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview
  

On the rear IO the GA-AX370 Gaming 5 games with a single HDMI port, though this is only usable with an AMD AM4 APU, with the HDMI connection being unusable with AMD’s Ryzen CPUs. This board will also come with support for a single PS/2 keyboard/mouse connection with a total of 6 USB 3.1 Gen1 (USB 3.0) ports and 4 USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. 

The two yellow USB 3.0 ports on the rear of the board will support Gigabyte’s  USB DAC-UP technology, allowing these ports to support extra power draw and support DACs with longer cables and with less voltage drop than traditional USB ports. The four other USB 3.0 ports are coloured blue on the rear IO. 

The four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports will be using two different chipsets, with two coming from AMD’s X370 chipset (One red Type-A port and one red Type-C port) and the other two coming from a dedicated ASMedia controller. It is worth noting that the USB controller from AMD’s chipset is also from ASMedia, so both sets of ports should offer the same transfer speeds. 

Gigabyte Aorus GA-AX370 Gaming 5 Preview

 

 

Conclusion

It is clear to see that the Gaming 5 does offer a lot of options for newcomers to the AM4 platform, with RGBW lighting, a customisable LED plate and plenty of options when it comes to PCIe storage. 

In many ways, AM4 can be seen as the start of a whole new era for AMD motherboards, finally bringing support for PCIe 3.0 to an AMD platform and coming with several huge upgrades in terms of feature set from the use of DDR4to even the use of USB 3.1 and M.2 connections. 

Looking at most AM4 motherboards we can see Z170/270 prices, but motherboards that are ready for CPUs that are designed to compete with Intel’s X99 socket, giving AMD fans a lot to be excited about. The boffins at OC3D will be working night and day to release Ryzen motherboard reviews as soon as possible, though please note that we have only received our CPU samples today, which means that we have a lot of work to do.  

Over the next few days, we expect to see a lot more AM4 and Ryzen components arriving in the office, with plans to write detailed reviews for each that covers a wide range of use cases and hardware configurations, so please come back to OC3D over the next few days for the latest Ryzen content.   

You can order the board at OCUK for £204.99  

You can join the discussion on Gigabyte’s AX370 Gaming 5 on the OC3D Forums. Â