The GIGABYTE Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 Review: Dual Audio Codecs
by Gavin Bonshor on November 14, 2017 12:30 PM ESTCPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v1.0.2: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. For HandBrake, we take two videos and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container: a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short. We also take the third video and transcode it to HEVC. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2017. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test v2.1: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here. We are using the latest version of 3DPM, which has a significant number of tweaks over the original version to avoid issues with cache management and speeding up some of the algorithms.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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The_Assimilator - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
Seems like Gigabyte have run out of ideas to differentiate their boards from competitors, so now they're just slapping random junk on. "Oooh I know a second audio codec!"Why are there so few boards that don't waste money on "premium" audio? As someone who uses a USB headset, this has no value for me. Plus if I actually wanted actual premium audio, I'd pick up a discrete audio card anyway.
It really disappoints me that the motherboard industry has degenerated to the point of "great features/connectivity, great overclocking, no useless addons like LEDs: pick one".
Reginald Peebottom - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
I agree the dual audio seems to be a pretty useless feature for the vast majority of users along with the killer NIC - I’d rather an Intel nic or even a Realtek and save the money.There’s a lot of motherboards that don’t use premium audio or NICs, if that’s what you want, but stand alone audio cards are much more of a rarity now along with stand alone NICs for home use.
Just get the B series chipsets.
The_Assimilator - Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - link
B350 has 4 fewer USB 3.0 (3.1 Gen1) ports, 2 fewer SATA ports, and 2 fewer PCIe 2.0 general-purpose lanes. It also misses out on SLI support and PCIe bifurcation. So not really an option.Seems like to get something decent I have to look at the HEDT market or "workstation" class boards, both of which carry a price premium for removing useless gimmicky crap that nobody wants or needs.
khanov - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
It should be mentioned that this board has major incompatibility issues with a variety of expansion cards. Most SATA/SAS cards do not work, whether in IT or RAID mode, doesn't matter. Other common cards that don't work are some USB3.0 and 3.1 cards and some NICs. Pretty much anything with an option rom is unlikely to work in this motherboard and so far Gigabyte have been unwilling to address the issue.SRB181 - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
Actually, it's worked with every Host bus adapter I've thrown at it. From scsi to fibre channel.If it's UEFI compatible, just let it boot. It takes the same time to initialize as if it loaded bios.
To use legacy cards, set the storage boot option control, or, other pci boot device option
to "legacy only" and they will load the card bios
JTDC - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
Sorry to ask such an elementary question but can one of the two slots designated as being for graphics be used for other devices? Thanks.khanov - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
Yes, you can use one slot for graphics with 8x lanes and the other for something else with up to 8x lanes. I just tested this with an intel NIC in the 2nd slot and it works. But you need to read my comment above. This board has compatibility issues with a lot of expansion cards, so depending on what you want to plug in, it might not work in any slot on this motherboard.I've confirmed that these cards DON'T work in this motherboard:
LSI 8888ELP SATA/SAS RAID card
3Ware 9650SE SATA RAID card
ASMedia 1061 2x SATA 3 card
Generic USB 3.0 2-port card
I'm willing to be a lot of other SATA/SAS card don't work either, but I don't have any more to test with.
SRB181 - Tuesday, November 14, 2017 - link
I don't think you have the bios set right. Have tested it with Adaptec ASR-5405z, ASR-6805t(both legacy and UEFI), both sas, IBM LPE 12002 Emulex Fiber channel and HP LPE 11002
cards (First UEFI, second legacy), and Adaptec 29329 LPE scsi card (legacy).
I ran a lot of these cards in the 1x slots with cable adapters to 16x and they worked fine
(just slower). About this time, I realized I could use more PCI-e lanes. Bought a Gigabyte x399
gaming 7 to use them with. Good luck
khanov - Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - link
I'm glad to hear that at least some storage adapters work with this board. I can confirm that the ones I listed do not work. I did of course have the two PCI device options (storage and other) on Legacy Only, and I've tried every other combo as well. The option roms of those cards I listed don't load in this board.I have been in contact with Gigabyte over this issue for more than a month, but they are unable (unwilling?) to fix it. I even offered to send them a spare 3Ware 9650SE but they were not interested.
They did confirm the issue with the ASMedia 1061 card and offered a partial fix that only works with motherboard SATA ports set to AHCI. I would say to anyone thinking of buying this board: Check with Gigabyte that your expansion cards will work first.
rsandru - Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - link
I own this board too and while I like it a lot, I can confirm Gigabyte support is complete garbage. I've been trying to have them resolve an SLI related problem since May, and gave up after several useless ticket exchanges with their support team. Next board will most certainly not be a Gigabyte...