The GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX Motherboard Review: All The Small Things
by Gavin Bonshor on December 7, 2020 10:00 AM ESTGaming Performance
For B550 we are running using Windows 10 64-bit with the 1909 update.
World of Tanks enCore
Albeit different to most of the other commonly played MMO or massively multiplayer online games, World of Tanks is set in the mid-20th century and allows players to take control of a range of military based armored vehicles. World of Tanks (WoT) is developed and published by Wargaming who are based in Belarus, with the game’s soundtrack being primarily composed by Belarusian composer Sergey Khmelevsky. The game offers multiple entry points including a free-to-play element as well as allowing players to pay a fee to open up more features. One of the most interesting things about this tank based MMO is that it achieved eSports status when it debuted at the World Cyber Games back in 2012.
World of Tanks enCore is a demo application for a new and unreleased graphics engine penned by the Wargaming development team. Over time the new core engine will implemented into the full game upgrading the games visuals with key elements such as improved water, flora, shadows, lighting as well as other objects such as buildings. The World of Tanks enCore demo app not only offers up insight into the impending game engine changes, but allows users to check system performance to see if the new engine run optimally on their system.
Grand Theft Auto V
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data.
F1 2018
Aside from keeping up-to-date on the Formula One world, F1 2017 added HDR support, which F1 2018 has maintained; otherwise, we should see any newer versions of Codemasters' EGO engine find its way into F1. Graphically demanding in its own right, F1 2018 keeps a useful racing-type graphics workload in our benchmarks.
Aside from keeping up-to-date on the Formula One world, F1 2017 added HDR support, which F1 2018 has maintained. We use the in-game benchmark, set to run on the Montreal track in the wet, driving as Lewis Hamilton from last place on the grid. Data is taken over a one-lap race.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
76 Comments
View All Comments
Gigaplex - Wednesday, December 9, 2020 - link
I'm not sure how that would be a B550 issue, as the Bluetooth module is an add-in card.Questor - Wednesday, December 9, 2020 - link
"The end decision could come down to performance, memory compatibility, and other aspects such as power delivery, rear panel I/O connectivity, which all three models include respectable offerings..."Not so much. There is only so much one can expect (as the article states) with mini-ITX boards. The one thing they had to do? A USB C front panel header. They failed. H
Had this board in cart and was about to hit the, "send it to me yesterday" button when something made me pause. A quick doublecheck and sure enough, no front panel USB C connection. Less bling and more substance please. Fan headers and accessory connections = good. Flashing lights = police stop. No thanks.
jeremyshaw - Wednesday, December 9, 2020 - link
Yeah, every B550 ITX board has one problem or another. MSI has their custom backplate. ASRock has never heard of SPDIF and are allergic to including enough USB ports on their AMD boards. ASUS has serious hate for USB ports (4 USB-A!?) along with nixing the SPDIF port. Gigabyte still pretends USB-C headers are an exclusive Intel feature.Most of these problems magically disappear when these vendors make Intel ITX boards.
Questor - Thursday, December 10, 2020 - link
Amazing how that just magically happens.I was reminded by another here there are USB A to C connectors one can buy. So that is less of a deal breaker to me now. It still depends on the position of the USB A connection since it was not purposely placed as a front connection. Cable length matters.
mkarwin - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Or when they do AMD ATX ones ;)Silver5urfer - Thursday, December 10, 2020 - link
AT even 6900XT Is out Where are your Architecture reviews ? FFS. We got that stupid M1 BGA trash review deep dive and saying x86 is fucking dead. But where are the reviews of the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards this time AMD got Nvidia in Raster technology but we need the technical details.Really horrible.
Gigaplex - Thursday, December 10, 2020 - link
Calling the M1 "trash" is flat out fanboy bias. It's an interesting chip and performs well. AnandTech covers all areas of tech, not just gaming on Windows.Silver5urfer - Thursday, December 10, 2020 - link
BGA Trash son. Its called BGA trash for a reason, if you love soldered HW enjoy that irreparable garbage, and forget even upgrading RAM, SSD, everything soldered and gated by "custom blackbox security chip". M1 is first product on the translation and ARM based Mac it is garbage and will be garbage, so unless they can catch up and beat Intel and AMD at SMT it's of no use.AT HW is majority for Linux and Windows. Macs ? Do AT review macbooks ? Nope. This is their first. Because of that obsession of showing Apple in glowing light.
10% marketshare product is Mac OS, same sales value for Apple as well, so yeah trash.
Gigaplex - Thursday, December 10, 2020 - link
Pretty much every single Intel laptop is soldered on, too. The M1 architecture doesn't mandate BGA soldering. It's the portable form factor that does. You can't call the architecture garbage just because of a form factor you're not interested in.And yes, AT does feature Apple products. There's plenty of Macbook articles and reviews. Now you're just being ignorant. There's a whole section for Apple.
https://www.anandtech.com/tag/apple
Avalon - Friday, December 11, 2020 - link
I've got the non-ITX version of this board, and it's fantastic.