The GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX Motherboard Review: All The Small Things
by Gavin Bonshor on December 7, 2020 10:00 AM ESTOverclocking Ryzen 3000
Experience with the GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX
When it comes to overclocking AMD's Ryzen 3000, pushing them to even modest all-core frequencies can mean they run very hot. Even with the most recent Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 processors, Robert Hallock, who is AMD's Director of Technical Marketing, stated in response to a Redditor that they (Ryzen 5000) could quickly hit up to 95 degrees Celsius under full-load. According to Robert Hallock, this is a part of the design and should allow the Ryzen 5000 series chips to boost longer due to the higher temperature threshold, thus giving better performance all across the board. It is recommended that users looking to overclock Ryzen 3000, or even contemplate using the Ryzen 5000 series, do invest in adequate CPU cooling with premium AIO closed-loop coolers looking like the most strong candidates outside of the expensive custom liquid solutions on the market.
Focusing on our experience with the GIGABYTE B550I Aorus Pro AX, the firmware itself is user friendly and responsive as far as a BIOS goes. All of the relevant overclocking settings can be found within the Tweaker section, with options to overclock the CPU, iGPU, and memory all found here. Users can use the CPU ratio mode to make adjustments to the core clock speed, while fine tweaking can be done via the base clock under the CPU Clock Control option. For voltages, the CPU VCore is the most prominent option for pushing more juice to the CPU, while options to change the level of Load-Line Calibration of the 8-phase power delivery can be found under the CPU/VRM settings.
Memory overclocking can be done multiple ways, with X.M.P 2.0 profiles available by enabling the profile on compatible memory for ease of use. Other options for tuning the memory manually with the System Memory multiplier, altering the DRAM voltage, and a section dedicated to tweaking the memory timings. As we've previously noted in previous AM4 reviews, AMD recommends a maximum FCLK (Infinity Fabric Clock) to within 2:1 of the memory frequency, with the sweet spot sitting at DDR4-3600 with an FCLK of 1800 MHz.
Overclocking Methodology
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, start off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed. The process is repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (105ºC+). Our testbed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.
We overclock with the Ryzen 7 3700X for consistency with our previous overclocking tests.
Overclocking Results
Equipped with a solid 8-phase power delivery, the mini-ITX GIGABYTE performs pretty competitively in our overclocking tests. Not only is the B550I Aorus Pro AX more than capable of pushing a Ryzen 3000 beyond its limits comfortably, but it behaves very well in regards to VDroop in our manual testing. Our AM4 testing with the Ryzen 7 3700X stretches starts from 3.6 GHz and goes as far as we can in the headroom. Although our Ryzen 7 3700X, unfortunately, cannot do 4.4 GHz fully stable, 4.3 GHz is still a good overclock all-cores.
Our POV-Ray benchmark performance increased as we tested each frequency from 3.6 GHz to 4.3 GHz, with solid levels of VDroop control when comparing load CPU VCore to the values set within the BIOS. Naturally, as we increased the frequency, we saw higher temperatures a full load, but not as much when we upped the CPU VCore from 1.25 V to 1.30 and beyond. Power also crept up as we increased the frequency and CPU VCore, which is expected as more juice means more power from the wall.
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meacupla - Tuesday, December 8, 2020 - link
yup, that's exactly what happens.The only remaining fix I could think of was replacing the soldered in BIOS chips
star-affinity - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Just wanted to say that my problems was resolved with a new power supply! So now the Gigabyte motherboard is working fine again, believe it or not. :)duploxxx - Tuesday, December 8, 2020 - link
not to mention cold boot - bios resets - unable to save q-fan profiles etc...I was very impressed by the x370 although it lacked some easy visual design.
The x570 gigabyte is not worth the money, would stay away from it as much as possible.
I also own an Asrock B450 board, a much better bios layout.
Dug - Tuesday, December 8, 2020 - link
Strange. I have Gigabyte going back to p965 with no issue.No issue with my x570 aorus pro wifi like you describe either, like thousands of others.
kkilobyte - Tuesday, December 8, 2020 - link
I - and others - have zero idea on what is triggering the issue. There is clearly something fishy going on with the power distribution on the Aorus X570, but so far, it was not possible to pinpoint the origin of it. ErP, USB load, PSU, DisplayPort, Sleep modes, RAM modules all have been suspected, but none of those elements led to anything conclusive. There is a +20 pages thread on hardforum.com about it. I tried to probe the issue with my scope, but it happens completely randomly; so far, it happened to me 3 times in about 8 months, and last time it happened, I was in a hurry and couldn't test.Doing a CMOS reset through the jumper doesn't solve the issue; it could thus mean that it is not a cmos-ram corruption, but a more fundamental electrical issue. My best bet is that somehow a power spike at shutdown is sometimes high enough to wrongly toggle a signal line that 'locks' one of the components kept alive by the battery.
Finding the solution would require identifying the components that are kept powered by the cmos battery; without precise motherboard schematics, however, that's going to be difficult; even if it gets identified, I don't see how it would be solved without some sort of hardware hacking.
My personal solution is to design an arduino-based circuit that plugs on the battery connector of the motherboard, and allows a 'reset' through a front panel button. It's less than ideal, but that's better than having to open the case and remove my gfx card just to get the battery out.
mkarwin - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Well if CMOS reset does not fix the issue there's either a failing BIOS chip or circuitry throughout the board's layers... Theoretically one could pinpoint the issue by replacing the BIOS chip...BTW. I honestly wonder why they haven't thought of putting BIOS(es) on microSD cards, some of those smaller ones would be dirt cheap nowadays and capacituous enough to handle modern UEFI BIOSes - easy to remove/replace/reflash, could maybe improve the consumer attitude towards the issue if it is related to BIOS chips...
hansip87 - Monday, December 7, 2020 - link
What i don't understand with AMD mini ITX board is how few are their USB ports available at the back. one of the reasons why i chose going intel route was that there is this cheap Asrock Z490 itx board with 8 USB ports at the back. Sure it;s not the only factor but why can't any of AMD ITX boards do the same?romrunning - Monday, December 7, 2020 - link
Well, you can always just get a plug-in USB hub if you need more. I think the mfgs don't add as many USB ports mostly as a cost-savings.mkarwin - Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - link
Seems quite odd considering they are still asking more ($) for less (size & features)... It's not like they're running out of space on I/O shield, there's no integrated massive cooling openings in most cases, so adding eg. 4 extra even 2.0 USB ports would be more beneficial than having 3 display outputs for the integrated Radeon solutions... I could see a future where more integrated display outputs is beneficial - if they allow adding those server/compute accelerators without display outputs so that they could pass through the display to those board integrated ports. Otherwise, I think maybe 1 HDMI is enough. Especially if you can use said HDMI to pass through audio from the integrated card as well...jeremyshaw - Monday, December 7, 2020 - link
Probably the massive AMD AM4 keep out area. It doesn't really matter for mATX and ATX, but for mITX, every mm^2 matters. But every B550 ITX board is flawed in some way.ASUS hates rear I/O altogether, ASRock ditches the S/PDIF and doesn't have all that many USB ports (still more than ASUS). Gigabyte's never head of USB-C headers, and MSI gets all of that right, but has a proprietary backplate.
X570 came out a year earlier and is worse in many ways. ASUS is pricing their top end board for people without sense, and all of the X570 mITX boards from all other vendors lack the USB-C header. All of them are also 1GbE only, which seems like a waste for such a fast platform. ASRock has TB3, but only one M.2 slot, and very few USB ports.
In the end, I've held off upgrading my old AB350 Fata1ity ITX, since nothing is really appealing w.r.t. upgrading (not to mention almost twice the price!). Ryzen 5000 might force my hand, but I'd still rather not "upgrade" to boards that are very flawed (IMO) vs their Intel counterparts.
On Intel, all is not perfect, but there are more "perfect" boards that don't have these same issues.