The GIGABYTE Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 Review: Dual Audio Codecs
by Gavin Bonshor on November 14, 2017 12:30 PM ESTGIGABYTE Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 Conclusion
The GIGABYTE Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 is primarily designed for gamers that want premium features, but don’t want to break the bank. Priced around $175 at Amazon, it sits at a very competitive pricing point as far as X370 boards go. With a 10-phase power design, SLI and CrossFireX multi-GPU support, this white and black themed RGB laden ATX motherboard offers a nice board for users who want to make the most of the dedicated front panel headphone codec, thanks to the inclusion of a second Realtek ALC1220 codec.
The AX370-Gaming 5 has eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, a single U.2 port and a single centrally located PCIe x4 M.2 slot which supports NVMe and SATA drives up to a maximum of 110mm in length. RAID arrays including RAID 0, 1, and 10 are all supported by the Gaming 5 with all of the eight SATA 6Gb/s ports having the ability to be used. It is worth mentioning that when using the U.2 port, it automatically disables the M.2 slot.
Performance is relative and no abnormalities were found when testing, although I would personally expect a more fluid looking BIOS - nonetheless it is still fully functional and will do the job. Although it seems like GIGABYTE has focused all of the research and design budget on looks and features, users planning on using Bristol Ridge APUs on this board can still make do with a single HDMI 1.4 port. There are plenty of USB ports available including six USB 3.1 Type A ports, as well as USB 3.1 10Gb/s Type-A and Type-C ports.
The power delivery is controlled by the International Rectifier IR35201 digital PWM controller with IR3553M 40A MOSFETs supporting it with a wave of custom GIGABYTE solid ferrite chokes. Overclocking on the GIGABYTE Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 is pretty straightforward, although GIGABYTE hasn’t included an external clock generator meaning that the base clock is automatically set by the BIOS. This isn’t great for overclockers, but for the purpose of usability, it can be construed a good all-around as the only options for overclocking include CPU core speed and memory via a multiplier.
While this board does not have a built-in Wi-Fi adapter, there are two physical gigabyte networking ports, powered by a gaming-focused Killer E2500 NIC (with the new updated software for network prioritization) and the Intel I211-AT Gigabit controller. The board features a total of eight temperature sensors including six onboard probes and two probe headers. Despite the gaming focus, there is also a basic onboard overclockers toolkit which includes a power switch, reset switch, reset CMOS switch and OC button. The board lacks any built-in voltage check points for extreme overclockers, although those users probably wouldn’t consider an X370 motherboard without an external clock generator anyway.
The GIGABYTE Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 offers gamers enough features and software to satisfy the moniker gaming, but aside from multi-GPU support and a gaming network controller, but the board just feels like its lacking something for being the 2nd top X370 AM4 GIGABYTE offering. Nonetheless, for around $175 at Amazon, users will be hard pushed to find such a gaming-focused, RGB splashed, ATX option.
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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...