Gigabyte Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 Motherboard Review

Rating: 8.5.

Gigabyte has given several of its AM4 X370 motherboards the Aorus treatment. We examine the Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 – a £205 motherboard that features Gigabyte's Smart Fan 5 system and RGB Fusion LED lighting. Storage geeks will be happy to see the inclusion of M.2 and U.2, as well as 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2, while users looking for a straightforward running process will appreciate Gigabyte's UEFI-based XMP memory support.

Introduced with its Z270 product range, Aorus branding for Gigabyte's motherboards is similar to the approach that ASUS takes for Republic of Gamers products. The Gigabyte Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 features an eye-catching black and white colour scheme and includes a hefty set of onboard RGB LED lighting zones that fit into the vendor's RGB Fusion system. Another staple of the Aorus product range is Smart Fan 5. This is Gigabyte's fancy name for an enthusiast-grade fan control system that uses 4-pin ‘Hybrid‘ PWM- and DC-capable headers throughout and provides granular control in the UEFI and OS software.

The AMP-UP audio system is based around a pair of Realtek's popular ALC1220 codecs and their inbuilt amplifiers. Dual NICs, one from Killer and one from Intel, are provided in addition to a supplementary pair of USB 3.1 10Gbps ports powered by an ASMedia chipset. Maintaining the storage focus, 32Gbps PCIe 3.0 x4 connectivity for fast NVMe SSDs is provided by way of onboard M.2 as well as U.2.

With a long list of functionality- and performance-based features, can Gigabyte's Aorus AX370-Gaming 5 prove itself a worthy contender at £205?

Features (taken from the Gigabyte product page):

• Dual Channel ECC/ Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4, 4 DIMMs
• Fast 4 USB 3.1 Gen 2 with USB Type-C™ and Type-A
• 2-Way CrossFire™/SLI™ Multi-Graphics Support with Dual Armor and Ultra Durable™ Design
• NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 U.2 Connector
• Ultra-Fast PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 with PCIe NVMe & SATA mode support
• Creative^® Sound Blaster X-Fi MB5 support
• Dual ALC 1220 with Front & Rear 120dB SNR HD Audio with Dual Smart Headphone Amps
• Killer™ E2500 Gaming Network + Intel^® Gigabit LAN
• USB DAC-UP 2 & 4 Front USB 3.0 Ports with Adjustable Voltage
• RGB FUSION with Multi-Zone LED Light Show design
• Swappable Overlay for Accent LED
• Smart Fan 5 features 9 Temperature Sensors and 8 Hybrid Fan Headers
• 2 External Thermistors Headers with 2 Included Thermistors
• GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™

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