Conclusion
The Final Words
At a price of €179,- I feel that Gigabyte is offering a proper + good looking motherboard X370 that doesn't break the bank. It however is not loaded with extras either when compared to a proper B350 motherboard. So the extra 50 bucks is mainly for the looks and the RGB functionality. Granted though, the looks for me are worth the extra 50 bucks as this think looks great in a nice dark PC build. Let's face it, right now in 2017 motherboards are not "just" about performance and features anymore. No, aesthetics have become such a massive ingredient of the recipe that is to become your PC. The Aorus Gaming K5 seems to hit that sweet-spot with its great looks. Though we tested merely a 169 USD Ryzen 5 1400 we can say that the performance is at roughly the same level as the competition as well. The latest AGESA 1006 ready BIOS certainly helped with timings and voltages memory wise. XMP kicked in at first try with a Corsair LPX 3000 MHz kit. It clocked in at 2933 MHz CL16 (there is no memory divider for 3000 MHz). Enthusiast cards and multi-GPU combinations can run into a CPU bound situation at lower resolutions. However Ryzen processors offer plenty of performance if you game at 2560x1440 or higher, or stick to a more mid-range / mid-range graphics card.
The Experience
We used a four core Ryzen 5 1400 deliberately as we wanted to show the other side of the cfoin as well, in combo with the AX370 Gaming K5 it simply nice value for money. Tweak it a little and this 169 USD processor is plenty fast for even high-end gaming. It is a bit of a value mainstream processor though. You just have four out of the eight cores less available at your disposal, you however get a SMT threading processor, and that is golden value in this segment. We could tweaks the proc towards 3.9 GHz on air really well and stable, 4.0 GHz is very feasibly with this motherboard with a liquid cooling kit. Realistically though, and this is subjective thing - I find four-core processors to be less attractive as playing with all the 6 and 8-core processors feels faster and better in your desktop environment and applications, but it is a fine and very sufficient processor though.
The RAW Performance
Overall we like what we are seeing with the X370 platform and Ryzen 5 / 7, the per core performance is good enough for what and where it needs to be, especially in this price category. Combined with a 3.4 GHz Turbo frequency the Ryzen 5 1400 processors still remains to be very capable. The technology arena is slowly transitioning to six or more core processors in the next 12 to 24 months. For those that are shouting four cores is enough, hey... we had the very same discussion moving from two to four cores, remember? So if you hang on to that thought for a moment, in this year of 2017 would you still purchase a dual-core processor over a four-core one? Nope, and along these lines you need to think as we need to advance in hardware, the software will then follow in this technological evolution. I also do know that a setup like this could last you years as, again, the IPC perf is good and you have many threads available.
The Gaming Performance
At launch the biggest discussion at Ryzen's launch was 1080p gaming performance. This problem is still here, but not as big as some state it is. Ryzen is a truly great processor series, but it lacks a little in 1080p gaming situations where you are more CPU bound (if you have a fast enough graphics card). The reality is simple, the results are what they are. Ryzen 5 and 7 lack a good 10-20% in performance when used with super fast graphics cards in a lower resolution compared to the fastest clocked Intel SKUs. Now, as we have shown multiple times, it does depend on the game titles a lot as well. We added like eight new games and the differences with these titles look much, much better. For the game titles that do lack a bit of bite, well... you can do quite a bit with the platform to tweak out that difference.
I recommend you to read our tweaking article, as you can gain a lot from tweaking and using higher-frequency memory. To boost your performance, especially for gaming, here are a few generic Guru3D tips:
- Update your motherboard to the latest firmware BIOS, especially the AGESA 1006 or newer firmware revisions are going to help.
- Make sure you have your memory set to at least 2667 MHz with CL16 - 2133 and 2400 MHz will hurt game performance. We recommend 2933 MHz and, if possible 3200 MHz DDR4.
- Tweak your processor, you can likely reach 3.8~4.0 GHz on all cores with proper air cooling or LCS. This offers a gain for game performance - but granted, this will eat a bit more energy, 40 to 50 Watts extra under hefty load on all CPU cores.
- Install the AMD Chipset Drivers and use the Ryzen optimized power plan energy mode.
In closing on the gaming topic, if you are a little GPU bound or use 2560x1440, this pretty much is a non-issue as perf there is top notch for what the processor needs to deliver. And no, the 1080p performance isn't as big of an issue as some evangelize it to be. With the Ryzen 5 1400 you enter the mainstream gaming segment, paired with a GTX 1060 or Rx 570/580 you will not run into CPU bound limitations, hence such a setup would be a perfect symbiosis.
The Motherboard
Right back to the motherboard. I've already used the word here, but Gigabyte designed a really nice looking X370 motherboard. It functions well and offers a wide feature set including Gigabit Ethernet jack and proper audio. We miss WIFI and we'd like to see 5 GigE jacks in the year 2017 on motherboards though. My message to the industry is simple, we need to move on-wards to faster Ethernet. As always, the first thing you'd want to do if you purchase a motherboard with such a new platform and infrastructure is to be sure that you flash the latest firmware into this motherboard.
Gigabyte has a nice offering, it doesn't offer the value B350 offers though certainly isn't expensive either. At €179,- the product seems priced fair with very nice of features and options when looking at USB3.1, SATA ports, M2, the looks and functionality. Oh and also the RGB bling. That said, we have no doubt that with the new generation processors and chipsets there are bound to be a few motherboard firmware updates and fixes for smaller bugs. It comes with the territory. We quite honestly did not run into stuff that massively worried us. The motherboard used seems pretty well tuned, we had no stability issues but once you start to manually configure things in firmware, you can easily end up in a maze of impossibilities and improbabilities.
The Memory
The AMD Ryzen platform supports DDR4 1866, 2133, 2400 and even 2667 MHz straight out of the box with two DIMMs. Higher frequencies are motherboard and more importantly firmware dependant. Over the past weeks we found out the hard way that Ryzen processors really like fast frequency memory, hence we sorely recommend you to use at least 2667 MHz DDR4 DIMMs. However, we recommend 2933 or 3200 MHz. Let me again refer to this article so you can see why. Now, this all sounds crisp and clear, but actual memory support on Ryzen systems is a bit of a mess. We have seen 3200 MHz modules from brand A work with a Ryzen 1600X, but not with an 1800X on the very same motherboard and vice versa. In such conditions your motherboard will revert to 2133 or 2400 MHz. Quite annoying and chances currently are still pretty good you'll stumble into it. AMD, the board partners and memory manufacturers have a massive task at hand here to get proper XMP support up-to snuff like Intel offers. Are you stuck at 2133 or 2400 MHz? Please read my procedural recommendations on this page. The new AGESA 1006 based BIOSes do improve a lot. Our tested Corsair 3000 MHz Vengeance LPX DDR4 kit hit 2933 MHz instantly after applying the XMP (if you are wondering why not 3000 MHz, 3000 MHz is not a multiplier that is available for the Ryzen memory controller)
The Power
With today's used Ryzen 5 1400 processor now fabbed at 14 nm FinFET the TDP sticks at 65 Watts. A full PC at idle will sit in the 50 to 60 Watt range with a dedicated graphics card installed (GeForce GTX 1080 / 16 GB memory / SSD and the motherboard). When we stressed the processors with a Prime 1024M run we reach roughly 100 Watts, that's low enough for what it needs to be. Overall though this is impressive to see. When we game we hover at 225 ~250 Watts, but obviously that factor is dependant on the type of graphics card you use of course. So yeah, these are really good values with a many core product. No complaints here whatsoever and remember, these are all 8-core parts physically, even that 4-core enabled processor.
The Tweak
We used just the a stock AMD cooler for overclocking. We reach a stable 3.9 GHz at ALL cores for both processors. With proper liquid cooling and a lucky CPU we have no doubt that you will reach the 4.0 GHz on all cores as well. After that number things will start to get complicated though. The Ryzen 5 itself will be easy to overclock, you could increase the voltage but we advise the AUTO voltage mode really. Then select your multiplier or frequency of choice and you are good to go.
The Conclusion
In an earlier review I stated that the Aorus Gaming 5 is a bit of a rough diamond. It is now a month or two later and this K5 model feels way more refined, thanks to BIOS updates. If you pick your memory right it'll work with the flick of enabling XMP in the BIOS. And that's what you want. It did work for us hence the new AGESA 1006 update brings more of that much needed memory support. What you want is 2933 MHz, it is the best sweet spot for game performance versus price. The tweaking performance with any Ryzen 5 or 7 processor is decent, however almost all processors hover at that 4.0 GHz marker. Pick you processor right and that's where you find your true value. Honestly, we'd like to recommend the Ryzen 5 1600 (6-core) or a Ryzen 7 1700 (8-core) processors for best performance (when tweaked)relative to value. Gigabyte offers a good deal with the AX70 Aorus Gaming K5 for € 179 / USD, you'll have enough USB 3.1 ports, plenty of SATA connectors and that full speed m.2 connector as well. This board also is SLI and Crossfire compatible. If you go down that multi-GPU route, then the cards will configure itself in x8 PCIe Gen 3.0 modus. That's still plenty of bandwidth, but we would have liked to have seen more PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes on that Ryzen processor series, sure. The Aorus Gaming K5 is RGB LED configurable, and that looks great. As mentioned in all of the reviews, on the DDR4 memory side of things everything for Ryzen is still a little rough. But I loved the fact that XMP worked straight out of the box, I enabled it and the Corsair LPX memory was running 2,933 MHz at advertised timing and voltages, 100% stable. We once again sorely miss AC WIFI and we also are wondering why the industry is not moved to CAT7 and 5 GBit compatible Ethernet jacks? My note to the industry is simple, it's time to move on-wards to faster Ethernet you guys. The new K5 looks terrific with the dark accents, it has enough features and good baseline performance. You can tweak your Ryzen proc quite well, but that tweaking process feels a little more challenging compared to some other brands inside the BIOS (just mimic our settings as shown on the overclocking page of this review). It's a lovely motherboard. Once you have your tweak stabilized, your memory up and running you will not look back. At €179 the motherboard is priced fair, looks great and is a proper match for a Ryzen series 5 or 7 processor.
ATH +++
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