GIGABYTE Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi AMD Ryzen Mobo Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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GIGABYTE Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi AMD Ryzen Mobo Review

GIGABYTE’s flagship X470 motherboard is a gorgeous piece of hardware, packed with features and bristling with options. It fully supports AMD's Precision Boost 2 technology for new Ryzen processors. This motherboard has overclocking in mind with its design and of course has plenty of Frag Harder Disco Lights, should that be your thing.

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So, is only having 8x8 on the two PCIex16 slots a negative? Or does it even matter anymore? I still run SLI. Probably won't on my next build since the benefits seems to be vanishing.
 
ianken said:
So, is only having 8x8 on the two PCIex16 slots a negative? Or does it even matter anymore? I still run SLI. Probably won't on my next build since the benefits seems to be vanishing.
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Na. We have tested this over the years and never been able to see any appreciable differences outside the margins of error even back on PCIe 2.0.
 
I would be just fine without the frag harder lights and the wifi, but otherwise not a bad board.
 
Hmm,

I wonder if you look under the for show only cover over the back of the I/O shield, if you can remove and replace the WLAN mPCI card.

When I built my router with a ASRock H270M-ITX/ac Mini-ITX board, they had this feature. There was a mini pic slot right back against the I/O shield, and you just loosened a screw, and could pull the entire WLAN assembly out.


IMG_20170331_211743.jpg



I thought this was a pretty neat design.
 
With the limitations of the AM4 platform (PCI-E 2.0, etc.) there's really not much motherboard makers can do to differentiate their products. It's unfortunate.
 
lucidrenegade said:
With the limitations of the AM4 platform (PCI-E 2.0, etc.) there's really not much motherboard makers can do to differentiate their products. It's unfortunate.
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I'd love to see some motherboard company start to overcome chipset and CPU PCIe lane limitations using fancy high end programmable multiplexers.

It cpuod become really fun. Could you imagine a board with 8 full length 16x slots, and you get to - in the BIOS - configure how many lanes each slot gets from the total available? :p

Better yet would be if future PCIe standards could allow for real time switching. GPU only using one lane worth of bandwidth right now? Reduce the lanes and assign them to something else.
 
I have the X470 Aorus Gaming 5 and out of the box it has been a breeze to work with and is rock solid stable. But then again my last 3 boards have been Gigabyte and they all have been fantastic!
 
We had a customers build fry a Corsair SSD NVMe drive was a 1151 Gigabyte MB. Think there is a slot issue?
 
drutman said:
We had a customers build fry a Corsair SSD NVMe drive was a 1151 Gigabyte MB. Think there is a slot issue?
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I've had a Asus board burst into flames, think they're still a firebomb? I've had a Asrock boot loop indefinitely, think there is still a faulty BIOS chip? I can go on and on and on....it's called defect, and they happen, to literally every company and eventually in the hands of everyone.
 
Great review. What follows is somewhat off topic, but related to the MFG.

I have the same board for the Intel chipset and the 7820x. Hyperthreading didn't work out of the box in Ubuntu back in November of last year. Worse yet, plotting with Matplotlib would straight reboot the system, in both Windows and Ubuntu.

It took them until January to patch the BIOS to get it stable. Since then it's been fine, however.
 
Nice thourough review guys. I like that you spoke to DPC and the Realtek onboard onboard audio sound quality and the somewhat quirky Gigabyte motherboard applications. I build systems for others a half dozen times a year and it’s nice to keep a pulse on how the boards and vendors are doing/progressing generation to generation I currently have a x99 Gigabyte Gaming Ultra as my primary machine and while I like the Board, I’ve found it’s not worth installing the easy tune Gigabyte utility. It’s interesting to read that’s probably still the case here on the newer Gigabyte platform - even for AMD. One thing I noticed in my various system building is that the mouse cursor is laggy on my Gigabyte X99 UEFI bios screen but keyboard direction is instant. This was sort of unique and odd among bioses I’ve seen on systems I’ve built in the last year (ASRock AM4 370, MSI AM4 350, Asus 170 and 270, biostar b250 amd Asus 250, etc). Did you notice that at all on this Gigabyte board’s UEFI? (Any Mouse lag in the UEFI?)
 
Don't recall. If we did not mention it, it was nothing that was not usable. Quite frankly most of all of them suck in one way or another. I generally stick with keyboard and UEFI.
 
The images are not visible on my Android tablet. Anyone else have this issue?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'd love to see some motherboard company start to overcome chipset and CPU PCIe lane limitations using fancy high end programmable multiplexers.

It cpuod become really fun. Could you imagine a board with 8 full length 16x slots, and you get to - in the BIOS - configure how many lanes each slot gets from the total available? :p

Better yet would be if future PCIe standards could allow for real time switching. GPU only using one lane worth of bandwidth right now? Reduce the lanes and assign them to something else.
Click to expand...

Motherboard manufacturers have employed various multiplexing chipsets in the past to expand the amount of PCIe lanes available to devices on a motherboard, with the added benefit of having PCIe switching added into the mix. However, this always resulted in increased latencies and no appreciable benefit beyond the switching functions.

drutman said:
We had a customers build fry a Corsair SSD NVMe drive was a 1151 Gigabyte MB. Think there is a slot issue?
Click to expand...

It seems unlikely as three different Samsung drives worked in those slots without issue. One of which was a Samsung EVO 860 SATA drive and the other two were both Samsung EVO 970 NVMe drives. I also just built a system for a friend using a GIGABYTE X470 Aorus Gaming 5 WiFi, and he used the same Samsung EVO 970 NVMe drive, just at a higher capacity. 500GB vs. 250GB.

Archaea said:
Nice thourough review guys. I like that you spoke to DPC and the Realtek onboard onboard audio sound quality and the somewhat quirky Gigabyte motherboard applications. I build systems for others a half dozen times a year and it’s nice to keep a pulse on how the boards and vendors are doing/progressing generation to generation I currently have a x99 Gigabyte Gaming Ultra as my primary machine and while I like the Board, I’ve found it’s not worth installing the easy tune Gigabyte utility. It’s interesting to read that’s probably still the case here on the newer Gigabyte platform - even for AMD. One thing I noticed in my various system building is that the mouse cursor is laggy on my Gigabyte X99 UEFI bios screen but keyboard direction is instant. This was sort of unique and odd among bioses I’ve seen on systems I’ve built in the last year (ASRock AM4 370, MSI AM4 350, Asus 170 and 270, biostar b250 amd Asus 250, etc). Did you notice that at all on this Gigabyte board’s UEFI? (Any Mouse lag in the UEFI?)
Click to expand...

I test the manufacturer's software for the reviews but aside from RGB functionality, I wouldn't generally use it. I prefer to set the fan behavior in the UEFI and use Ryzen Master or Intel's XTU for any windows based tuning. The GIGABYTE UEFI on the X99 boards wasn't necessarily responsive with some mice. They were also somewhat inconsistent back in those days. In the last couple of years, GIGABYTE has improved dramatically in that regard. The current motherboards have all been very responsive in the UEFI, which is actually noted in the review.
 
I've got the X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming and have been happy. Glad it's big brother has done well. I was a bit wary of a Gigabyte motherboard as I haven't always liked their BIOS layouts and options but so far so good.
 
I was just putting together a potential build based around this motherboard and a 2700X and here you guys go and review it. Perfect timing. I'm still leaning towards this board over the Crosshair VII. I've been waiting to pull the trigger in case something pops up on sale during Prime Day. Not likely, but I'd be pissed if I didn't wait and see.
 
Astral Abyss said:
I was just putting together a potential build based around this motherboard and a 2700X and here you guys go and review it. Perfect timing. I'm still leaning towards this board over the Crosshair VII. I've been waiting to pull the trigger in case something pops up on sale during Prime Day. Not likely, but I'd be pissed if I didn't wait and see.
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I liked it better than the Crosshair VII Hero.
 
so i have had the board for about a week now. last night after replacing my 960 evo with a 970 pro i somehow corrupted the bios. machine wouldnt post and debug led would just cycle between E3 and 16. clearing cmos both with the button on the back and on the board itself did not help. this was running bios F4G. i was able to switch back to F3 on the other bios and was able to get back into windows. looking on the gigabyte forums i saw a thread about the issue. until it gets sorted out i am going to stay on F3.
 
I went with the 2700X, this motherboard (during Prime Day sale), and a Corsair H150i Pro.

System runs great. I had zero issues setting everything up. Booted up fine first time. Memory XMP settings work perfectly (14-14-14-34-1T@3200MHz), RAID0 works with no problems (3-500GB Evo 850s), no mobo driver issues in Windows either. AMD really has stepped up their game. This Gigabyte board is a winner too.
Leaving Precision Boost 2 to do its thing, I'm getting 4.35GHz max boost with 1T loads, around 4.2-4.3GHz running multiple cores, and about 3.95-4.0GHz with all cores loaded.

That was easy...

Thanks again to Kyle and crew for reviewing this board. It put it on my radar as a contender. (y)
 
I haven't built a computer in 7 years or so. Got mine running, but in the process I did my best to kill it. After the initial assembly I didn't realize I had plugged a 6 pin PCI Express power connector into the 4 pin ATX power slot which applies 12v to ground (how did they even manage to key that so it would fit?). At first I thought the mobo was fried since it wouldn't even spin the fans. Once I figured out what I did wrong and removed the power connector it booted up no problem. Been running fine since Saturday. I'd say it's rock solid.
 
Raffin said:
I haven't built a computer in 7 years or so. Got mine running, but in the process I did my best to kill it. After the initial assembly I didn't realize I had plugged a 6 pin PCI Express power connector into the 4 pin ATX power slot which applies 12v to ground (how did they even manage to key that so it would fit?). At first I thought the mobo was fried since it wouldn't even spin the fans. Once I figured out what I did wrong and removed the power connector it booted up no problem. Been running fine since Saturday. I'd say it's rock solid.
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OCP Baby! Over Current Protection....
 
Thanks for the review. Just bought it...because of it.

Edited to add: Confession time. Your review pushed me over the edge. Previously, I was leaning towards Asus. Their flashing light on sleep mode drives me nuts. Totally nuts. Yes, I’ve vented somewhere hereabouts on this. Shrug. I remembered a long ago build being Gigabyte. Then, I checked my sig. Lol. My Rig 3, my current daily driver and favorite (just don’t tell the other ones), has a Gigabyte mobo. Awesome. I’d forgotten. Now I feel better about the soon to arrive brown box.

Thanks again.
 
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c3k said:
Thanks for the review. Just bought it...because of it.

Edited to add: Confession time. Your review pushed me over the edge. Previously, I was leaning towards Asus. Their flashing light on sleep mode drives me nuts. Totally nuts. Yes, I’ve vented somewhere hereabouts on this. Shrug. I remembered a long ago build being Gigabyte. Then, I checked my sig. Lol. My Rig 3, my current daily driver and favorite (just don’t tell the other ones), has a Gigabyte mobo. Awesome. I’d forgotten. Now I feel better about the soon to arrive brown box.

Thanks again.
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So, with this MB the power and reset buttons are lit all the time unless you go into the BIOS and tell it to turn off all LED's when off or in sleep mode. I think it was under the power settings. Those 2 little lights lit up my wall and were super annoying when trying to sleep. So far I do like the MB even if it has an over-abundance of RGB LED's.
 
Wingman_ice said:
So, with this MB the power and reset buttons are lit all the time unless you go into the BIOS and tell it to turn off all LED's when off or in sleep mode. I think it was under the power settings. Those 2 little lights lit up my wall and were super annoying when trying to sleep. So far I do like the MB even if it has an over-abundance of RGB LED's.
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Hmm, the power button goes off, for me, when it's in sleep mode, as do all the LEDs built in to the mobo. It's totally dark when off and asleep.

(I put it in a glass Fractal R6 case with some RGB RAM, because it's for my wife. I told her RGB was the newest thing. They make it run faster. ;) )

If the machine is totally dark, I just mash the space bar on my keyboard or flick the mouse. If the power button (or anything else) lights up, then it was in sleep. Otherwise, I press the power button. The ASUS "we will strobe the power light when it's asleep so you stay awake" method has pushed me to buy 3 Gigabyte motherboards. So, Asus, if you're awake (and you should be with that annoying flashing light), you'll never get another sale from me until you change that behavior. Just sayin'...
 
c3k said:
Hmm, the power button goes off, for me, when it's in sleep mode, as do all the LEDs built in to the mobo. It's totally dark when off and asleep.

(I put it in a glass Fractal R6 case with some RGB RAM, because it's for my wife. I told her RGB was the newest thing. They make it run faster. ;) )

If the machine is totally dark, I just mash the space bar on my keyboard or flick the mouse. If the power button (or anything else) lights up, then it was in sleep. Otherwise, I press the power button. The ASUS "we will strobe the power light when it's asleep so you stay awake" method has pushed me to buy 3 Gigabyte motherboards. So, Asus, if you're awake (and you should be with that annoying flashing light), you'll never get another sale from me until you change that behavior. Just sayin'...
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I got mine set to not be on now, but was annoying at first. You can set those things to be on even when sleeping/off. I hate that my monitor flashes a little blue LED when it goes to sleep, if it was steady on it would be less of a problem since it is small and really doesn't light up much. The flashing drives me nuts though.
 
After reading through the review I decided to give this board a try. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the current choices of ddr4 on the market for so would anyone link the part number from the review or something similar for 16-32G that they have in their board that is known to work well and currently in stock?
 
vr. said:
After reading through the review I decided to give this board a try. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the current choices of ddr4 on the market for so would anyone link the part number from the review or something similar for 16-32G that they have in their board that is known to work well and currently in stock?
Click to expand...

I got the Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB kit for my build. The XMP settings didn't seem to ever do anything automatically like I thought it should so it always showed as 2133MHz. I decided to force it to profile 1 and now it shows as 2999MHz and seems to be running just fine like that. I haven't tried overclocking it from there however.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0134EW7G8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
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vr. said:
After reading through the review I decided to give this board a try. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the current choices of ddr4 on the market for so would anyone link the part number from the review or something similar for 16-32G that they have in their board that is known to work well and currently in stock?
Click to expand...

I'm using the Gskill FlareX AMD specific memory - Kyle just recently posted a review of it. All I had to do was change it to run Profile 1 in the BIOS and it has been running at 3200 Mhz with no problems. It is more expensive, but read the review as to why it might be worth it.

[H] review: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/08/27/tforce_vulcan_gskill_flare_x_am4_overclocking/

Gskill product page: http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-3200c14d-16gfx

I think Newegg has the best price on it right now.
 
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Memory compatibility isn't that bad on X470. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
^^^
Like they said.

FWIW, for fun, I tossed 32GB (4x 8GB) of GSkill RGB 3200 sticks in mine. (I checked the GSkill configurator for the board, first. It'll give you a slew of GSkill RAM options.)
 
I just got this board for my Ryzen 2700, I was wondering if there is a significant gain in performance if I went fromt eh F3 BIOS to the the F5 update?
 
ive been on F5 for a few months the only difference i see is now you can see your mvme boot drive if you have one. i still have issues coming out of sleep but just set to hibernate. never had that issue on F3. gigabyte hasnt released a new bios since sept.
 
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