Gigabyte A620M Gaming X vs. 200+W. No fireworks in sight!

Some people paint disasters around cheap motherboards (literally, flames in the graphics editor and such… natural disasters sell), yet often you have nothing to worry about and nothing burns up anywhere. Such A620M Gaming X can handle even the most powerful processors for AMD AM5 socket with ease. It doesn’t make much sense to pair it up like this, as the features are tailored to the undemanding user, but it is an option.

Conclusion

Testing with the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor was a tough test for the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X, but this motherboard stood up to it. With regard to the low price, it really strives for “excellent”. However, we do not want to create the illusion that it is advantageous in builds with expensive processors to save so significantly on the motherboard. On the contrary, this is disadvantageous for many reasons, as the results of the performance tests show.

With the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X, we measured the highest CPU power draw, indicating lower VRM efficiency. The higher the load, the higher the difference in power draw. But in the TDP-limited “Eco” mode (with 142W PPT), the difference compared to more efficient VMRs is only single-digit watts. that this board lags behind models with more efficient VRMs. That said, you don’t have to worry about worse efficiency with the cheap 65W TDP processors that this board makes the most sense for. That’s when the differences blur to a negligible level.

In idle or at very low load, the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X ranks among the more efficient AM5 boards we’ve tested so far. One thing is the efficiency of the VRM, and another is how efficient the power supply itself is in terms of the voltage delivered. Gigabyte doesn’t overdo this with the consideration of weaker VRMs, and while typically more expensive boards have some margin for undervolting, everything here is more or less on the edge. At all times, however, the system is stable, with no performance fluctuations. And that’s even with the most power-hungry processor that can be fitted to this board, the Ryzen 9 7950X.

Due to a combination of unfavourable circumstances, it may happen that it will not maintain its performance stably in a long-term load and due to overheating of the VRM its cyclical drops will occur. But this is only really only in environments with poor cooling options. The only time we managed to get the board into trouble was when measuring heat maps with a thermal imager, which requires removing the VRM heatsink. This is when the surface temperature on the voltage regulator housings exceeds 130°C, which is the limit at which power supply is significantly reduced for self-preservation. You don’t have to worry about irreversible burn damage, although prolonged operation at temperatures above 100 °C will of course not improve service life… This is also why it doesn’t pay much to skimp on a motherboard if you have the budget for an expensive processor.

In any case, the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X is a very capable motherboard for cheaper builds typically with Ryzen 5 class processors. In a gaming PC where every euro is considered when choosing components, this board will be great with the R5 7600, for example. In such use, the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X will also benefit from a higher-than-normal memory controller bandwidth (with Uncore at 3000 MHz), which has a positive effect in games (higher fps). It may look bizarre, but for this reason the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X beats even the nearly six times more expensive MSI MEG X670E Ace (with just 1500 MHz Uncore in default settings) speed-wise. ISure, it’s a thing that can be adjusted by manual tuning and these differences can be aligned, but that’s already outside of common practice.

Before you get excited about the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X board, think carefully about what you want to connect to it and how much of it. Connectivity is weaker, as is natural in this class, and you may be surprised to find only one M.2 slot for an SSD (but only NVMe, with a PCIe interface). But the latter is connected to the CPU and delivers top-notch reads, even if the writes are already mediocre. Some averageness also applies to USB gen. 1 and 2 interfaces, but in which AMD chipset boards generally lag a bit behind (Intel chipsets). The slower Ethernet is already a feature of the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X. The achieved speeds are fine, as expected, but they only correspond to a 1-gigabit adapter, which you won’t encounter with more expensive models (with a 2.5 Gb connection).

SSD cooling is weaker, but it would be unfair to nitpick here. Other manufacturers don’t supply any heatsinks with boards this cheap, and for a “gaming” one, this one is plenty sufficient.

There have been a lot of details, so let’s be a little more brief: Of the cheap motherboards, the Gigabyte A620M Gaming X is an extremely attractive choice for your lower budget gaming PC needs due to its feature set. You probably won’t discover many cheaper options (than the A620M Gaming X) built on the AMD AM5 platform that are better off in terms of performance. This is the reason why we give this motherboard the “Smart buy!” award.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

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Some of the tested boards are also available in the Datacomp e-shop

Special thanks to Blackmagic Design (for licenses for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI) and Topaz Labs (for licenses for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI)