“Weaker PCB”, but still (Gigabyte Aorus X670 Elite AX) stands out

Motherboards for the AMD AM5 platform with chipsets without “E” in the designation have weaker connectivity derived from the processor, but if you do not require PCIe 5.0 for the graphics card, you do not really need to worry. And not at all with the Aorus X670 Elite AX board, which defends the “Elite” label without the slightest difficulty. For proper features, but also for the fact that Gigabyte has once again pushed the performance more than usual.

Conclusion

The Aorus X670 Elite AX motherboard is specific in that its results deviate from other models more than usual. To one side and the other. Across tests, the processor can perform better on it even compared to competing models at twice the price. This is due to Gigabyte taking a more aggressive approach to memory subsystem setup, resulting in lower RAM latencies and thus higher performance in selected applications.

However, the increase in practice is always quite small, up to 5% compared to the MSI MEG X670E. Sometimes, however, this performance difference in favor of the Aorus X670 Elite AX borders on zero. It depends on which application can benefit to what degree from the higher memory controller clock speed (Uncore), which the board sets to 3000 MHz when AMD EXPO is enabled. Most other boards stay at the more conservative 1500 MHz and therefore a slightly lower performance is achieved. If you manually set 1500 MHz for the Aorus X670 Elite AX as well, these differences naturally fade away.

Gigabyte gives a certain performance advantage for ordinary users who simply activate the memory profile of their modules and do not deal with it anymore, but on the other hand, there is also a higher risk of incompatibility and the fact that in different combinations of memory and processors, everything may not work. But it is always possible to decrease the UCKL/clock speed of Uncore manually. This would be it, about things that lead to higher computational and gaming performance. But then, compared to other boards, we also measured speed reductions on some interfaces, and quite significantly.

Lower than you might expect is the USB 3.2 gen 2×2 performance. Specifically for the Type-C external connector. While the sequential read speeds of the test device on other boards average just over 2 GB/s, here it is 25% less (1.5 GB/s), while the controller is the same as, for example, the MSI MEG X670E Ace (1987 MB/s). We can surmise that this degradation arises at the level of lower quality PCBs with more significant interference to data signals. PCBs with X670 chipsets are apparently subject to lower manufacturing tolerances (e.g. in terms of shielding quality) than X670E boards.

Also slower are the M.2 slots for SSDs brought out of the south bridge, but this is no longer compared to the MSI MEG X670E Ace (and boards with X670E chipsets), for which the same is true, but compared to Intel boards. For those, sequential read performance corresponds to roughly 500 MB/s more.
However, the speed of the M.2 slots connected to the CPU is no longer lagging behind Intel platforms. Such transfer speeds of the Aorus X670 Elite AX’s 2.5 Gb Ethernet connection are already higher than some Intel Zx90/Bx60 boards. Although, that is, just a hair, as most boards (including the Aorus X670 Elite AX) are approaching the limits of the interface.

We come to the evaluation of the CPU power delivery after these, shall we say, unusual things, only in the third row. And here it must be stated that it is very robust and well prepared even for performance increase by overclocking (via PBO, for example). It handles the Ryzen 9 7950X quite easily even without a heatsink (with temperatures on the voltage regulator housings down to 55 °C). Power efficiency is probably average or slightly above average. This will become more apparent over time as we compare more boards with AMD chipsets.

The SSD cooler is average (the first one, on the M.2 slot with PCIe 5.0 support) and above average (the big one, shared for three SSDs), as far as cooling effectiveness is concerned.

From the usual features, the Aorus X670 Elite AX board deserves praise for the above-standard number of USB ports, both external (13) and internal (two 19-pin USB 3.2 gen. 1 connectors are available for the front panel of the cases, which is not quite commonplace). If any expense has been spared anywhere, it’s on the overall weaker audio system, which is commanded by a Realtek ALC897 chip. Many may have complaints about this, but who knows if those fears of inferior sound aren’t overblown. We are looking for ways to be able to accurately measure and judge these aspects around audio as well.

The Gigabyte Aorus X670 Elite AX is a remarkable motherboard that can’t be faulted in any major way, and because of the nature of the factory BIOS settings may represent a “more powerful choice” (in terms of both gaming and work use). The price is higher, but competing boards with similarly rich features are not cheaper.

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)