Which X370 for 175 EUR: Asus ROG Strix or Gigabyte Gaming 5?

Conclusion

Two boards for the same price but with different approach. After reviewing the key elements of their layouts and examining fan control options, you can look forward to a large portion of temperature and consumption comparisons. Let’s find out which one of these AMD Ryzen boards fulfills your expectations better.

Conclusion

Asus ROG Strix X370-F Gaming excels in lower VRM temperature. With the same consumption, they heat less than those on the Gigabyte board. With default settings and without heatsink, we measured a difference of 14 °C (70.4 vs. 84.6 °C) directly from the voltage regulator casing. In the same mode, just with heatsinks this time, the temperature of the heatsink surface was 41 °C, which is 8 °C less than on the opponent board. After overclocking, the difference was already 15 °C. This means that Asus’s cooling of the circuit works well and also that somewhat overdimensioned (and more expensive) regulators are justified.

We have slight reservations about the chipset heatsink. Temperatures were low in the case with optimal air circulation, but technically the design of the heatsink could be more efficient. Even with less material, just a bit more “branched“ block would do.

We praise the compatibility with older cooler assembly kits (from AM2 to AM3 +), excellent fan control options, and also a well-accessible three PWM connectors that are ready for processor coolers. In this case, it looks like the mainstream AIO liquid coolers were taken into consideration.

Among the non-cooling things, we enjoyed particularly scot-free “doping“ in form of a rare possibility of RAM overclocking (the limit is 3.6 GHz), but also readiness for multimedia computers with Bristol Ridge (DisplayPort included), and the futuristic 10Gb USB 3.1 header.


Gigabyte has decided to use MOSFETs with a 30% lower current throughput, which are, however, heating more intensively with similar processor settings. And yet they have (paradoxically) lighter/smaller heatsinks than those on the Asus board. A typical “domestic overclocking” with the recommended voltage will not be limited by it in any way. The VRM do not throttle even with Vcore 1.45 V, but we cannot guarantee the long-term operation of this board with such settings.

For more aggressive overclocking with a more powerful CPU cooler, Asus would be probably a better choice. Overclocked R7 1800X to 3.95 GHz demanded 1.325 V, which is a step higher than 1.3185 V, and which was enough for the Gigabyte circuit. Consumption with these setting was the same. Aorus AX370 had a slightly higher consumption only with default settings. We mean 1.5 – 3.5 W, which can be caused also just by LED (off/on).

This board earned a small plus for several things: dual-BIOS, control panel with basic buttons, a highly efficient heatsink design, and a pair of temperature and VRM sensors included in the package. You can control the fan speed regulation with it in a nicely optimized interface.

Also, extra value is a pair of audio chips (each for one channel) and two Ethernet ports. However, HDMI 1.4, which is the only video output for APU, won’t let you have fun with 60 Hz in 4K.


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