Maximum_PC_June_2017

GiGAbyte
GA-Ab350-
GAminG 3
A sample of AMD’s budget spec
At lAst, we’ve witnessed AMD’s second
chipset, the B350—team red’s answer
to Intel’s H270. But is it strong enough to
withstand the full brunt of Ryzen’s notorious
bugs, while not being at the top of AMD’s
pile of enthusiast boards?
Gigabyte’s AB350-Gaming 3 is the first
board we’ve tested under this new chipset,
it was certainly an adventure. By default,
the AB350 should be overclockable, but in
our tests, we just couldn’t get that spark to
ignite, no matter what settings we tinkered
with in the rather limited OC BIOS. Memory
support was also lacking. Even with the
latest BIOS, our Corsair Vengeance kit was
limited to 2,133MT/s. Of course, we could
put this down to BIOS bugs, but we’re now
two months into the Ryzen release, with
Ryzen 5 chips just on launch, and 3 not far
behind. So why aren’t these more budgetcentric
AM4 offerings getting as much love
as the top-end X370 ones from the same
company? Your guess is as good as ours.
For each board we test, we check
whether our memory kit will operate at
3,000MT/s, then clock down to 2,666 for the
rest of our benchmarks. The idea is to bring
the spec more in line with what an average
Ryzen system should look like. On the
Gaming 3, we couldn’t do that, and it shows,
with scores plummeting in X265, Cinebench
R15, and Fry Render, and memory latency
some of the highest we’ve seen.
As for aesthetics, there’s not a lot to talk
about. Gigabyte has stuck with the familiar
red, black, and silver color scheme we saw
with the Z170 Intel series boards, with a
chunky black heatsink near the rear I/O, and
that’s about it. LED lighting is on board, with
one single strip on the right. The feature set
is, well, acceptable. There are four SATA
3 ports, two PCIe x16 ports (bear in mind
CrossFire and SLI are disabled on B350),
and a single M.2 port for a full x4 PCIe SSD,
if super-slick storage is your jam. Rear I/O
is the absolute minimum, too, with hints
of HDMI and DVI-I compatible processors
coming down the line soon.
What’s the biggest positive we can draw
from this? The price. For $110, it’s hard
to argue with how cheap this is, and how
easily you can jump on to the platform.
Undoubtedly, over time, and with enough
BIOS updates, you’ll probably see those
supported memory frequencies rise. And
hopefully more expansive BIOS options
for those looking to tweak their chips a
touch higher. That said, for now, if you’re
looking for the best board to overclock on,
you should go for one of the X370s—Asus’s
Crosshair VI Hero or MSI’s X370 Gaming Pro
Carbon, in particular, are swell clockers.
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset/Socket
form factor
verdict
7
B350/AM4
ATX
Memory Support 64GB @ 3,200 (plus 2,667
CPU dependent)
M.2/U.2 Support
Sata Support
Max PCIe gPU
Support
1x M.2 PCIe x4
6x SATA 6Gb/s
x16 (CrossFire/SLI
disabled)
rear I/o 2x USB 3.1 Type A,
4x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0,
1x RJ45 Ethernet,
1x optical S/PDIF out,
5.1 audio, 1x PS/2 combi
port, 1x DVI-D, 1x HDMI
Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3
BUdget KIng Price; OK
feature set; simple styling.
BargaIn BIn Poor stock performance.
$110, www.gigabyte.com
maximumpc.com jun 2017 MAXIMUMPC
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