Gigabyte's AM4 Flagship: The Aorus GA-AX370-Gaming K7 Motherboard

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ttt_2017

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Can any one explain to me why they added 2 Audio chips ?

Usually when you use the front audio ports the rear ones will stop working .. that is the front will also use the same Audio chip but routed to the front instead of the rear ports..

no one uses both Rear and front active at the same time ... what is the point Gigabyte ?
 

Sam Hain

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Straight from their website: http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K7-rev-10#kf

"No longer are you limited to quality audio from only the rear of your Gaming PC, the new AORUS AX370-Gaming K7 offers dual ALC1220 Codecs, a high-performance multi-channel high-definition Audio Codec with 120dB SNR. These Codecs offer crystal clear audio and features such as Smart Headphone AMP, 114dB SNR recording for precise voice chats and hardware decoding of DSD128, ensuring users get the best possible audio quality from their PC."

"Automatically detects impedance of your head-worn audio device, whether earbuds or high-end headphones to provide optimal audio dynamics—preventing issues such as low volume and distortion. With the AORUS AX370-Gaming K7 incorporates dual Smart Headphone AMPs guaranteeing that users will have a plug-n-play experience whether they connect their headphones to the front or the rear of their system."

 

Purgatorysrath

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That is one Nice looking board with alot of goodies for sub 200 dollars! If in fact it sells that cheap. I would definately be in the Market for this.
Edited: due to incompetent typing on my phone.
 

uglyduckling81

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Fairly useless 'heatsinks' if you can call them that. Imagine putting a huge block of aluminium with almost no fins on top of your CPU. The thing would be heat saturated in no time and overheat. Heatsinks should have fins to increase surface area. These are essentially just aesthetics, which indicates to me VRMs don't really need heatsinks to operate. In actual fact good quality VRMs are fine working up to 125-150 degrees C so they really don't need a heatsink. You will also note LN2 overclockers remove all that junk to get better access to the CPU itself and they achieve epic results.
I do note they have a couple of grooves cut in them so they are probably slightly better than MSI's 'heatsinks' which are just solid blocks of aluminium.
Also they don't have the MSI M2 heat trap cover which is good as well. Can not stand aesthetics getting in the way of performance.
 

areksoo

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That is a price error. How is it possible that the Gaming 5 is more expensive than the Gaming K7? $220 is probably the US price.
 

g-unit1111

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Newegg had the K5 for $195, so I think the 7 would be somewhere between the $195 - $230 range, I don't imagine it will be more expensive than the Crosshair VI.
 


This would actually be great if combined with a specific type of software that lets you "separate" audio stremas into different audio outputs. For example, music on the hdmi output while skype on the headset, or a youtube video on the headphones with music on the speakers. All with individual sound sliders.

Too bad te last software that could do this only works up to WinXP. I'm gonna try to do something that is capable of this, when I'm better at programming. It is actually great for shared pc or spaces.
 

erekp

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Did anybody else notice that Gigabyte's Gaming K3 is the ONLY B350 (or any other sub-370 series!) chipset sporting an ALC 1220??? That's a damn steal compared to the other companies, although I haven't used any Giga stuff in a while. I'l wait for the review, but still, wanted to point out that of all the board fully announced (i.e. with specs and price), Gigabyte has the lowest end board that STILL contains an ALC 1220...
 

ttt_2017

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umm , we dont need Audio chip for digital output like the HDMI sound right ? and those 2 chips are for analog output right ?

in that case your setup can still be done without the need of 2 chips ?
 

mpampis84

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I've asked this before, but no-one seems to know.
Is there going to be an Aorus Gaming 7 (non K) for the AM4 platform? I'd really like to get a MB with the Z270X Gaming 7 audio system.
So far ASUS has the Crosshair and MSI has the TITANIUM, who look superior to the K7.
Also, if you compare the Gaming 5 and the Gaming K7 in Gigabyte's website, they both list the exact same features.
 

ttt_2017

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If you want a dedicated sound chip just buy a sound card ..

The Gaming 7 has the old quad core Creative core3D chip released back in 2012 nothing more ... and is available as a stand alone card.

This is the cheapest one

http://asia.creative.com/p/sound-cards/sound-blaster-z

and comes with SBX Studio

another one

http://asia.creative.com/p/sound-cards/sound-blaster-recon3d-fatal1ty-professional

Xonars cards from Asus are better than Creative but more expensive.
 


Yes, what you said is correct. What I was trying to say is that this particular mobo offers even more flexibility in this regard, although I failed to express myself correctly.
 

Clamyboy74

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Toms, why are you adding in redirects whenever a link to an article on your webpage is clicked? Even worse, it was a dating website ad which looked like it belonged to ph, and it nothing to do with tech. Please change this asap!
 
Nice motherboard but could AMD launch their Snowy owl motherboards? Leaks suggest the 8 core is drop in compatible and I really want a motherboard with more memory support and the upgrade path to more cores would be a plus. For an 8 core I would want a motherboard to support 256GB's. The 2011v3 supports 128GB so AMD needs to step it up.
 


Well actually audio is sent through HDMI digitally, and the cable just passes it along. The audio codec isn't used. And if you have a USB headset, the audio codec is again unused.

If you would like to have music on your display's speakers and Skype chat on your headset, you can actually do that with any modern version of Windows (7/8/8.1/10). Just open the Sound panel by right-clicking the speaker icon in the bottom right-hand corner, then select "Playback Devices." Then set your headset as the "Primary Communications Device" and the HDMI as the "Default Device."
 

areksoo

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Just to clarify... that's the Gaming 5 for $195 on the US Newegg site. The Gaming 5 on the Canadian Newegg site is $275.

So if I'm right and the $220 price is really the US price, then Canadians should see a price tag of $310. :'(
 

Evockzi

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There is a pricing error for those that weren't aware, this board was suppose to be 299$ Canadian, not 219. The Gaming 5 was 280$CAD.

This is evident because in the UK this board is also available, but has the proper price margin gap.

The difference between the two boards that I'm aware of besides maybe component quality, is the Turbo B-Clock chipset which will allow for more percision control of the Bclk frequency for overclocking, i.e possibly a VERY good thing for overclocking to edge out a more stable higher OC.
 

valeman2012

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Gigabyte is more focus on Quality of the products (The Durability of the products) so expect very very long life span most of the time.
Good protected motherboards features.
 

alextheblue

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What about a $100 RX 460 coupled to a B350-based board?
 

alextheblue

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Looking at pricing, AM4 primarily competes with 1151. For this segment 256GB is overkill. I hope you realize RAM doesn't have to scale linearly with threads on a consumer platform. Software that doesn't need gobs of memory can still be designed to tax lots of threads, so long as it is a task that can be parallelized in the first place. Heck right now even 16GB is good enough for the vast majority of consumer use cases, even if you've got an 1151 i7 or AM4 Ryzen 7.

Either way, look for a higher end platform more to your liking later this year.
 
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