GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming 5 (AMD X370) Motherboard Review

AX370-Gaming 5 Circuit Analysis Continued

Audio on the motherboard uses two ALC1220, which is an interesting move. The ALC1220 provides 120dB SNR and has an integrated headphone amplifier, but those specifications are for only one output, so you cannot have the 120dB SNR or headphone amplifier for the rear headphone jack and the internal header for the front jack of a case.

To get around this, vendors can either add a second headphone amplifier to that would result in less than 120dB, or use two ALC1220, which is what GIGABYTE has done on this Aorus motherboard. The audio section of the motherboard also features six Nichicon audio capacitors and physical PCB isolation of the audio section of the motherboard. The AMD chipset has an integrated heat spreader.

An ASMedia ASM1142 is being used to output USB 3.1 to the type-C port and the type-A port above it. A Texas Instruments HD3SS3220 is used to control the type-C port. Two Pericom USB 3.1 re-drivers, PI3EQX, are used to enhance the USB 3.1 signal from the X370 chipset for two type-A ports. The motherboard also carries dual 1Gbit NICs, the i211AT and the Killer e2500.

The main SuperIO is the ITE IT8686E. The motherboard does get Dual BIOS technology; two 128Mbit ROMs reside near the CPU.

An ITE IT8792E embedded controller is used to provide expanded fan control and temperature monitoring. The IT7236AFN is a microcontroller programmed to control the RGB LEDs.

Quick switches are abundant and switch around much of the PCI-E IO.