Gigabyte X570 Gaming X Gaming Motherboard

Introduction

Today, we’re looking at the Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard. This’s quite literally the second-lowest price Gigabyte X570 motherboard that we could find. There is one that is about $10 lower which lacks RGB LED lighting, but I like shiny lights, so here we’re.

Although, we have covered some of the most expensive or budget motherboards including their full information. So, today we’re going to start looking at some lower-priced X570 motherboards to see how well they stack up and that is not to say that there are not lower-priced motherboards out there.

But, the AMD’s positioning of the X570 chipset means that X570 motherboards have a certain pricing floor that is much higher than the ceiling on some other motherboards based on different chipsets.

The Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard

The Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard is based on the AMD X570 chipset and this motherboard is compatible with AMD AM4 CPU socket compatible CPUs.

However, it also supports all the major features of the chipset and the features that you’d expect at the price point. Like other motherboard brands, Gigabyte marks it as PCBs with a revision number.

Packaging:

Inside the package, you would not find a lot in the way of accessories. So, the package included the area user’s manual, driver disc, a pack of SATA cables, M.2 standoff, and M.2 screw as well. It is bare-bones compared to higher-end and higher-priced motherboards, but it makes sense at this price tag.

Motherboards layout and PCB features:

The layout of this Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard is surprisingly very well throughout. Layouts are very easier on the motherboards with some integrated features. That said, there’re still issues that can arise on the motherboard at any price.

This one avoids issues with CMOS battery placement and poor connector placement as well. In addition, connectors are well throughout and I can foresee few if any issues in most builds.

Additionally, this best Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard has four fan headers and one of which is dedicated water cooling use. There’re two connectors near the CPU socket right where’d expect it. There’s another one near the rear input or output panel area which is commonplace.

Moreover, this one is often used for rear exhaust fans in various systems, chassis. All of the fan headers are four-pin and controllable via the DC and PWM modes as well. There’re also 6 onboard temperature sensors for monitoring.

Furthermore, the lighting enthusiast will find five RGB LED headers of varying types located at different points around the PCB layers. There’re three standard RGB LED headers and two addressable RGB headers as well.

However, there’re no water flow sensors and external temperature connection sensors. So, you’ll not find onboard power, reset, or other controls, and even voltage checkpoints on the PCB respectively. You do not even get the usual diagnostic or POS code LED display respectively.

That is possibly the only thing that I take issue with. In addition, you do not even get the basic troubleshooting LEDs and there’re not unexpected sacrifices, but on the surface, it almost seems like the Gigabyte cut is too much out of the design.

This Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard also has a Q-flash BIOS feature, which allows the flashing of the BIOS without a CPU and even the RAM is installed in the system. It also features solid pin power connectors that allow higher sustained voltage.

Moreover, this best quality Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard also features a steel reinforcement which it refers to as ultra-durable PCIe armor.

It is all marketing speak for a metal brace on your primary PCIe x 16 slots. Although, due to the motherboard’s price point, you only get this on the primary PCIe x 16 slots.

Power delivery:    

This Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard features a digital VRM with a 10+2 power phase design that utilizing the lower RDS MOSFETs. It also features 10 phases for vCore and 2 for SOC voltage.

In truth, this’s a five-way phase design that utilizing ISL6617 phase doublers which support both inter-leaving and current balancing as well. So, these doublers are what allow the native 5 phase to reach a 10+2 phase power configuration.

In addition, this is not as beefy a design as its upper echelon offerings but this’s more than a capable design that can power your 3950X with ease. Although, this Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard features an ISL 6974 7 phase voltage controller running in 5+2 phase mode.

You’ll also notice that there’s only one 8-pin CPU power connector. Given that this can supply around 380W of power, it is enough for even the 3950X. However, the heatsink that covers the MOSFETs is rather beefy and aesthetics pleasing and they look like they’re from the higher-end motherboard.

Additionally, they don’t feature heat pipes but work rather well. under the full load and some time to allow for heat soak and the one to the right of the CPU socket hit the only 111F, while the one behind the CPU hits temperatures of 119F as well.

Memory support:

There’re 4 288-pin DDR4 DIMMs that supporting up to 128GB of RAM memory. The DIMMs slots aren’t color-coded to donate dual-channel operations, but there’re visible markings on the PCB which help donate the proper installation configuration.

So, the slots utilize two locking tabs for memory retention. In addition, the Gigabyte designed the memory subsystem with a daisy chain topology which is normal for X570 motherboards.

The amazing thing about this motherboard is that it also uses a single-phase power configuration, but it matches the configuration of several higher-end motherboards, so this should not be an issue.

Expansion:

The chipset is situated in the usual location in the bottom right corner of the motherboard PCB. It’s cooled by an active heatsink and fan as well. this’s standard on most X570 motherboards.

As is the case with others on market, so the fan is the smart fan, which only operates when thermal conditions warrant it. Moreover, you hear the fan initially on startup, but it quickly shut down when the OS loads.

I have been running an AMD Am4 setup myself and I never hear the fan when I am gaming and encoding video or anything else. Furthermore, the heatsink and fan are thin enough that they do not create any issues with the installation of expansion cards.

You’ll also find 6 SATA  ports for traditional SATA devices directly in front of the chipset cooler.

UEFI BIOS:

This Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard features an American Megatrend Inc. UEFI BIOS which quite durable. version F12e was used for all testing and screenshots as well. At the time of this writing, it is the latest BIOS available publicly on the manufacturer’s site.

Furthermore, this Gigabyte X570 Gaming X motherboard has a single 128Mbit  flash ROM supporting the Gigabyte Q-flash BIOS feature.

So, this feature allows the updating of the BIOS ROM without the installation of a CPU and system RAM as well. Additionally, it also allows for recovery of the BIOS should a flash operation.

Subsystem testing:

For all subsystem testing, an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and 2x 8GB G.skill trident Z royal memory modules running at DDR4 with a fast memory speed of up to 3200MHz were used. For power, I used the Corsair RM1000i 1000W unit as well.

Our discreet graphics card needs were handled by an MSI RTX 2080 super gaming X-trio. So, the CPU was cooled with a Koolance Exos 2.5 system and Alphacool Eiseblock water block respectively.

Sound hardware:

For an integrated audio Gigabyte opted for the Realtek ALC889 HD audio codec. This’s a 5.1 channel audio codec rather than the typical 7.1 channel codec we’re used to seeing.

This’s a lower-end codec that was in use on higher-end motherboards a few years ago and it still features dedicated audio capacitors and PCB isolations for improved sound quality.