Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts
After taking a look at this motherboard I can really say that AMD’s B350 chipset is the sweet spot for user’s who are building a new Ryzen system. While the B350 chipset is a little stripped down compared to X370 it has the essential features that most people need. And with that you are saving money that can be put towards a better graphics card, memory, SSD, etc.

This chipset is designed for a single graphics card, which is fine. If we look at the current graphics cards available there are cards that can handle 1080p, 1440p, and 4K gaming. So having a single graphics card really is not a limitation in most scenarios.

The next thing is storage. Gigabyte’s AB350-Gaming 3 has a single M.2 slot and six SATA 6GB/s ports. We found that if we did not have more than two SATA drives running it would not impact performance of the M.2 drive. Again this is ideal as you could have 1 large M.2 NVMe SSD, or a mid-size M.2 NVMe SSD and two large SATA SSDs.

Finally we have overclocking, which is enabled on B350 motherboards. While it is not as extensive as what you will see on X370 motherboards, you do have the ability to change CPU frequency and voltages. With that we were able to take our Ryzen 7 1700 from its base clock of 3.0 GHz up to 3.9 GHz. This was the same overclock we achieved on a X370 motherboard.

This board is targeted towards gamers and Gigabyte has added gaming-specific features, the biggest being the audio solution, which is very good. You also have the USB DAC-UP 2 port, which many gaming and audiophiles alike will appreciate. This board does have RGB lighting, something you do not expect to see on a board in this price-range. There are three different RGB LED zones, all of which can be controlled with Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software. Finally you have reinforced PCI-Express slots, which is great, especially if you are loading this board up with a massive graphics card.

Right now you can pick up this board at our favorite online retailer for $109.99, which is a great price. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!

rating9 10 TC award recommended

Pros:
– Price
– Good overall performance
– Good overclocking, which is enabled on B350 motherboards
– M.2 SSD and USB 3.1 support
– Better audio solution than most B350 motherboards
– RGB lihgting

Cons:
– Basic power delivery solution, which effects overclocking
– Not as many overclocking options as X370 motherboards

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