Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard Review

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard Overview
Taking a first look at the AB350-Gaming 3 I noticed it was actually thinner than most ATX motherboards. It is only 230 mm wide instead of the typical 244 mm of most ATX motherboards. The board itself has a black and red color scheme with a black PCB and red and black accents. This is the color of Gigabyte’s gaming motherboards currently and it looks pretty good.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Starting at the CPU socket we of course have AMD’s AM4 socket, which supports Ryzen processors. As far as power delivery we have a 4+3 power phase design with 4 phases going to the main CPU and the other three going to the CPU NB. The power delivery components are covered by a simple heatsink with the Gigabyte logo on it. CPU power to the board comes in the form of an 8-pin EPS connector located towards the top left of the board. To the right of the CPU socket along the top-edge of the board you are going to find your CPU fand a CPU optional fan headers. Both are 4-pin headers.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

There are four DDR4 DIMM slots which support DDR4 memory up to 3200 MHz and are color-coded for dual channel operation. Along the far edge of the board is a clear plastic piece that will illuminate with RGB lighting when you have your system on. In front of that you have a 4-pin fan header, 24-pin ATX power connection and two SATA 6GB/s ports, which are facing up rather than being at a 90-degree angle coming out from the board.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Moving down toward the bottom of the board you will find four more SATA 6GB/s ports. Two face out at a 90-degree angle from the board and two come straight out of the board.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Along the bottom of the board you are going to find the rest of your headers and connections. From left to right you have your front panel audio header, RGB-W header, TPM header, two USB 2.0 headers, 4-pin fan header, USB 3.0 header, and your front panel headers.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Audio on this board is powered by Gigabyte’s AMP-UP Audio solution, which is powered by the ALC 1220 120dB SNR HD Audio codec and a Smart Headphone Amp. You can also see that Gigabyte is making use of high-end audio capacitors. The entire audio section of the motherboard is separated from the rest of the components and there is a RGB LED trace showing the separation.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Taking a look at the expansion slots you have three PCI-Express x16 slots and two PCI-Express x1 slots. The first PCI-Express slot will always run at X16 speeds, the second slot will run at X4 speeds, and the last slot will run at x1 speeds. B250 motherboards do not support SLI, although CrossFire is supported, but you’ll be limited to x4 speeds with this board. The two top PCI-Express slots have Gigabyte’s metal shield on them.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Between the two main PCI-Express x16 slots is a single M.2 (PCI-Express 3.0 x4) slot. It supports M.2 solid state drives up to 110 mm. Also right above the top PCI-Express slot you can see another 4-pin fan header as well as a RGB header.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

Finally we move on to the rear I/O. From left to right you have a combination PS/2 port, two USB 3.0 ports, DVI-D and HDMI out, a single USB 2.0 port (USB DAC-UP), two USB 3.1 ports (type-A), two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek), and your audio connections. Gigabyte’s USB DAC-UP 2 continues to provide clean, isolated and low-noise power while adding the ability to compensate for voltage drop.

Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 Motherboard

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