Thursday, December 29th 2016
GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming K3 Socket AM4 Motherboard PCB Pictured
The picture of a bare PCB of an upcoming GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming series socket AM4 motherboard is doing rounds on the web. The picture reveals the bare PCB of the motherboard with all its traces and printed markings, but at a stage before surface-mount components can be soldered onto it. One can still make out quite a bit about the board. AMD X370 is the company's upcoming high-end desktop chipset, which will be launched alongside the company's Ryzen 8-core processor, some time in February, 2017.
To begin with, the AX370-Gaming K3 is built in the ATX form-factor. Its AM4 socket supports both Ryzen "Summit Ridge" CPUs and 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 7-phase VRM. The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16, a second gen 3.0 x16 slot that's electrical x4, and three other gen 3.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity appears to include at least eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.1 (including type-C) ports, appear to make for the rest of the connectivity. GIGABYTE's signature Dual-UEFI is featured.Many Thanks to TheLostSwede and Tomas H. for the tips!
To begin with, the AX370-Gaming K3 is built in the ATX form-factor. Its AM4 socket supports both Ryzen "Summit Ridge" CPUs and 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 7-phase VRM. The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16, a second gen 3.0 x16 slot that's electrical x4, and three other gen 3.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity appears to include at least eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.1 (including type-C) ports, appear to make for the rest of the connectivity. GIGABYTE's signature Dual-UEFI is featured.Many Thanks to TheLostSwede and Tomas H. for the tips!
30 Comments on GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming K3 Socket AM4 Motherboard PCB Pictured
Still we need to see some reviews, especially from TPU :-) before judgement.... GO ZEN
Or just better connectivity for new hardware, like M.2, USB3.1 etc.
7? I've hear of 6, 8 10, 14 phase VRMs, but 7? thats an odd number (lol).
I certianly hope that OEMs dont cheap out on AMD VRMs again. Every single microATX FM2+ board is a four phase motherboard, with only the full ATX boards having 6 phases.
Meanwhile, intel gets 8 phase mini ITX boards.
Also, the board shows a 22110 m.2 slot. Are there any actual 110mm length drives out? Guess that is future-proofing the board.
At least there are no legacy ports on the rear of this board which is a nice thing.
Let's hope there are some higher-end boards coming, as what's snuck out so far is fairly dull stuff.
And RAM VRM on a modern board is always located near the DIMM slot.
Maybe 4+3 (or 8+3) is 4/8 phases for the CPU and 3 for the integrated graphic because there's a HDMI output pin out on the PCB.
(kas, täällähän näkee tuttuja! :toast:)
a) full out 7 vrm phases for the cpu,as if need for other vdomains could be done on-die;
b) 6 cpu ,1 cpu/nb;
c) none of the above and below;
d)4cpu,2cpu/nb,1idk use your brain;
e) feel free to join in on poll sugestions;
Hmm, the story was updated to say that the number previously stated as unreadable is K3. Could be that, but I swear that that's an X right there...
@9700 Pro (Moikkista pöytään :toast: )
old school stuff also didn't have the more complicated power plane designs that can really start stressing vdroop as well under a high overclock which would really hurt long term oc use to reduce downtime power consumption.
Just like nvidias reference designs. I never said it's bad, it's just not useful for anything beyond the basics making this board leak pretty irrelevant to most enthusiasts.
Not sure how they got an additional 3 phases though.