Review: Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi

by Tarinder Sandhu on 15 February 2018, 14:01

Tags: Gigabyte (TPE:2376), AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadqiy

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Conclusion

Costing £100, it has a sensible array of features, solid performance, and a reasonably configurable BIOS...

AMD has delivered a couple of second-generation Ryzen processors that offer built-in Vega-class graphics for effectively free. The Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G, priced at £150 and £90, respectively, breathe some renewed life into the AM4 platform.

Understanding that these new chips are SOCs in their own right, the focus naturally shifts to smaller-form-factor boards primed for mainstream PCs that offer solid everyday computing at attractive prices.

The Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming Wifi is a case in point. Costing £100, it has a sensible array of features, solid performance, and a reasonably configurable BIOS. Our only real concern is the layout of the ports and connectors, which is very top-heavy, and may cause routing issues in some chassis, and a second fan header wouldn't go amiss either.

Overall, though, the AB350N-Gaming Wifi provides a decent home to second-generation Ryzen chips. One to put on a shortlist if going down the small-form-factor route.

The Good
  
The Bad
Decent RGB implementation
Good value
Has all expected features

  
Awkward layout in parts
Could do with second fan header



Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming Wifi

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The Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming Wifi motherboard is available to purchase from Scan Computers.*

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.


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HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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Posted by ohmaheid - Thu 15 Feb 2018 16:23
Todays prices on Scan UK. are £347 for the Intel combo. £251 for the AMD combo. both excluding memory - as the benchmarks were run using the same memory for both.
So for about £100 less you can do quite a bit of gaming on the AMD platform…And good luck with any gaming on the Intel platform.
CPU -wise, they are roughly equal, with a slight advantage to the Intel part, but at the cost of significantly higher power draw.
Let's face it…Intel aren't really at the races here, but reading the review you would think they were almost on par. And that's not even taking into consideration Intel's performance hit when Meltdown is eventually patched. (if ever)
Posted by peterb - Thu 15 Feb 2018 18:37
Biggest limitation (for me) against an ATX board) is the lack of SATA ports. This would have made quite a good basis for a NAS box with a couple of extra SATA ports.
Posted by Xlucine - Thu 15 Feb 2018 18:38
Interesting to see the effect of RAM speed on the IGP performance - this looks like exactly the kind of review we asked for in the last ryzen APU review thread!

ohmaheid
Todays prices on Scan UK. are £347 for the Intel combo. £251 for the AMD combo. both excluding memory - as the benchmarks were run using the same memory for both.
So for about £100 less you can do quite a bit of gaming on the AMD platform…And good luck with any gaming on the Intel platform.
CPU -wise, they are roughly equal, with a slight advantage to the Intel part, but at the cost of significantly higher power draw.
Let's face it…Intel aren't really at the races here, but reading the review you would think they were almost on par. And that's not even taking into consideration Intel's performance hit when Meltdown is eventually patched. (if ever)

Shopping around for the closest comparable intel motherboard to the reviewed model on scan, there's still easily a £65 delta (£40 motherboard, £10 CPU, £20 for a decent heatsink (not included on intel K chips), and save £5 going with 8 GB of 2400 MHz RAM rather than 3 GHz for the AMD system to run the memory at the max rated speed).

You've got the wrong end of the CPU stick - the AMD chip is noticeably ahead in every real-world CPU benchmark, while also using more power than the intel chip (the intel TDP is a tad exaggerated). Also, the intel system reviewed will be rocking the meltdown fixes already
Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH - Thu 15 Feb 2018 19:10
Going from 3200MHZ to 2666MHZ RAM,does not have a mahoosive performance hit,10% to 15% at most,so even speed stuff should be fine! :)
Posted by Airwave - Thu 15 Feb 2018 21:42
The better AM4 ITX board you can currently buy is the ASRock Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac. It has a very similar price, better board layout and has a second fan header.

I persoanlly have the board and generally speaking I'm very happy with it. My only real complaint is the single M.2 socket and the only currently available boards with two are by ASUS, which only came out late last year and stock initially was non-existent.

Will wait to see what the 400 series brings for ITX boards.

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