UEFI Features
GIGABYTE bundled the latest version of their UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) implementation with the X470 AORUS Gaming 7 WIFI motherboard. The UEFI offers full keyboard and mouse support while using the BIOS pages. By default, the user sees the Easy mode interface when entering the UEFI. The Classic mode screens accessible via the Classic button at the upper right corner of the screen or by hitting the F2 function key. Classic mode screens can be set for the default user interface via the UEFI BIOS tab as well.
GIGABYTE's UEFI is both responsive and easy to use with almost no lag or questionable click-space evident anywhere. The UEFI is designed in an intuitive manner so that both novice and advance users can quickly find what they are looking for. The Easy Mode screen lays out everything in a highly readable format, while the Classic mode tabbed layout displays as you would expect from a traditional BIOS. GIGABYTE also gives you the ability to taken screen captures from within the BIOS by pressing the F12 key with those screen-caps saved in a 1024×768 bitmap format to an attached USB device.
UEFI Notable Features
GIGABYTE continues to revise and enhance their UEFI interface, sharing features from their Intel Z270 board line as well as exposing new features specific to the AMD Ryzen 2 processor and X470 board lines. The UEFI splits its features across two modes – Easy mode and Classic mode. Easy mode displays various system information and statistics in a tile interface while the Classic mode interface is more reminiscent of the traditional tabbed layout. GIGABYTE enhanced their UEFI with a graphical fan tuning interface, a full featured LED configuration interface (RGB Fusion), a graphical BIOS flash interface, and several functional enhancements specific to the AMD Ryzen processor line.
Easy Mode interface
The Easy Mode interface organizes system data and settings into tiles across the page in an easy-to-read manner for those users who do not want to be bothered with the labyrinth of the Classic mode tabbed interface. Most commonly used settings, including boot sequence, EZ OC, and smart fan, are readily accessible from within the Easy Mode page.
Classic mode interface
The Classic mode interface offers advanced users access to the more traditional tabbed interface with its logically grouped system settings and configuration features. GIGABYTE enhanced this interface with popout side and bottom menus. The right side popout menu displays real-time system statistics, including CPU, memory, and voltage settings. The bottom pop out menu displays a quick menu interface for accessing Easy Mode, the UEFI language settings, Q-Flash, and Smart Fan functions.
Q-Flash settings page
The Q-Flash settings page gives the user a GUI for updating the board's BIOS as well as saving the current BIOS to an attached USB device. The Q-Flash configuration page is accessed by clicking on the Q-Flash button in the pop out menu within the Classic mode interface or pressing the F8 function key.
Smart Fan 5 configuration page
The Smart Fan 5 configuration page allows for graphical configuration of fan operation based on predefined threshold levels. The page offers an easy to user visualization with settings available for setting tiered fan speeds based on tied temperature thresholds, as well as temperature-based warning and fan fail warning configuration. The Smart Fan configuration page is accessed by clicking on the Smart Fan button in the pop out menu within the Classic mode interface or the Smart Fan 5 tile in the lower right corner of the Easy Mode interface.
Easy Mode, Save Profiles popup
Easy Mode, Load Profiles popup
GIGABYTE allows for storing up to eight UEFI profiles through the Save Profiles and Load Profiles functions within the Save & Exit tab in the Classic mode interface. The saved profiles contain all user configured settings from the UEFI, and can be saved to or restored from any attached storage device. The Save Profiles popup can be accessed by pressing the F3 function key. The Load Profiles popup can be invoked by pressing the F4 function key.
Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Frequency Settings page
The Advanced Frequency Settings page accessed from the link on the M.I.T. tab houses the settings controlling the CPU and memory ratio settings. GIGABYTE enhanced this page with Ryzen-friendly settings via the CPU Clock Ratio setting, allowing for fine control in 0.25 step increments.
Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Frequency Settings page, Advanced CPU Core Settings page
The Advanced CPU Core Settings page, accessed via the the link on Advanced Frequency Settings page, contains Expert-level CPU settings, including several AMD-specific processor settings. The AMD Cool&Quiet function setting is the AMD version of Intel's Speedstep technology with it automatically adjusting processor core speed and voltages for optimal system operation under power saving conditions. The Ryzen-specific Downcore Control setting gives fine control over the cores enabled over both CCX (CPU CompleX) units with the auto setting enabling all cores across both CCS units and a variety of other settings available (depending on the active processor) to customize the active cores within the CCX units. The analogue to Intel's HyperThreading technology lives in the SMT Mode setting (simultaneous multi-threading) enabling 2 operational threads per core in the processor. Another Ryzen-specific setting is the Opcache Control setting, allowing for disabling of the processor's integrated micro-op cache. The Ryzen's micro-op cache stores recently decoded processor instructions for power saving and speed optimizations, giving the processor immediate access to these instructions without the need to re-decode them.
Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Memory Settings page
The Advanced Memory Settings page, accessed via the the link on the M.I.T. tab, houses all of the memory-specific timing setting grouped by type. GIGABYTE chose to house the Ryzen-specific memory settings in a different section of the UEFI.
houses many AMD Ryzen-optimized memory settings tied to their AGESA (AMD Generic Encapsulated System Architecture) protocol. In line with the latest version of that protocol, GIGABYTE integrated settings for BankGroupSwap and Gear Down Mode, both which can have a major impact on memory performance and compatibility. The Bank Group Swap setting controls how memory addresses are assigned to applications, while the Gear Down Mode setting affects the data rate on the memory-related command and data buses. More specifically, disabling the Gear Down Mode allows for manual setting of the memory's command rate to more aggressive settings (rather than the enforced 2T mode with the setting enabled). The CLD0_VDDP Control setting allows for user control over the voltage applied to the DDR4 PHY in the SoC. Note that this voltage is unique to the AGESA v1.0.0.6 update and is not the same as the VDDP voltage. VDDP voltage setting controls the voltage applied to the CPU VDDP pins.
Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Voltage Settings page
The Advanced Voltage Settings page, accessed via the the link on the M.I.T. tab, houses all motherboard configurable voltage settings including CPU and memory related voltage settings you typically see on enthusiast class boards. Ryzen CPU specific settings include VCORE SOC and CPU VDDP voltage settings, as well as the VCORE SOC Loadline Calibration setting. The VCORE SOC setting controls the voltage supplied to the Ryzen processor's integrated chipset and memory subsystems. The CPU VDDP voltage sets the external voltage applied to the CPU VDDP pins which affects GPU, memory, and base clock settings at high processor frequencies.
Classic mode, Peripherals tab
The Peripherals tab centralizes control settings for all motherboard integrated components (read as non-CPU). New additions to this page include the RGB Fusion settings for fine-grain control over the integrated RGB LEDs and RGBW 12V header, the AMD CPU fTPM setting, the USB DAC-UP 2 settings, and a link to the AMD CBS submenu. The AMD CPU fTPM setting controls the TPM 2.0 function integrated into the Ryzen processor. The USB DAC-UP settings can be used to boost the power provided by the onboard USB 3.0 ports and USB 3.0 headers.
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, RGB Fusion page
The RGB Fusion settings page, accessed from the link on the Peripherals tab, give the user a graphical interface from which to configure operating mode and color of the board's integrated RGB LEDs as well as RGB/RGBW LED strips connected to the RGBW 12V header. The UEFI integrated interface allows for setting the LED activity to one of four modes as well as in a multitude of colors. Supported modes included Pulse Mode, Color Cycle, Static Mode, and Flash Mode.
Classic mode, Chipset tab
The Chipset tab houses chipset related settings including those for IOMMU support and the eight SATA ports supported by the X370 chipset. The IOMMU setting allows for pass-through support for supported discrete GPUs to VMs hosted on the system.
AMD CBS settings
The AMD CBS submenu, accessed from the AMD CBS link in the Peripherals tab, houses AMD Ryzen-specific advanced settings for configuring the processor internal settings.
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, Zen Common Options page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, Zen Common Options, Custom Pstates/Throttling page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, DF Common Options page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, UMC Common Options page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, UMC Common Options, DDR4 Common Options page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, UMC Common Options, DDR4 Common Options, DRAM Controller Configuration page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, UMC Common Options, DDR4 Common Options, DRAM Controller Configuration, DRAM Power Options page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, UMC Common Options, DRAM Memory Mapping page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, NBIO Common Options page
Classic mode, Peripherals tab, AMD CBS, NBIO Common Options, Precision Boost Overdrive Configuration page
“Support for NVIDIA® Quad-GPU
“Support for NVIDIA® Quad-GPU SLI™ and 2-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ technologies
Support for AMD Quad-GPU CrossFire™ and 2-Way AMD CrossFire™ technologies”
With only 3 PICe X16 Slots(Whatever electrical) how is Quad GPU SLI/CF support possible on this MB? Can this board somehow be plugged into the Delorean and initiate time travel, it sure has enough LED Bling to qualify as a prop for a 1980s SIFI comedy.
No you dr emmet brown
No you dr emmet brown wannabe. Quad sli/xfire is for cards that have TWO gpus on each card, like the titanz( must say titanz wirh heavy german accent) or like the 295 x2.
Really the drivers are going
Really the drivers are going to abstract away Ze dual GPUs on Ze one PCIe card mostly so that’s not what CF/SLI is about. AMD’s CF uses XDMA while Nvidia uses a hardware bridge. But still you are wrong about this MB as it has only 3 PCIe x16(whatever electrical slots) and some folks in the past have had 4 of those Dual GPU on one PCIe card SKUs on a single system. This MB can not support 4 different cards at the same time so that’s just BS on your part!
CF and SLI are still not very good at milti-GPU load balancing but maybe with DX12/Vulkan and that explicit GPU Multi-Adaptor managed by these new Graphics APIs and some games programmers that are competent and not whining script Kiddies then there can be more progess. It should not be a problem for most GPUs that can work with DX12/Vulkan to have proper APIs developed to hand hold the stupid script kiddies hands and automate the process of proper GPU load balancing under DX12/Vulkan or even Apple’s metal. Poor little “programmers” so wedded to OpenGL’s complex and software abstracted state machine design that they can not deal with any GPU metal. But that’s OK as there will be middleware and Game Engine’s SDKs to help.
CF/SLI is not so good for games because of all that single threaded latency issues in dealing with milti-GPUs but really GPUs are parallel beasts and newer CPUs are getting way more cores and threads on mainstream CPU SKUs. So with proper programmers and DX12/Vulkan/etc that can be fixed over time. Nvidia sure is not receptive to more than 2 GPUs for SLI and AMD needs to maybe go back to using Bridge Connectors instead of XDMA and make use of Infinity Fabric instead. Nvidia has NVLink that it could speak across its bridge connectors but Nvidia appears to not be as interested in muiti-GPU uasge for gaming just yet.
The entire gaming/gaming engine industry mostly is really not taking the time to properly hide the latency issues with their games and are relying too much on the CPU and GPU makers to throw ever more powerful hardware their way so they do not have to worry about optimizing PC games as much as the console games/gaming engine makers have to do in order to eke out every last bit of performance on those consoles relatively weak hardware.
Really both AMD and Nvidia maybe need to slow down on the New hardware features and spend more time optimizing their GPUs firmware/driver and API support but Nvidia makes loads of dosh with its new hardware sales at the expense of its older GPU hardware while maybe AMD open sourceing most of their Vulkan driver development will see some Older AMD hardware(GCN 1.2/later) continue to net performance gains over time.
Poor AMD(At the Time) bit off more than they could chew trying to get That Implicit primitive shader API layer to work for legacy games that are not written to take advantage of the Explicit Primitive Shader hardware in AMD’s Vega GPU micro-arch. But gaming engine makers are still free to target Vega’s Explicit Hardware Primitive Shaders even if that’s going to not catch on as soon as AMD had hoped for PC gaming. Maybe the Open Source community can get around to targeting Vega’s explicit primitive hardware shaders or that Chinese Console maker that’s using That New AMD Semi-Custom Zen/Vega APU. Once the Console Makers switch over to all Zen/Vega based console hardware you can be damned sure that they will target Vega’s Explicit Primitive Hardware shaders and Rapid Packed Math/etc.
The marketing wank is “NVIDIA
The marketing wank is “NVIDIA Quad-GPU SLI”. It is not “NVIDIA® Quad-card SLI”. How do you get Quad-GPU SLI on a system that features 2-way SLI? Get two graphics cards with two GPUs each, and there you have Quad-GPU SLI. Also, from the horses mouth: http://www.nvidia.com/object/slizone_quadsli.html
So yes, that “dr emmet brown wannabe” is right, you annoying brat…
Oopsie, the
Oopsie, the “Anonymousnameisalreadyused” was right, not the “dr. emmet brown wannabe”… Argh…
thanks for the review
morry,
thanks for the review
morry, do you know what the ‘EDC %’ is at stock and when overclocking? ryzen master monitors this metric
i am running a 2700x on a asrock fatality mini itx 470 in an in win 901 case and at stock ‘EDC’ is hitting max, so i am assuming that is why it is stuck at around 3900 on all cores when running cinebench
it could be temps as well, but the noctua i am using is excellent, and it is the same with the cooler master aio i tried before the noctua
i think the issue is that the vrm is not beefy enough to fully max out the cpu because i believe ‘EDC’ is the max current the vrm is able to handle
Just a slight correction you
Just a slight correction you might want to make in the Features and Motherboard Layout section. I was a bit confused when I read the below, so I doubled checked this in the manufacturers manual.
Note that the port M2A_SOCKET and the tertiary PCIe x16 slot share bandwidth. The PCIe x16 slot is disabled with an M.2 drive seated in that port.
This should read that the “M2B_SOCKET and the tertiary PCIe x16 slot share bandwidth.”
Sourced from the manufacturers manual, Page 7, Expansion Slots section:
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
* The PCIEX4 slot becomes unavailable when a device is installed in the M2B_SOCKET connector.
Hope this clears up any confusion.
Thanks for pointing this
Thanks for pointing this out. It has been updated…
Any thoughts on getting
Any thoughts on getting around the M.2 80mm slot performance problem by using a PCI-E 3.0 compliant adapter card in the second 16x slot? I know this would drop the first two slots to 8x speeds, but most real world bench marking seems to suggest only little performance loss overall if a graphics card is in the first slot?
Anyone think it’s worth the trade off?
worth it if you need to run
worth it if you need to run two or more M.2s in raid mode. You won't see much if any performance loss between 16x and 8x on the video card unless you are running 4k most likely….
Thanks for the reply on this
Thanks for the reply on this one Morry.
One more question I had was
One more question I had was around RAM and this board. Given what you noted in the review about the memory speeds and this board, is there much point in going above DDR4-3200? I’m planning to overclock my Ryzen 2700X to around 4.2 GHz paired with a GTX 1080Ti. I had been looking at some Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3600 up until I read through the review. Thoughts?
no, not much point going
no, not much point going above stock speeds on memory, you see little improvement performance wise. Best to try to maximize your core speeds…
Appreciate the quick reply
Appreciate the quick reply again Morry!