Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi Mini-ITX AM4 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

First impressions are extremely positive here, as this is one stunning looking motherboard. The black PCB is always welcome, but it’s the black hardware and red highlights that really make it pop. Sure, that’s going to look dumb with a bright green set of RAM, but pick the right hardware, and it’ll really accent the overall theme. It’s not like there’s a lack of black and red themed gaming hardware on the market!

Of course, that’s the AMD colours, so a VEGA GPU would look spot on in that armoured PCIe slot.

ALC1220 Audio

Tucked in the corner, there’s a bunch of headers for fans, front panel, USB, etc. They’re going to be a real pain to get everything hooked up. However, the connectors being closer to the corner should ease cable routing and management issues, while keeping the rest of the motherboard free from trailing cables. There are a few gold capacitors there too, which are there to help drive the on-board audio hardware.

Tucked into the top corner, another busy area of the motherboard, you’ll find the chipset and WiFi module. The VRM/Chokes loo kpretty robust for a motherboard of this size too, and power comes from a single 8-pin CPU header behind that. Again, this fills me with hope for overclocking on this motherboard.

Connectivity

All the USB and SATA headers are tucked onto the top of the motherboard. There are 4 x 6Gbps SATA III headers, more than enough for a mini-ITX build.

The 24-pin header, pretty self explanatory.

Two DDR4 memory slots, finished in that stunning red.

The CPU socket comes with the stock AMD mount, but that can be easily removed for after market cooler brackets if required.

Rear I/O

The back of the motherboard is packed with hardware too. There’s USB 2.0, 3.0 and 3.1. You’ll also find HDMI and DP outputs for those using an APU.

Finally, the back of the motherboard has the cooling bracket backplate. However, the most interesting thing is that sneaky M.2 connector, allowing you to get some blazing fast storage from this already feature packed motherboard.