Gigabyte Aorus B360 Gaming 3 WiFi Motherboard Review

Aorus B360 Gaming 3 WiFi Not tempted by the more expensive Z370 offerings on the market? Perhaps you have no need for a K-series CPU with overclocking? Then check out the new H370 and B360 motherboards hitting the market today! Of the two, B360 is the lower end in terms of cost, but it still promises a few tasty features to appease gaming PC system builders and more. Gaming on a Budget A motherboard doesn't have to cost the earth to get great gaming performance. With the B360 chipset, you do lose a few features over the more expensive Z370 range, but how much you'll miss them is subjective. There's no overclocking, that's the most important one. Typically, you'll find fewer M.2 mounts and peripheral connections. However, with Intel Optane and M.2 still supported, RGB lighting, fast DDR4 and more, it's hardly scraping the budget barrel either. The High-End of the Low-End Strip away a few features that a lot of people may not need, dump the price lower than ever, and it's easier to see why so many have been waiting for these boards. For budget gaming PC builds, a cheaper motherboard may help balance some of the increasing cost of GPUs. It's also like that these cheaper motherboards may appeal to the mining market. A Closer Look AORUS has taken an interesting approach with this motherboard. They've pushed some of the savings to the consumer by using a cheaper brown PCB design, which doesn't look great if I'm honest. There's no armor on the DIMM slots, and they've just generally trimmed the fat here and there. That being said, there's a lot of nice stuff still on this board, and overall, it does look pretty decent. With no overclocking, the VRM and power delivery doesn't need to be too crazy. However, there's still a robust looking setup here, with a decent cooling solution too. When it comes to ensuring maximum CPU performance 24/7, it looks more than up to the job. Meanwhile, a shroud on the rear I/O keeps things looking neat and tidy. Power There's a single 8-pin CPU power connector, more than enough for any supported CPU. There are three M.2 mounts on this motherboard, which is awesome for a budget model. Only the top one comes with a heatsink though, but it that improves the performance of your main drive, I call that a bonus. Multiple PCIe Slots The same is true with the PCIe slots. There are three full-size ones, but only the top one has armor. For a single GPU system, this makes sense. Of course, that leaves plenty of room for other add-in cards. With riser cables, you could easily build a five GPU mining rig too. Another welcome addition, some decent audio hardware. It's mounted on a separate trace on the motherboard, and there are even a few gold caps there too; I was expecting less if I'm honest. Connectivity looks decent too, with six SATA ports covering the rest of your storage needs. DDR4 The DIMMs are pretty basic, but the chipset still support high-speed DDR4 memory, so it's a purely aesthetic change. Finally, the rear I/O is pretty capable too. There's USB 3.1 and 3.0 ports, as well as four USB 2.0 ports. Dual display outputs thanks to DVI and HDMI, and there are the usual audio jacks too. The only thing I can see missing is an optical port, but that's no deal breaker for most. Testing and Methodology Test Procedure Here at eTeknix, we endeavor to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to motherboard reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Rember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using the software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Each benchmark runs three times, and the average figure is taken to try to reduce the effect of hardware variation. Of course, any relevant details regarding the parameters will be listed below. Test Systems Z370/B360/H370 Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Intel Core i7-8700K RAM - Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X399 Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Threadripper 1950X RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X299 Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Intel Core i9-7900X RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Ryzen 7 1800X RAM - GeIL DDR4 2977MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit Z270 Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Intel Core i7-7700K RAM - Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X99 - Our GPU Review Test Bench Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Intel Core i7-5960X RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Games Used All games are tested on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off for all tests. Previously we would use "extreme" presets, but these have now been adjusted to "Medium" or equivalent to better test the capabilities of the CPU, not the GPU. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M Power usage recorded at 1024M 50% complete, thermals recorded at 75% CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Other Notes A rest period of 2-5 minutes is observed between each piece of software allowing the system to return to its idle power usage and temperatures. Background services like Windows Update are checked to not be running during the testing period by setting WiFi to Metered Connection. Thanks Thank you to Noctua, Crucial, ASUS, Gigabyte, Lian-Li, be quiet!, OCZ, for providing the hardware that helps makes these tests possible! Synthetic Benchmarks This may be the most affordable chipset for the 8th Generation Intel CPUs to date, but it's certainly not the slowest motherboard. The B360 managed to set scores that were very competitive with Z370 and H370 chipsets, which is good news for those trying to save a bit of cash here. Scoring 22067 and 5538 in 3DMark and Unigine, it's clear that graphics performance isn't an issue. The scores were a little lower in PCMark 10, WPrime and Cinebench, but that was to be expected. However, it's still scoring in the same ballpark as more affordable Z370 motherboards, and that's pretty fantastic. 3DMark Firestrike Stock Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme Stock PCMark 10 Express Stock WPrime 32M and 1024M Stock Cinebench R15 Stock Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K Stock Gaming Performance Again, just like we saw in the synthetic benchmarks, the H360 is pretty competitive. Sure, it's not setting world records, but it wasn't designed to. Hitting 131.4 FPS in Deus Ex, and 198.45 FPS in Tomb Raider are very competitive scores for any motherboard. Then we saw 135.94 in Ghost Record, and 139 in Far Cry. All these scores are around the middle of the charts, so is it fair to say it's average performance? I think so, it beats most AMD solutions, and even pulls ahead of a few Z370 motherboards in each test, so that's a nice win for this motherboard. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Ghost Recon: Wildlands Far Cry Primal Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption Trim a few features off a motherboard, and what a shock, it uses less power. However, I wasn't expecting it to use so little. It's the most efficient motherboard we've ever tested, the only thing that used less power is the Ryzen 5 Vega, and that didn't have a dGPU installed, so go figure! This is great news for those watching their electricity bills (I'm looking at you crypto-lovers!). Stock Final Thoughts Pricing The Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 3 B360 is set to hit retailers today, with an MSRP of just £103.27. However, I'm pretty sure we'll see some competitive pricing right out the gates, and I'm hoping to see this motherboard under £100 today. Overview There's a big market for those who want great performance that doesn't break the bank, and the B360 chipset certainly delivers that. At around £100, it's a nice entry level solution for those building a gaming or mining rig. Sure, it doesn't support overclocking, but not everyone needs to do that, nor does every CPU support that. For those running a CPU outside of the K-series, there's little point in spending more for a Z370 motherboard. Build Quality Gigabyte Aorus has trimmed a few things here and there to keep costs down, but not much. Obviously, the chipset is changed and has the biggest impact on price. However, aside from a brown PCB and a missing optical port, all the big hitters are still here. The DIMM slots aren't armored like we see on their H270 and Z370 boards, but that's not a deal breaker. The first PCIe slot is armored, which is nice, and there's even an M.2 heatsink, so it's hardly scraping the bottom of the barrel style cost saving here. If anything, there's more that could be trimmed off for an even more affordable version, who knows! Performance It's average, and I mean that as a compliment. It delivers pretty good gaming framerates and system benchmark results. It's not the fastest, but it's certainly not the slowest. What does stand out is that it's by far one of the most affordable motherboards we've tested in a while. Of course, the fact it still competes with so many motherboards as well as it does, makes it a bit of a bargain. What impressed me the most, is just how efficient this motherboard is. It barely used any power compared to, well, anything else we've tested. For the cost-conscious consumer, this is a very good thing indeed. Should I Buy One? The enthusiast overclocking gamer out there will likely still want the Z370 solutions. However, for those looking to build a slightly more affordable gaming or mining PC, it's ticking all the right boxes. For around £100, you get great efficiency, plenty of features, and competitive performance. I think that's a bargain no matter what way you look at it.