The Asus Strix Z370-G mATX may be up on Amazon's website, but it has been Out of Stock ever since the page went up with no shipping date in sight. NewEgg Canada has it out of stock and NewEgg's US website doesn't even have a page for it. To call it available is inaccurate.
Well, I am typing this on Asus Strix Z370 I + i5 8400 PC so not entirely vaporware. People may be whining but it seems that Intel can't keep up with the demand...
got an 8600k today at Newegg. They still have stock after 4 hours so it looks like they may be starting to get large shipments. I7 is still out of stock though
Amazon is different than newegg, if it says Out of Stock, if you order it it will ship when it comes in stock. Sometimes it will be same day even or next day. Amazon will only show "This item is not available" if completely out of stock for foreseeable future. They do this because it stops items from completely selling out right away so supply can be steady.
I have found that Asus treats USA customers like a red headed step child. They will send units to the UK, australia, and all of Europe before they will send 1 single board to the USA.
Some advice: Start looking at Overclockers.UK and have it imported to the USA.. The $30 DHL International shipping is faster than USPS Priority Mail or UPS International Express Saver. No VAT tax either.
This is what i had to do to get a Rampage VI Extreme. Newegg hasn't gotten a R6E in stock for 2 months after the initial release batch.
Yeah I've been waiting on the Asus z370-g. I can't find an i7-8700k right now either so it's all right. Hopefully I'll be able to get both before Christmas (along with the rest of the upgrade).
There are no "right" mobo here. Right future proof and super fast mobo has to be a dual-processor at least. Dual-SLI for example offers benefits for speed but in many cases the dual-chip is doing the same in simulations.
Theres a difference between value and quality. better quality with more features tend to cost more. Dont hate cause amd doesnt get motherboards like the apex. If zen+ increases clock speeds and increases overclocks to where intel is yall will be wishing you didnt buy a cheap $40 b350 motherboard. Yeah you get to keep your cheap b350 motherboard for zen+ but yeah lets buy a new cpu cause amd is providing better value.
I haven't read the article yet but I want to say that to make sense of 50+ MBs I'm going to need a comparison system which let's me find all MBs with ThunderBolt for example.
While that feature page is great, the thunderbolt part is slightly misleading as a few of them supports it via an add-in-card. The page only lists the one that has it built-in. (The lackluster support for TB3 as well as 10 GbE is disappointing).
Would you consider putting out some simple Wirecutter-style recommendations? A lot of people (including myself) would like someone else who is better informed to simplify the decision-making process.
This whole notch thing makes me wonder if the 8xxx series was originally supposed to work in existing motherboards, but Intel ran into issues at the last minute.
Honestly, I cannot see the issue. The pins were changed so that nothing bad will happen if you put the wrong CPU in the wrong motherboard. As for the notches, I for one am happy that they were not changed. This means they can reuse the physical design, which lowers validation costs, which makes the CPUs cheaper.
It seems that the PCB which holds the silicon has changed between the 7th and the 8th gen. So they most likely needed to validate the CPU. The fact that they did not move the notch means they just did not want to (could not) introduce a new socket. Either because there were so many of the old ones, or there was no time, or they did not want to push the cost to MB manufacturers to revalidate the new sockets.
Damn. At least key it differently and call it LGA1151v2 or something.
The changes are so minimal it really does seem like planned obsolescence. Does it really need more power pins to support new chips with the same power envelopes? Really? They couldn’t handle that on the CPU PCB?
Actually it is ~1.5 times peak current with the same average power envelope, so yes, they need the change. If they had not brought the launch forward and just launched together with the cheap chipsets, there would be far less complaints.
Where did you find information indicating current has increased 50%? I just spent about ten minutes trying to find a reference backing that up, perhaps something indicating the 8 series operates at a much lower voltage within same TDP, which would translate to higher current but they seem to operate in the same 1.2-1.3v range.
You’re not just assuming they draw more current because they have two more cores, are you?
Notice the difference between average and peak. And the information is in publicly available documents. I did not bother to look it up, but others have, for example: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/intel-coffee-la...
Nice roundup. That's a lot of motherboards to spec and summarize. I especially appreciate the handy chart at the end, it's a good, quick-and-dirty comparison tool.
Great write up but for me its just another depressing generation of oversized, overpriced ATX form factor offerings on which the vast majority of users wont even plug a second gpu into, with the smaller and more size appropriate FF represented as a minority afterthought.
With all the progress of PCs since the 90s whod have thought that I could still use the same ATX case today while every single other component (from floppy drives to 2d Mattrox cards) have long gone to the recyclers. I find it so annoying how manufacturers have stuck on this prehistoric gargantuan case size with the other sizes being an afterthought. It feels like like stifled innovation while everything else is moving on.
Great article and a lot of work put in to get it out for us to read thank you.
My only issue is and it is nit your fault is why these companies feel the need to totally blanket the market with basically the same boards just a different model number and basically a few tiny changes and spray paint it a different color and use the word gaming and put something x or x1 or k,k3 etc etc. For crap sakes just release three models not 7-10 models of the same crap it is pretty much just greed I guess.
The whole market is like this now with anything computer related of and if it has the words GAMING or RGB in it's got to be good for sure. My fav is that gaming mouse pad next it will have RGB lighting in it...lol
I got a few questions: 1. Why do they put USB 2.0 ports if USB 3.0 is backward compatible anyways? Why not just all USB 3.0 ports..it can't be price. 2. Why do they have such a vary in memory timings? For %99 of people memory timings are not really a big deal right? Maybe in old PC days it was. 3. Mini-ITX vs Micro-ITX..isn't it silly both exist in first place? Any reason for this..the diminsions are really close to the same. In fact, most Micro-ITX is simply removing lots of stuff from mobo that you really want to begin with.
I'd imagine they want to offer as many ports as they can without taking away too many PCIe lanes. The other option would be to embed a USB 3.x switch (or a PCIe switch) but of course now each port wouldn't simultaneously be able to operate at peak speed and 3.x switches are probably more expensive than USB 2 controllers.
Some USB audio and 2.4ghz wifi/bluetooth devices have had interference problems in 3.0 sockets. Dunno if they're fixed on new hardware (supposedly onboard hubs were a lot worse than chipset ports in this regard so room for QC to make it better); but even if they are there's going to be problems with once burned customers not trusting them.
As pointed out elsewhere USB3 competes with PCIe lanes/SATA ports on the southbridge. Especially on full ATX boards if you go to max out the number of PCIe lanes to expansion slots and m.2 ports in addition to the lanes used on board for networking and audio you can get down to only a half dozen or so 3.0 lanes left from the chipset; but still able to hit 14 USB ports total by going USB2 with the rest.
People using older OSes (Windows 7 says hi) can't use USB3 ports to install the OS without jumping through a lot of hoops (the OS sees them as not USB2 and can't talk to them).
If any board size is at risk of going away it's probably full ATX; although for enthusiast sales I suspect it'll hold on better than mini ATX due to bigger is better irrationality.
MiniITX still has a decent capability gap vs mini ATX; but it's much smaller than it was a half dozen years ago when it only made sense if you were making a tiny box and were willing to accept major performance compromises to do so. Now as Mini ITX's capability continues to goes up and the need for expansion cards other than a single GPU goes down it's eating into an increasing chunk of Mini ATX's marketshare.
On the high side mainstream chips don't really have enough PCIe lanes to make good use of the extra 3 cards of space possible on the bigger boards/ Meanwhile multi-GPU gaming - the main reason an enthusiast would need a full size mobo is steadily going away (fewer games supporting it each year, no support for 3/4way at all in the newest cards from either company); and unless you need 2 GPUs + something else or extra space around the CPU for crazy OCing Mini ATX does almost everything that could be needed.
> If any board size is at risk of going away it's probably full ATX; although for enthusiast sales I suspect it'll hold on better than mini ATX due to bigger is better irrationality.
Irrationality indeed. I would have thought by now instead of a measly 5 mATX choices out of 50+ that it would be instead maybe 5 fullsize ATX with the main battleground being the two slot mATX market.
Its just laziness on the manufacturers side, with nobody steering the market to innovate on size. Theres nobody driving form factors, the CPU companies are present on all form factors so they dont need to drive change, the board partners are all set in their ways just slapping new images on mildly reworked designs so they dont have any need to innovate, weve seen video card manufacturers can shrink designs to better fit smaller factors but we still get chunky easy to produce cards for mainstream use as retooling would be an added cost, its just rolling train of new but nothing new generation after generation.
PC design is falling into mediocrity and I just wish the main players (intel+amd/board partners/nvidia+amd) would all get together to drive SFX/ITX and force retire ATX to the strictly enthusiast market, and maybe appeal to a more contemporary home user community (rather than just gamers which is where the marketing all seems to be these days) again too.
It is really true that the MSI PC Pro has a legacy PCI connector? I could use this for my TV tuner. But I thought PCI was not supported by newer boatds/CPU`s?
Tell this to the guys that already spent money on non-Z370 just a few months ago.
Intel is already screwing them.
It would have been funny to sell a 250 USD motherboard to a 7700K buyer just last month, telling him his 250 USD are a good investment because of the good upgradeability.
Just 4 weeks later tell him: "Well ... Yeah ... About that upgrade ... It will cost you a minimum of 110 USD extra + the 360 USD for the new 8700 K.
775 was the last good & long lived platform from Intel.
If people brought Z370 boards expecting them to support an additional CPU generation, they did it in spite of every Intel CPU release for the last decade: two CPU gens socket generation. There's no counter to ignoring the past.
no they're not. the gigabyte gaming 5 is $200 the gaming 7 is $250 (just so happen I was looking at some gigabyte boards). Those prices are as high as z270 when it came out. In comparison, you could get a z270 gaming 7 for like 150. That's just one example I'm sure there are others. There is definitely a premium built into these boards for something that is nothing more than a stop gap and that will become obsolete 6 months from now.
I'd really like reviews of the mITX boards, particularly the ASRock Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac. I'll be building a portable gaming + workstation to go in this case when it comes in January: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/33753221/dan-...
The Aorus Gaming 5's M.2 slots are actually 2x110mm and 1x80mm accoding to the manual. It's also visible...the M2 slot at the top and the middle slot have 4 positions for the screws, the bottom slot has only 3.
Asus, stop putting electrolytic capacitors on your TUF boards. The main reason I buy TUF boards is for the all solid caps. I don't care about "Nichicon gold" audio caps, and anyone who's serious about audio will have an external DAC or another sound card anyways. STAHHHP!
Notable that though the new boards are often very similar to their Z270 predecessors, Asus has dropped Thunderbolt 3 support from the Maximus X Hero board.
"....new metallic heat sinks that are an upgrade over the plastic heatsinks found on the Z270 version"
Please excuse my ignorance because I didn't own a ROG Z270 mb but...plastic HEAT SINKS? Not shrouds or decoration over a heat sink but the actual heat sinks themselves? That's either wrong, they performed their job pretty poorly, or plastic resins have advanced a lot farther in thermal conductivity (and cost for such) than I realized.
"The other main distinguishable feature is the inclusion of integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi with an antenna (that can only be described as a shark fin) found on the F."
The above is incorrect in the article. The integrated Wi-Fi module with antenna is found on the E not the F.
I'm looking to build a rig with the Z370 Gaming ITX/ac, a GTX-1070 card and an Apple Thunderbolt Display. The review states: "The key difference in the support between the two boards is going to be the Thunderbolt 3 port on the Gaming-ITX. This port supports video outputs..." So, can anyone confirm or deny that video generated by the GTX-1070 can be output through the onboard Thunderbolt 3 port?
Is anyone using the Z370-P on Linux with two screens?
I built a new machine based on the Z370-P, and both the DVI and the HDMI connected screens show the same image, and the RHEL7 setup/displays show only one Unknown Display.
I follwed the advice on stackexchange, and added this line:
Shocked to see that both the Asrock mitx boards are "szie=ATX" .. LOL The addition of Tunderbolt sure seems to add a hefty premium £120 vs £160 , luckily I can do without.
On the ASrock Z370M Pro4 the M.2 slot information is backwards. Both slots support NVME. One slot also supports SATA. As written, "The first M.2 slot is SATA only while the second supports PCIe." it seems to say that one slot is SATA only and the other slot is PCIe (NVME) only.
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EricZBA - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
The Asus Strix Z370-G mATX may be up on Amazon's website, but it has been Out of Stock ever since the page went up with no shipping date in sight. NewEgg Canada has it out of stock and NewEgg's US website doesn't even have a page for it. To call it available is inaccurate.Rubinhood - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Coffee Lake & related hardware is the new Duke Nukem Forever :)xchaotic - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Well, I am typing this on Asus Strix Z370 I + i5 8400 PC so not entirely vaporware. People may be whining but it seems that Intel can't keep up with the demand...piiman - Thursday, October 26, 2017 - link
got an 8600k today at Newegg. They still have stock after 4 hours so it looks like they may be starting to get large shipments. I7 is still out of stock thoughimaheadcase - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Amazon is different than newegg, if it says Out of Stock, if you order it it will ship when it comes in stock. Sometimes it will be same day even or next day. Amazon will only show "This item is not available" if completely out of stock for foreseeable future. They do this because it stops items from completely selling out right away so supply can be steady.Morawka - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I have found that Asus treats USA customers like a red headed step child. They will send units to the UK, australia, and all of Europe before they will send 1 single board to the USA.Some advice: Start looking at Overclockers.UK and have it imported to the USA.. The $30 DHL International shipping is faster than USPS Priority Mail or UPS International Express Saver. No VAT tax either.
This is what i had to do to get a Rampage VI Extreme. Newegg hasn't gotten a R6E in stock for 2 months after the initial release batch.
SpartanJet - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Does Asus USA cover warranty issues then since you bought it from UK?Xeres14 - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Yeah I've been waiting on the Asus z370-g. I can't find an i7-8700k right now either so it's all right. Hopefully I'll be able to get both before Christmas (along with the rest of the upgrade).stuffwhy - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
This is so great. I find it increasingly difficult to find the right mainboard and this type of posting consolidates a lot of research time.SanX - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
There are no "right" mobo here. Right future proof and super fast mobo has to be a dual-processor at least. Dual-SLI for example offers benefits for speed but in many cases the dual-chip is doing the same in simulations.Aichon - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Love this writeup. Thank you guys so much for putting it together so that we can make sense of the choices.peevee - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
"These motherboards range from $110 "AM4 MBs start from $40 on newegg. Yet another way AMD provides better value.
DigitalFreak - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
You want a cookie or something?cap87 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Nobody cares, this a Z370 article. Go back to your cave with the rest of you AMD buddies.imaheadcase - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Apples to oranges.IGTrading - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Very good comment. Not everybody is going to buy a 8700K and thr cheaper CPUs don't really make sense in a 150 USD motherboard.Also, because Intel doesn't guarantee the Boos frequencies anymore, you don't really know what you're going to get with a 8400 for example.
This was very well exemplified here: https://youtu.be/O98qP-FsIWo
psychocipher - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Theres a difference between value and quality. better quality with more features tend to cost more. Dont hate cause amd doesnt get motherboards like the apex. If zen+ increases clock speeds and increases overclocks to where intel is yall will be wishing you didnt buy a cheap $40 b350 motherboard. Yeah you get to keep your cheap b350 motherboard for zen+ but yeah lets buy a new cpu cause amd is providing better value.OFelix - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
I haven't read the article yet but I want to say that to make sense of 50+ MBs I'm going to need a comparison system which let's me find all MBs with ThunderBolt for example.Brett Howse - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Check the last page.Ian Cutress - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
+1tommythorn - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
While that feature page is great, the thunderbolt part is slightly misleading as a few of them supports it via an add-in-card. The page only lists the one that has it built-in. (The lackluster support for TB3 as well as 10 GbE is disappointing).OFelix - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
ThanksStochastic - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Would you consider putting out some simple Wirecutter-style recommendations? A lot of people (including myself) would like someone else who is better informed to simplify the decision-making process.Ian Cutress - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
When we get our Z370 reviews underway, we'll start doing some buyers guidesStochastic - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Great, thanks!IGTrading - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
When do we get a 50+ AMD motherboard article guys ? :)abrowne1993 - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Okay but which one looks the coolest?dave_the_nerd - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
"Whoever thought this was a good idea at Intel needs to be fired."Well... gee... why don't you tell us how you really feel?
DigitalFreak - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
This whole notch thing makes me wonder if the 8xxx series was originally supposed to work in existing motherboards, but Intel ran into issues at the last minute.KaarlisK - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Honestly, I cannot see the issue. The pins were changed so that nothing bad will happen if you put the wrong CPU in the wrong motherboard.As for the notches, I for one am happy that they were not changed. This means they can reuse the physical design, which lowers validation costs, which makes the CPUs cheaper.
risa2000 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
It seems that the PCB which holds the silicon has changed between the 7th and the 8th gen. So they most likely needed to validate the CPU. The fact that they did not move the notch means they just did not want to (could not) introduce a new socket. Either because there were so many of the old ones, or there was no time, or they did not want to push the cost to MB manufacturers to revalidate the new sockets.shabby - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
For a split second i thought finally some x370 goodness... but no.Shame, shame, shame!
tamalero - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I'm waiting for actual non clown disco BS Threadripper motherboards :(ikjadoon - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Amazingly well done. Excellent write-up.AbRASiON - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Stupid question, I got the AsRock simple ITX board and it won't turbo my CPU at all (8400) like no turbo PERIOD. It never ever goes over 2763mhz?Anyone got any ideas on this? Am I just stupid and this is normal behaviour or what?
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/am-i-doing-so...
bernstein - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
FYI: GIGABYTE Z370N-WiFi is also HDMI 2.0 capableByte - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
If nothing else, Asus makes some damn good looking boards.docbones - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
My big question still on the z370 is whats the 390 going to bring? Will the 370 not support a octocore chip?shabby - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
This is intel we're talking aboot, new chip = new mobo period.Ro_Ja - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Once Kaby Lake E is released, that's a new mobo again.sor - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Damn. At least key it differently and call it LGA1151v2 or something.The changes are so minimal it really does seem like planned obsolescence. Does it really need more power pins to support new chips with the same power envelopes? Really? They couldn’t handle that on the CPU PCB?
KaarlisK - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Actually it is ~1.5 times peak current with the same average power envelope, so yes, they need the change.If they had not brought the launch forward and just launched together with the cheap chipsets, there would be far less complaints.
sor - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Where did you find information indicating current has increased 50%? I just spent about ten minutes trying to find a reference backing that up, perhaps something indicating the 8 series operates at a much lower voltage within same TDP, which would translate to higher current but they seem to operate in the same 1.2-1.3v range.You’re not just assuming they draw more current because they have two more cores, are you?
KaarlisK - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Notice the difference between average and peak.And the information is in publicly available documents. I did not bother to look it up, but others have, for example: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/intel-coffee-la...
Crono - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Nice roundup. That's a lot of motherboards to spec and summarize. I especially appreciate the handy chart at the end, it's a good, quick-and-dirty comparison tool.Landcross - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
You guys forgot 2 new Z370 boards from Supermicro :)https://motherboarddb.com/motherboards/?chipset=19...
Xpl1c1t - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
The mITX board looks incredible.+ Low ESR Tantalum capacitors! (first time seeing them on VRM duty on a mainboard)
+ HDMI 2.0
+ 2x M.2 Slots
+ USB 3.1 Type C
+ Optical SPDIF
- RGB.......
MadAd - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Great write up but for me its just another depressing generation of oversized, overpriced ATX form factor offerings on which the vast majority of users wont even plug a second gpu into, with the smaller and more size appropriate FF represented as a minority afterthought.With all the progress of PCs since the 90s whod have thought that I could still use the same ATX case today while every single other component (from floppy drives to 2d Mattrox cards) have long gone to the recyclers. I find it so annoying how manufacturers have stuck on this prehistoric gargantuan case size with the other sizes being an afterthought. It feels like like stifled innovation while everything else is moving on.
rocky12345 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Great article and a lot of work put in to get it out for us to read thank you.My only issue is and it is nit your fault is why these companies feel the need to totally blanket the market with basically the same boards just a different model number and basically a few tiny changes and spray paint it a different color and use the word gaming and put something x or x1 or k,k3 etc etc. For crap sakes just release three models not 7-10 models of the same crap it is pretty much just greed I guess.
The whole market is like this now with anything computer related of and if it has the words GAMING or RGB in it's got to be good for sure. My fav is that gaming mouse pad next it will have RGB lighting in it...lol
CitizenZer0 - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link
Agreedcarldon - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Excellent summary and table in the last page. Good work!!!imaheadcase - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I got a few questions:1. Why do they put USB 2.0 ports if USB 3.0 is backward compatible anyways? Why not just all USB 3.0 ports..it can't be price.
2. Why do they have such a vary in memory timings? For %99 of people memory timings are not really a big deal right? Maybe in old PC days it was.
3. Mini-ITX vs Micro-ITX..isn't it silly both exist in first place? Any reason for this..the diminsions are really close to the same. In fact, most Micro-ITX is simply removing lots of stuff from mobo that you really want to begin with.
lordsutch - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I'd imagine they want to offer as many ports as they can without taking away too many PCIe lanes. The other option would be to embed a USB 3.x switch (or a PCIe switch) but of course now each port wouldn't simultaneously be able to operate at peak speed and 3.x switches are probably more expensive than USB 2 controllers.imaheadcase - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Ahh didn't think about that aspect.DanNeely - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Some USB audio and 2.4ghz wifi/bluetooth devices have had interference problems in 3.0 sockets. Dunno if they're fixed on new hardware (supposedly onboard hubs were a lot worse than chipset ports in this regard so room for QC to make it better); but even if they are there's going to be problems with once burned customers not trusting them.As pointed out elsewhere USB3 competes with PCIe lanes/SATA ports on the southbridge. Especially on full ATX boards if you go to max out the number of PCIe lanes to expansion slots and m.2 ports in addition to the lanes used on board for networking and audio you can get down to only a half dozen or so 3.0 lanes left from the chipset; but still able to hit 14 USB ports total by going USB2 with the rest.
People using older OSes (Windows 7 says hi) can't use USB3 ports to install the OS without jumping through a lot of hoops (the OS sees them as not USB2 and can't talk to them).
If any board size is at risk of going away it's probably full ATX; although for enthusiast sales I suspect it'll hold on better than mini ATX due to bigger is better irrationality.
MiniITX still has a decent capability gap vs mini ATX; but it's much smaller than it was a half dozen years ago when it only made sense if you were making a tiny box and were willing to accept major performance compromises to do so. Now as Mini ITX's capability continues to goes up and the need for expansion cards other than a single GPU goes down it's eating into an increasing chunk of Mini ATX's marketshare.
On the high side mainstream chips don't really have enough PCIe lanes to make good use of the extra 3 cards of space possible on the bigger boards/ Meanwhile multi-GPU gaming - the main reason an enthusiast would need a full size mobo is steadily going away (fewer games supporting it each year, no support for 3/4way at all in the newest cards from either company); and unless you need 2 GPUs + something else or extra space around the CPU for crazy OCing Mini ATX does almost everything that could be needed.
MadAd - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
> If any board size is at risk of going away it's probably full ATX; although for enthusiast sales I suspect it'll hold on better than mini ATX due to bigger is better irrationality.Irrationality indeed. I would have thought by now instead of a measly 5 mATX choices out of 50+ that it would be instead maybe 5 fullsize ATX with the main battleground being the two slot mATX market.
Its just laziness on the manufacturers side, with nobody steering the market to innovate on size. Theres nobody driving form factors, the CPU companies are present on all form factors so they dont need to drive change, the board partners are all set in their ways just slapping new images on mildly reworked designs so they dont have any need to innovate, weve seen video card manufacturers can shrink designs to better fit smaller factors but we still get chunky easy to produce cards for mainstream use as retooling would be an added cost, its just rolling train of new but nothing new generation after generation.
PC design is falling into mediocrity and I just wish the main players (intel+amd/board partners/nvidia+amd) would all get together to drive SFX/ITX and force retire ATX to the strictly enthusiast market, and maybe appeal to a more contemporary home user community (rather than just gamers which is where the marketing all seems to be these days) again too.
Liltorp - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
It is really true that the MSI PC Pro has a legacy PCI connector? I could use this for my TV tuner. But I thought PCI was not supported by newer boatds/CPU`s?Morawka - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Has anyone noticed how cheap these new Z370 motherboards are? Most are under $180 and there are several sub $130.IGTrading - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Tell this to the guys that already spent money on non-Z370 just a few months ago.Intel is already screwing them.
It would have been funny to sell a 250 USD motherboard to a 7700K buyer just last month, telling him his 250 USD are a good investment because of the good upgradeability.
Just 4 weeks later tell him: "Well ... Yeah ... About that upgrade ... It will cost you a minimum of 110 USD extra + the 360 USD for the new 8700 K.
775 was the last good & long lived platform from Intel.
edzieba - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
If people brought Z370 boards expecting them to support an additional CPU generation, they did it in spite of every Intel CPU release for the last decade: two CPU gens socket generation. There's no counter to ignoring the past.Hxx - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
no they're not. the gigabyte gaming 5 is $200 the gaming 7 is $250 (just so happen I was looking at some gigabyte boards). Those prices are as high as z270 when it came out. In comparison, you could get a z270 gaming 7 for like 150. That's just one example I'm sure there are others. There is definitely a premium built into these boards for something that is nothing more than a stop gap and that will become obsolete 6 months from now.Hixbot - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Only one board with 10GBE? That's dissapointing.pvdw - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
I'd really like reviews of the mITX boards, particularly the ASRock Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac. I'll be building a portable gaming + workstation to go in this case when it comes in January: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/33753221/dan-...Thanks!
pvdw - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
mITX -> ITXTwister292 - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
The Aorus Gaming 5's M.2 slots are actually 2x110mm and 1x80mm accoding to the manual. It's also visible...the M2 slot at the top and the middle slot have 4 positions for the screws, the bottom slot has only 3.takeshi7 - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Asus, stop putting electrolytic capacitors on your TUF boards. The main reason I buy TUF boards is for the all solid caps. I don't care about "Nichicon gold" audio caps, and anyone who's serious about audio will have an external DAC or another sound card anyways. STAHHHP!Samus - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Having a "quick look" at 50 motherboards is somewhat an oxymoron, isn't it?tezpez - Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - link
May have spotted an error in the article - Asus Strix 370-F doesn't have wifi, whereas this page says it does: https://www.anandtech.com/show/11860/z370-motherbo...number58 - Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - link
The pictures for the Gigabyte Z370 Gaming K3 are actually some MSI mini itx board.pjcamp - Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - link
No, question 1 is "do I give 2 sh!ts about gaming?" How about a little help for people who are NOT twitch fanatics?weevilone - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link
Notable that though the new boards are often very similar to their Z270 predecessors, Asus has dropped Thunderbolt 3 support from the Maximus X Hero board.masouth - Thursday, October 26, 2017 - link
ASUS ROG Z370 Maximus X Hero"....new metallic heat sinks that are an upgrade over the plastic heatsinks found on the Z270 version"
Please excuse my ignorance because I didn't own a ROG Z270 mb but...plastic HEAT SINKS? Not shrouds or decoration over a heat sink but the actual heat sinks themselves? That's either wrong, they performed their job pretty poorly, or plastic resins have advanced a lot farther in thermal conductivity (and cost for such) than I realized.
flowrush - Sunday, November 19, 2017 - link
"The other main distinguishable feature is the inclusion of integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi with an antenna (that can only be described as a shark fin) found on the F."The above is incorrect in the article. The integrated Wi-Fi module with antenna is found on the E not the F.
Coldgame - Saturday, November 25, 2017 - link
I'm looking to build a rig with the Z370 Gaming ITX/ac, a GTX-1070 card and an Apple Thunderbolt Display.The review states:
"The key difference in the support between the two boards is going to be the Thunderbolt 3 port on the Gaming-ITX. This port supports video outputs..."
So, can anyone confirm or deny that video generated by the GTX-1070 can be output through the onboard Thunderbolt 3 port?
hanselltc - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link
Looking forward to low-middle end mITX choices from this platform. It'll probably be paired with a 8100/8300 and be my secondary machine.Roen - Sunday, February 4, 2018 - link
Where are the 10 Gbps ports on the back? They all look like 5 Gbps ports, even the Type C.rbarak - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
Is anyone using the Z370-P on Linux with two screens?I built a new machine based on the Z370-P, and both the DVI and the HDMI connected screens show the same image, and the RHEL7 setup/displays show only one Unknown Display.
I follwed the advice on stackexchange, and added this line:
$ grep GRUB_CMDLINE_LINE_DEFAULT /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINE_DEFAULT="i915.alpha_support=1"
Then I did:
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o "$(readlink /etc/grub2.conf)"
And rebooted, but still, the two displays are not shown.
dromoxen - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
Shocked to see that both the Asrock mitx boards are "szie=ATX" .. LOLThe addition of Tunderbolt sure seems to add a hefty premium £120 vs £160 , luckily I can do without.
Kroebo - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
Sadly, I discovered that the ZUG Gaming PLUS doesn't support SLI.trag - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
On the ASrock Z370M Pro4 the M.2 slot information is backwards. Both slots support NVME. One slot also supports SATA. As written, "The first M.2 slot is SATA only while the second supports PCIe." it seems to say that one slot is SATA only and the other slot is PCIe (NVME) only.Mick07 - Wednesday, April 22, 2020 - link
Hi guys, I am a novice & need some help.Are the following cards compatible with this board carrying a Intel Core i7-8700K?
Strix Radeon RX570;
Radeon RX 5700 XT;
RTX 2080 Super.