GIGABYTE has released a version of their most popular mini-ITX motherboards on the market with the H370N WiFi - a small form factor board designed to offer users a less expensive pathway into the latest Intel processors. The H370N WIFI includes most features of the Z370 chipset and a few extra bonus parts worth looking into.

AnandTech's Coffee Lake and 300-Series Mini-ITX Motherboard Coverage

• The Coffee Lake Review: The Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400
• The Intel Core i7-8086K Review
• Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards
• The ASUS Z370-I Gaming Review
• The Supermicro C7Z370-CG-IW Motherboard Review

The GIGABYTE H370N WIFI Overview

The Mini-ITX space has just become a bit more crowded with the release of H370, B360, and H310 chipsets. It feels like every board partner has released another range of motherboards in all shapes and sizes, including in the Small Form Factor (SFF) space. Users looking at any of these non-Z series of motherboards are normally focused on using a locked processor (as the platform does not overclock) to maximise performance per dollar but also these chips are rated at 65W TDP or below, so power consumption or noise is usually on the mind. Users who want a less costly way into the latest Intel platform can find it in these new H and B series boards. 

With that in mind, we have had an opportunity to look at the GIGABYTE H370N WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard. The SFF board gives users nearly all the connectivity wanted in a 6.7" x 6.7" package. The H370N includes dual M.2 slots for high-speed storage, four SATA ports for HDDs/SSDs, an 802.11ac Wave2 Wi-Fi module with 1.73 Gbps bandwidth, and a USB Type-C port on the back panel. For those looking for RGB LED illumination, it has that as well in the bottom left-hand corner on the back side of the board. The H370N WIFI looks like an ready to go motherboard, but also with a HDMI 2.0 port for good measure. Users looking for multiple Intel network ports are also sorted, as GIGABYTE installed two on this board - one I219-V, and one I211-AT.

From our analysis, the performance on the small board was about on par with the other 300-series motherboard datasets, sitting on the lower part of the bell curve throughout. In most of the results, it was within a run variance away from being on the top. Where the H370N WIFI shined was in the power consumption testing where on load it used around 20W less than its competitors at the same clock speeds. Idle power use was also quite low making this a good option for those who are looking to save a few pennies on the electric bill compared to other higher-end chipset offerings. 

The SFF board has two M.2 slots, one located on the front, the other on the back, both able to support PCIe modules and one able to support both PCIe and SATA devices. On such a small board, having two M.2 slots is a luxury. In addition to the M.2 slots, there are four SATA3  ports located just to the right of the two DRAM slots which support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. Between the two different ports, there is plenty of storage capabilities for game or movie/music libraries. 

The back panel IO gives us a total of five USB 3.0 ports (4 x Type-A and 1 x Type-C), although more USB 3.0 can be enabled through the internal header. We can see the Intel CNVi based Wi-Fi module as well as a three-jack audio stack from the Realtek ALC1220 . For display outputs, the H370N has a single full-size DisplayPort and two HDMI ports. The unique feature here is one of the HDMI ports is HDMI 2.0. The 2.0 protocol allows for full-resolution 4K 3D along with higher framerate 2D content (up to 60 FPS). This is made possible due to the integrated Megachips MCDP2800 controller found on the motherboard. A cursory glance at the other H370 boards on the market shows this is the only H370 Mini-ITX board with this support. If you are in need of 60 FPS 4K through integrated graphics, the H370N WIFI has what is needed. 

Pricing on the GIGABYTE H370N WIFI is $128.65 at Newegg. There are two other Mini-ITX H370 boards there as well, one from ASRock (H370M-ITX/ac - $107.87) and ASUS (ROG Strix H370iI Gaming - $138.55). The ASRock at ~$108 is the least well-appointed of the group with one M.2 slot, an older audio chipset, as well as notably slower Wi-FI capabilities, though it does offer six SATA ports - two more than the other boards. Outside of that, the ASUS and GIGABYTE boards are going to come down to price and aesthetics and whether or not one needs 4K60 from the board itself. 

GIGABYTE H370 Strategy

GIGABYTE has released a few boards using the H370 chipset. The "H" 370 series boards come in all shapes and sizes including Mini-ITX, MicroATX, and ATX form factors offering the users a variety of sizes and features. The H370 chipset brings Intel CNVi Wi-Fi support with speeds up to 1.73 Gbps, as well as many of the features we have seen in the Z370 chipset. The H/B chipsets for Coffee Lake offer users a more affordable cost to move into the latest Intel CPUs and do so in part by locking overclocking on these chipsets to which many users will drop in a locked processor anyway. 

GIGABYTE's H370 Motherboard Lineup
	AnandTech Review	Amazon	Newegg
H370 AORUS Gaming 3 WIFI		$140	$139
H370 AORUS Gaming 3		-	-
H370 HD3		$99	$97
H370M D3H		$95	$95
H370M DS3H		$90	$90
H370N WIFI	[this review]	$129	$129

 

Information on Intel's Coffee-Lake CPU Desktop Processors

One important piece of information to note: technically these processors use the LGA1151 socket, also used by 6th and 7th Generation processors using the Z170 and Z270 chipsets. But due to several (albeit minor) difference in the pin-layout of these two sets of processors, the 8th Generation Coffee Lake will only work in Z370 boards and are not cross compatible. Back in October 2017, Ian Cutress reviewed a couple of processors (i7-8700K and i7-8400) in the Coffee Lake lineup - details on the rest of the product stack are listed below.

 

Sections In This Review

This review has the following pages:

1. Overview
2. Visual Inspection
3. BIOS and Software
4. Board Features
5. Benchmark Overview
6. System Performance
7. CPU Performance
8. Gaming Performance
9. Conclusions

 

Visual Inspection

Small form factor boards, like the Mini-ITX H370N WIFI we are looking at today, do not have a lot of room to make the boards look pretty. Typically we see heatsinks that can give the boards some flare, and perhaps some stenciled pattern working its way through any of the free space on the PCB. In this case, the H370N WIFI doesn't use any stenciling on the black PCB but uses the heatsinks and RGB LEDs to give it some life. At a high level, we see CPU power and three 4-pin (hybrid) fan headers up top, two DRAM slots, SATA ports, and ATX power on the right, while a black PCH heatsink, a reinforced PCIe slot, and the first (of two) M.2 slots are just above it. The back of the board is where the second M.2 slot is hiding out. 

A total of four RGB LEDs are on the bottom left-hand corner of the board under the audio stack which gives the board a nice, if unbalanced, glow when in use. If additional lighting is needed, the board does have a 4-pin RGB header located just below the front USB 3.0 header on the bottom right-hand corner of the board. It also has a 3-pin digital RGB header just behind the Wireless module. The integrated and attached RGB LEDs are controlled through GIGABYTE's RGB Fusion software. 

 

Being an 'H' series board, we know that the intent here is to use a locked processor and run things as Intel designed them. In other words, there isn't any overclocking on the board for the CPU and Memory. To that end, we will not see incredibly robust power delivery bits as it does not need to support more than what the CPU is listed at stock. 

In this case, GIGABYTE uses an Intersil ISL95866 multi-phase (4+3) PWM controller driving On Semiconductor NTMFS4C06N and NTMFS4C10N MOSFETs. Feeding power to these IC's is a single 8-pin EPS 12V connector. 

Spinning the board around, on the right side we are able to see the two DDR4 DRAM slots supporting up to 32GB of DDR4-2666 RAM in grey, while the four black SATA ports are vertically oriented located closer to the edge of the board. We can also see the USB3.0 and USB 2.0 headers as well as the front panel header in white in the middle. There are a lot of connections shoe-horned in there, but, with the size of the board, there isn't much else board designers can do. 

Above is a closeup of the SATA and USB ports/headers and the front panel header. As with most boards, RAID 0,1, and 10 is supported through SATA. 

The bottom part of the board is where we'll find the first M.2 slot with the connector just to the right of the PCH heatsink supporting up to 80mm drives. I am a bit concerned with the chipset heatsink sitting immediately below as those devices get a bit warm as is without the help of something else so close. 

There is no special arrangement for audio, except a few filter caps. The Realtek ALC1220-VB is nominally a 7.1 channel audio codec, however GIGABYTE has chosen only to give a 2.1 jack stack.

The back panel IO has a total of five USB ports, three display outputs for the integrated GPU, dual RJ-45 ports for the Intel-based NICs, the CNVi based Wi-Fi module, and a 3-plug audio stack. Some may feel a bit claustrophobic with five USB ports (and no USB 3.1 10 Gbps ports), but outside of that, has what is needed for most users. The board offers dual HDMI ports with one supporting HDMI 1.4, the other, supporting HDMI 2.0 through its Megachips MCDP2800 converter chip which will allow 4K at up to 60 FPS - a feature found on only a few motherboards. 

• 1 x DisplayPort
• 2 x HDMI
• 1 x USB 3.0 Type-C
• 4 x USB 3.0
• 2 x RJ-45
• 2 x SMA antenna connectors
• 3 x Audio Jacks

In the Box

GIGABYTE Includes the following:

• User's Manual
• Quick Installation Guide
• Driver Disk
• 2 x SATA cables
• SMA antenna
• Rear I/O plate

BIOS

GIGABYTE's BIOS for the H370N WIFI has a black background and red accent colors, akin to a number of gaming-focused BIOSes already on the market. Also like many boards, the H370N starts off with an easy mode, but also has a more classic mode where all of the advanced features accessible and located within multiple sections listed across the top. Overall, the BIOS was smooth to operate in with the keyboard or mouse and offers plenty of options for the end user to configure their system. 

The Easy Mode screen (above) is more informative than functional displaying information about the system in general from the BIOS version, to installed CPU/Memory and its speed, voltages and temperatures for the CPU, as well as storage and fan information. Users are able to access and change the boot sequence as well as jump into the Smart Fan 5 feature and customize fan curves. 

The 'advanced' section of the BIOS drops all informative data and has a total of seven sections across the top each with varying functionality underneath. The M.I.T section is where users are able to adjust frequency, memory, and voltage settings along with viewing the PC health (temperature/voltage) status. Smart Fan 5 is also accessible through this section.  

The System section is more a static informational screen that displays system information such as the model name of the board, bios version and date, access levels as well as system date and time (editable). 

Inside the BIOS section are options to tweak the Boot configuration from boot order to priorities as well as the location to enable/disable the fast boot option. 

Ther Peripherals section is where users are able to adjust the onboard controllers. The ability o adjust from where the initial display output goes, to LAN and SATA controllers, will be found here. Additional options for USB as well as SATA and NVMe configurations are within this section. 

In the Chipset section, we are able to enable/disable functions such as the internal graphics on the CPU, the audio controller, as well as the chipset based LAN controller. 

The Power section display options for the users to configure how the system responds to a power outage, how to behave when hitting the power button, and other options. 

That last BIOS screenshot above is Smart Fan 5. Here we are able to setup pre-configured fan curves as well as custom fan curves based on temperature. It is also able to send alarms for fan failures and when the temperature gets too high. 

Software

GIGABYTE includes a software suite covering items from drivers and utilities, to audio and RGB control among others. GIGABYTE uses an App Center to centrally house any of their installed utilities for easy access. These will come in the form of a disk inside the box or the latest version of all the software is available online at the motherboard website. 

The first image we see above is the included driver disk. If getting the latest from the website prior to installation isn't your thing (or possible), the driver disk is your go-to device for driver and software installation. The driver disk includes some fluff (seen above) as well as the drivers for the chipset, Intel ME, USB, Networking, and more. 

The APP Center is Gigabyte's centralized repository for their installed applications. Instead of causing clutter on the desktop with multiple icons from whatever is installed, they are found and can be launched from here. 

Updating the BIOS on the H370N WIFI should be fairly easy with the included @BIOS software. This small footprint application allows users to update and save the BIOS in a variety of ways from pulling it down from the GIGABYTE servers to updating from a file. It also displays an information only screen showing the flash memory size and type as well as the current BIOS version and vendor. The latest version was already installed so we were not able to test out the application. 

The Easy Tune application also finds its way to the H370 board, except it has limited overclocking functionality due to the chipset it is on. That said, it can still be quite useful for monitors and other adjustments. 

Very few motherboards are without RGB LEDs these days, and the H370N has a few on the underside. As a result, these are controlled by the RGB Fusion Software. The application has several different pre-defined light shows in three categories depending on the effect with many able to be customized even further. Overall the RGB LEDs did their thing and changing the illumination through this software was straightforward. 

Last but not least is the Realtek HD Audio Manager software. This application is GIGABYTE's take on the Realtek software able to control and shape the sound to the users liking. There are pre-defined sound stages as well as the ability to manipulate the sound properties yourself with the grahpic equalizer. 

Board Features

The GIGABYTE H370N WIFI is a Mini-ITX size motherboard based on the 'H' series chipset. The H370, B360, and H310 chipsets all extend an olive branch to builders on a budget who plan to purchase Intel's locked-down processors by reducing the cost associated with getting into a Coffee Lake system. By removing the ability to overclock the CPU and RAM, it provides a more palatable base when using locked 8th generation CPUs. The board supports up to 32GB DDR4 RAM up to 2666 speeds, sports the latest Intel CNVi interface for wireless offering 1.73 Gbps data rate and 160 MHz wireless channels. Networking is further supplimented by dual Intel gigabit Ethernet ports. The H370N features the latest Realtek ALC1220 codecs for audio along with Chemicon audio caps. As far as storage goes, the board should give users enough options with four SATA ports as well as two M.2 ports for high-speed storage. In the end, the H370N WIFI is a handsomely appointed board for its size. The only thing it is really missing is a USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) port or two.

GIGABYTE H370N WIFI
Warranty Period	3 Years
Product Page	LINK
Price	$130 (Amazon)
Size	Mini-ITX
CPU Interface	LGA1151
Chipset	Intel H370
Memory Slots (DDR4)	Two DDR4 Dual Channel Supporting 32GB Up to DDR4 2666
Network Connectivity / Wi-Fi	1 x Intel I219V GbE 1 x Intel I211-AT GbE
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC1220 7.1ch surround
Video Outputs	1 x HDMI (2.0) 1 x HDMI (1.4) 1 x DisplayPort (1.2)
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU)	1 x PCIe 3.0
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH)	N/A
Onboard SATA	4 x RAID 0/1/5/10
Onboard SATA Express	None
Onboard M.2	1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA modes 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4
Onboard U.2	None
USB 3.1	N/A
USB 3.0	Chipset 1 x Type-C 6 x (4 back panel, 2 through headers)
USB 2.0	Chipset 2 x onboard headers
Power Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX 1 x 8-pin CPU
Fan Headers	1 x 4-pin CPU 2 x 4-pin System
IO Panel	1 x DisplayPort 2 x HDMI 1 x USB Type-C 4 x USB Type-A 2 x SMA antenna connectors 3 x Audio jacks

We've also included an image of the block diagram showing the internal workings of the motherboard.

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC sub timings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend our testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency/monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

Test Setup
Processor	Intel i7 8700K (6C/12T, 3.7G, 95W)
Motherboard	GIGABYTE H370N WIFI (BIOS F4)
Cooling	Corsair H115i
Power Supply	Corsair HX750
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x8GB DDR4 2666 CL16 Corsair Vengeance 4x4GB DDR4 3200 CL16 used in 2x 4/8GB capacity on dual Channel Platform
Memory Settings	DDR4 2666 CL16-18-18-35 2T
Video Cards	ASUS Strix GTX 980
Hard Drive	Crucial MX300 1TB
Optical Drive	TSST TS-H653G
Case	Open Test Bed
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

We use our Core i7-8700K to assist in drawing parity with the Z370 boards we have tested, but it also puts additional stress on the motherboards that have these cheaper chipsets. The boards should still all be able to run the K processors without issue, so we put them to the test.

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this testbed specifically but is used in other testing.

Thank you to ASUS for providing us with GTX 980 Strix GPUs. At the time of release, the STRIX brand from ASUS was aimed at silent running, or to use the marketing term: '0dB Silent Gaming'. This enables the card to disable the fans when the GPU is dealing with low loads well within temperature specifications. These cards equip the GTX 980 silicon with ASUS' Direct CU II cooler and 10-phase digital VRMs, aimed at high-efficiency conversion. Along with the card, ASUS bundles GPU Tweak software for overclocking and streaming assistance.

The GTX 980 uses NVIDIA's GM204 silicon die, built upon their Maxwell architecture. This die is 5.2 billion transistors for a die size of 298 mm², built on TMSC's 28nm process. A GTX 980 uses the full GM204 core, with 2048 CUDA Cores and 64 ROPs with a 256-bit memory bus to GDDR5. The official power rating for the GTX 980 is 165W.

The ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB (or the full name of STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5) runs a reasonable overclock over a reference GTX 980 card, with frequencies in the range of 1178-1279 MHz. The memory runs at stock, in this case, 7010 MHz. Video outputs include three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI 2.0 connector, and a DVI-I.

Further Reading: AnandTech's NVIDIA GTX 980 Review

 

Thank you to Crucial for providing us with MX300 SSDs. Crucial stepped up to the plate as our benchmark list grows larger with newer benchmarks and titles, and the 1TB MX300 units are strong performers. Based on Marvell's 88SS1074 controller and using Micron's 384Gbit 32-layer 3D TLC NAND, these are 7mm high, 2.5-inch drives rated for 92K random read IOPS and 530/510 MB/s sequential read and write speeds.

The 1TB models we are using here support TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 (eDrive) encryption and have a 360TB rated endurance with a three-year warranty.

Further Reading: AnandTech's Crucial MX300 (750 GB) Review

 

Thank you to Corsair for providing us with Vengeance LPX DDR4 Memory, HX750 Power Supply, and H115i CPU Cooler. 

Corsair kindly sent a 4x8GB DDR4 2666 set of their Vengeance LPX low profile, high-performance memory for our stock testing. The heatsink is made of pure aluminum to help remove heat from the sticks and has an eight-layer PCB. The heatsink is a low profile design to help fit in spaces where there may not be room for a tall heat spreader; think a SFF case or using a large heatsink. Timings on this specific set come in at 16-18-18-35. The Vengeance LPX line supports XMP 2.0 profiles for easily setting the speed and timings. It also comes with a limited lifetime warranty. 

Powering the test system is Corsair's HX750 Power Supply. This HX750 is a dual mode unit able to switch from a single 12V rail (62.5A/750W) to a five rail CPU (40A max ea.) and is also fully modular. It has a typical selection of connectors, including dual EPS 4+4 pin four PCIe connectors and a whopping 16 SATA power leads, as well as four 4-pin Molex connectors.

The 135mm fluid dynamic bearing fan remains off until it is 40% loaded offering complete silence in light workloads. The HX750 comes with a ten-year warranty. 

In order to cool these CPUs, Corsair sent over its latest and largest AIO in the H115i. This closed-loop system uses a 280mm radiator with 2x140mm SP140L PWM controlled fans. The pump/block combination mounts to all modern CPU sockets. Users are also able to integrate this cooler into the Corsair link software via USB for more control and options. 

Benchmark Overview

For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.

The benchmarks fall into several areas:

Short Form CPU

Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.

CPU Short Form Benchmarks
Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM)	3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature.
	The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized.
WinRAR 5.4	WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance.
POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4	POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark.
HandBrake v1.0.2	HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test.
7-Zip 9.2	7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results.
DigiCortex v1.20	The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up.

 

System Benchmarks

Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.

System Benchmarks
Power Consumption	One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet.
Non-UEFI POST Time	The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST.
Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5	Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise.
USB Backup	USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard.
DPC Latency	Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks.

Gaming

Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games. 

System Performance

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, but also the ability for the manufacturer to optimize USB speed, audio quality (based on audio codec), POST time and latency. This can come down to manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single GPU configuration with a wall meter connected to the Corsair HX 750 power supply. This power supply is Platinum rated. As I am in the US on a 120 V supply, leads to ~87% efficiency > 75W, and 92%+ efficiency at 375W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.

The Power Consumption tests show the Gigabyte H370N WIFI looking pretty good overall. In the idle tests, it is right up there with the best of them at 39W long Idle and 41W OS idle. Load wattage was the lowest of all boards tested so far at 119W. I haven't been able to pin down an obvious reason as the clock speeds are all the same. It is a much smaller board with fewer LEDs and controllers so that likely has something to do with it.  

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 10 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.

POST times for the H370N WIFI are the fastest tested so far at 19.8s default and 18.3s stripped. I confirmed any fast boot options were disabled in the optimized default setting we run (it was) to make sure. I had to test this board on another monitor as the knock-off Yamakasi I use for testing (M280PU) wouldn't keep the initial signal for whatever reason. It would show it has a signal, then not... by the time it got a signal again, it was sitting in Windows. Hooking this up to the Acer Predator I have allowed me to see the POST process and determine accurately when it hands off to the system. 

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds. 

Our DPC latency results for the H370N WIFI reached 294µs placing it in the middle of some varying results. The rule of thumb here is anything under 300µs should allow for smooth audio so it sneaks in under that value. 

CPU Performance, Short Form

For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We leave the BIOS settings at default and memory at JEDEC for the supported frequency of the processor for these tests, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.

Rendering - Blender 2.78: link

For a render that has been around for what seems like ages, Blender is still a highly popular tool. We managed to wrap up a standard workload into the February 5 nightly build of Blender and measure the time it takes to render the first frame of the scene. Being one of the bigger open source tools out there, it means both AMD and Intel work actively to help improve the codebase, for better or for worse on their own/each other's microarchitecture.

The H370N WIFI completed the Blender benchmark in 312 seconds. This result is a bit slower than the main grouping by a couple seconds. The range of results spans a range of around 4% from the fastest to slowest with the majority of results hovering around the 306s median. 

Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.

POV-Ray results show the Mini-ITX board hanging with the pack in this thread heavy benchmark. All boards ran the benchmark at the same clock speed of 4.3 GHz. This particular group of results is very tight with around a 1% difference (margin of error) separating the meat of the results. 

Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link

Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.

The WinRAR results show our little board completing this test in 44 seconds. This result is slowest we have seen, by almost 10%. All clocks and speeds were the same and we did not see any throttling listed through a sanity check. 

Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link

As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.

The 7-Zip results have the H370N WIFI scoring 38594. We end up with yet another result mixing in with others we have so far. 

Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link

3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.

In 3DPM21, The H370N WIFI reached 1813 Mop/s. The scores of all Z370 and i7-8700K testing were within 60 points (around 3%) of each other. The CPUs all ran the same speeds in this test, so again we see a margin of error size differences between our datasets so far. 

Neuron Simulation - DigiCortex v1.20: link

The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. Results are taken during the steady state period in a 32k neuron simulation and represented as a function of the ability to simulate in real time (1.000x equals real-time).

The DigiCortex results have the H370N WIFI with a result of 0.96 matching the SuperO board. Nothing of note with that result. DigiCortex does show a decent spread between results which is different than we have seen previously with 6% separating the best from worst. 

Gaming Performance

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity is a Real Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any system differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph. 

For the AOTSe results, in 1080p the GIGABYTE board ran with an average of 42.7 FPS which was at the bottom of a pretty tight group, a couple percent behind the Apex leading the pack. 4K UHD results placed the board right in the middle of the pack. Nothing is out of place here. 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.

One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.

Rise of the Tomb Raider results for the have the GIGABYTE H370N coming in a bit slower than the rest of the results at 86.7. This is a few FPS behind the group. Moving up to the 4K UHD resolution where subsystems outside of the video card hold less weight, the system pulls right back up to the group within 1 FPS of the pack. 

Conclusion

When looking for a small form factor board like a Mini-ITX, people are looking for a small footprint. With this lack of real estate, there are ultimately some sacrifices that need to be made. In many cases, it's an M.2 slot, or two, that is forfeited, compared to its larger ATX brothers, or limiting the memory to only one module per channel. In this case, the H370N WIFI offers two M.2 ports by placing one on the front, and one on the back. The H370 chipset supports a maximum of six SATA ports, but in this case, GIGABYTE has only enabled four on the board. This can save space and also prevent port sharing and gives full availability to the onboard headers regardless if all are populated. The H370N WIFI is a jack of all trades motherboard designed for those who are not interested in paying a premium for other SFF boards that include features they do not use (such as overclocking). The $130 price point can be an attractive part of the package compared to some of the more expensive Z370 based Mini-ITX options available. 

We talked about design aesthetics earlier and while the H370N isn't a perfect 10, it surely will not make anyone wince in displeasure with its black PCB and jet black heatsinks with white designs on it. The RGB LEDs on the bottom help with environmental illumination, but don't really do much for the board itself. This is a common design feature of these boards do not include RGB lighting on top - there just isn't a lot of room and many times these smaller boards are meant to be hidden anyway. 

About the only updates I would add to this board is USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) support through either a back or front panel header and perhaps more USB ports in general. I would also like to have seen some kind of heatsink on the front M.2 port, especially considering the chipset heatsink is sitting right below it. Outside of that, I didn't have any complaints as what features we use and test worked fine in my experience with the board. 

On the performance side of things, the H370N WIFI kept it on the bell curve we've established, though it was towards the bottom. Most of the differences can be attributed to run variance, however. The board did excel in power consumption in both our idle and load scenarios. The load scenario used almost 20W less power than the other boards we have tested so far even though it tests at the same clock speed (4.3 GHz all core turbo). We cannot speak to CPU overclocking as the board does not support that functionality. 

The GIGABYTE H370N WIFI is a capable Mini-ITX size motherboard. The feature set is comparable to other H370 Mini-ITX boards and even some Z370 boards, minus the overclocking of course. The board supports dual M.2 ports and four SATA ports which should be plenty for most users. The board was stabled during all of our stock testing so it was fine on that front. Choosing the right SFF board (any board, really) will come down to what the users wants and needs as well as pricing. If you are looking for HDMI 2.0 support, this is one of the only H series based Mini-ITX boards that have the Megachips MCDP2800 converter to do so and will allow 4K resolution at 60 FPS.

The H370N WIFI is priced at $130 from Amazon.com with its direct competitor priced a bit higher at ~$140 without offering HDMI 2.0 support. Overall, the GIGABYTE H370N WIFI has proven to be a capable board with many of the features buyers are looking for and the only H370 board so far, and should suit any system builder that doesn't plan on overclocking. 

AnandTech's Coffee Lake and 300-Series Mini-ITX Motherboard Coverage

• The Coffee Lake Review: The Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400
• The Intel Core i7-8086K Review
• Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards
• The ASUS Z370-I Gaming Review
• The Supermicro C7Z370-CG-IW Motherboard Review