Today we get an opportunity to look at a board from Supermicro's consumer segment, SuperO. We will look at a Mini-ITX board designed for gaming in the SuperO C7Z370-CW-IW. This diminutive board includes Wi-Fi capabilities, USB 3.1 ports, dual M.2 slots, as well as RGB LED features we are used to seeing in a board designed for gaming, all in a Mini-ITX sized package. 

SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW Overview

The board we have today is pegged to be a gaming motherboard and is of Mini-ITX size. Though just because it is small, not much is missing - the C7Z370-CG-IW includes both wired and wireless LAN (Intel and Realtek driven respectively), dual M.2 slots, four SATA ports, and a VRM capable of handling the CPU both stock and overclocked. With a lack of real estate compared to MicroATX or ATX boards, about the only thing missing here is the ability to SLI or Crossfire (only one PCIe slot), as well as the maximum amount of DRAM is 32GB since there are only two slots. Outside of that, there isn't much missing and the C7Z370-CG-IW comes across as a well-rounded board, especially for its size. 

We don't expect to hear the term gaming associated with SuperMicro much as they stick to server boards for the most part. SuperO on the other hand (think of it like AORUS is to GIGABYTE) brings to the table whole systems, chassis, and motherboards which they say has server DNA under the surface but gaming features on the outside. SuperO has been a presence in the market since the Z87 chipset hit the scene a few years back. Since that time, they have brought out more motherboards in three different classes - Core Business (designed for high uptime), Core Gaming (focuses on essentials for professionals, gamers seeking a well-round option), and Professional Gaming (flagships of the SuperO line, latest features and performance) and have a seemingly well balanced set of SKUs covering multiple use scenarios. SuperO is hoping the trust they built in the server space continues to translate over to the consumer side as their board certification process is similar to what is used on the server level boards. 

This leads into explaining the naming: C7Z370-CG-IW is a bit of a mouthful. Breaking it down:

• C7 : Consumer
• Z370 : Z370 Chipset
• CG: Core Gaming
• I : Mini-ITX
• W : Wi-Fi

One of the recommendations we would put to the SuperO team is to have an easier naming system!

For the Z370 chipset, SuperO currently has two motherboards available, a full sized (ATX) C7Z370-CG-L, and the C7Z370-CG-IW we have for review here. The 200-series platform has a total of eight boards varying from the B250 and H270, up to the Z270 chipsets. I would gather as time goes on we will see more offerings covering their Professional Gaming and Core Business segments. For this review, we will be working with the only Mini-ITX board they have released in the C7Z370-CG-IW. 

In our performance numbers, it is worth noting that in our shipping BIOS came an odd set of default parameters. The motherboard TDP limit was defaulting to 65W, perhaps because this is what the system engineers think is the suitable limit for a board of this size. No other manufacturer does this - if they have a smaller system that has a peak TDP, then this is listed in CPU support, not forced through default BIOS options. As a result, should any user want a 65W+ CPU in this board, then BIOS adjustments will have to be made.

The benchmark numbers when the TDP limit was lifted were as expected. Power consumption at idle for a smaller sized motherbroard was lower than the larger systems, however second-tier motherboard manufacturers often fail at metrics like POST time, and the CG-IW here takes around 10 seconds longer to POST than other Z370 boards from top-tier vendors. For most of the rest of the throughput benchmarks, the system was in the often within a percentage point of the top performing system, albeit in the bottom half of the stack.

 

Our overclocking results were a bit disappointing. In fact, due to the 65W imposed BIOS limit at stock speeds, during any testing that included AVX (Prime95, POVRay, and Blender) we saw power limit throttling which resulted in lower scoring benchmarks. Once the power limit was raised, the results were right in line with the rest of the data sets we have, except in peak frequency. Auto overclocking didn't yield much as it raised the voltage too high almost immediately, causing current limits to be hit. Manual overclocking wasn't terribly fruitful either. We were able to push all core clocks to 4.4 GHz on this board, whereas the other Z370 boards tested happily ran up to 5 GHz. The issue here according to Intel XTU was Current Limit Throttling. The problem is the board doesn't appear to have settings for current we can raise to get around it. If pushing heavy overclocks is your thing, you will have to look at other boards (ASUS ROG Strix Z370I Gaming for example). On the memory side, the board is only rated to DDR4-2666, however our DDR-3200 kit ran when XMP was applied.

For connectivity, the C7Z370-CG-IW has one full-length PCIe slot, connected via CPU, and no others on the board. The back panel I/O has a legacy PS/2 port, four USB 3.0 ports, a DisplayPort 1.2 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, the Realtek Wi-Fi card, an Intel I219-V port, two USB 3.1 ports, and the 7.1 channel audio stack. The number of USB ports available on the back may be a bit light for some. This is due in part to the orientation of the Wi-Fi antenna leads are oriented horizontally instead of vertical which would allow another stack on the back. The HDMI 2.0 is enabled by an LSPCon.

Pricing on the C7Z370-CG-IW comes in at $191 on Newegg. By form factor, the SuperO Mini-ITX board will compete with the likes of the ASUS ROG Strix Z370I-Gaming at $179 and MSI Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon AC also at $179. GIGABYTE also throws its hat into the Mini-ITX ring with its Z370N WiFi priced at $160 while ASRock has the Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac sitting at $180. Prices are all within a stones throw of each other and most have similar features - the differences are to be found in the fine details such as front panel USB 3.1 support, USB ports, fan headers, or the options in the BIOS which can allow the boards to reach peak overclock. 

Other AnandTech Z370 Motherboard Reviews:

• The Anandtech Coffee Lake Review: Initial Numbers on the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400
• Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards
   
• ($397) The ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex Review [planned]
• ($250) The NZXT N7 Z370 Review [LINK]
• ($180) The ASUS Z370-I Gaming [planned]
• ($191) The SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW Review [this review]
• ($150) The GIGABYTE Z370 Ultra Gaming Review [planned]
• ($144) The GIGABYTE Z370 Gaming WiFi Review [planned]

SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW Visual Inspection

Our first close up of the Mini-ITX sized board shows us there is a lot squeezed in this tiny amount of space. The board chooses a rather plain design without any aesthetic stenciling allowing for easy integration into most systems. We can see the 4+2 phase power delivery at the 9 o'clock and 12 o'clock positions around the socket as well as a rather thin, but tall, silver-colored heatsink on top of the four phases on the left. This C7Z370 has two reinforced DRAM slots able to support up to 32GB of DDR4 in dual channel mode. The single PCIe slot is also reinforced and receives the full x16 bandwidth from the CPU. 

Most headers on the board are found across the top, including the 8-pin EPS 12V, RGB header, two fan headers, and the front panel header are all across the top. Also along the top are a couple of LEDs for NIC activity as well as fan failure headers - features more typically associated with server level boards. The right side contains the 24-pin ATX 12V connector as well as four SATA ports. The chipset heatsink sits directly above the PCIe slot with the first M.2 slot stretching across it over the 'SuperO' name (second M.2 slot is on the back of the board). 

The C7Z370's RGB LED implementation comes from 12 LEDs located on the back side of the board under the 24-pin ATX connector extending down the length of the board to the SATA connectors. Outside of that, the board is void of other aesthetic RGB LEDs. The RGB LEDs are addressable in three groups of four and controlled by the SuperOBoost software. 

 

The SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW has a total of two fan 4-pin fan headers both located across the top of the motherboard. Each header supports both DC and PWM control and can be controlled through the BIOS or the SuperOBooster application. Though it only has two headers, each header supports a maximum of 2.5A (30W) output which allows users to piggyback a couple of fans onto one header. 

The VRM is a 4+2 phase configuration with four responsible for delivering power to the CPU Vcore and the other two assigned for the iGPU. This is the first time we have seen power delivery parts all made from Monolithic Power Systems. The board uses an MPS MP2955V digital multiphase controller working in conjunction with the MP86908 50A Intelli-Phase integrated power stage. The other voltage domains including VCCSA, VCCIO, and Memory use MPQ8633 step down controllers rated at 12A each. 

The right side of the board holds the 24-pin ATX connector and the four vertically oriented SATA ports. On the other side of the DRAM slots close to the PCIe slot is a front panel USB 3.0 header. Outside of that, there isn't too much to see outside of some power bits in between. 

A closeup of the four SATA ports. The Z370 platform supports up to six SATA ports, but due to a lack of board real estate and to eliminate port sharing with the M.2 devices, SuperO chose to use four. Between the two M.2 devices and four SATA ports, this should be plenty for most users, particularly those using this for gaming or an HTPC. What could be said about these ports however is that due to the way that SATA cables use latching mechanisms, in this orientation it means that any user wanting to remove a cable from the ports on the bottom will have to remove the cable from the top port first. There are ways to design around this.

 

The bottom picture shows a close up of the reinforced PCIe slot as well as a the jumpers below it. The jumpers include chassis intrusion, ME manufacturer mode, clear CMOS, and an OC button. 

The back panel IO is devoid of many colors outside of the USB but has most of what we come to expect from a mid-range motherboard. From left to right we have:

• PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Port
• 4 x USB 3.0 ports
• HDMI (2.0) / DisplayPort
• 1 x Wi-Fi
• 1 Intel GbE
• 2 x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports Type-A and Type-C
• 7.1-Channel Audio jacks

In the Box

Second-tier motherboard manufacturers like Supermicro are not as keen on adding items into the box as others - here we get the standard set of materials, including SATA cables and Wi-Fi antennas. Interestingly we do get four SATA cables, one for each port, which is perhaps a little unexpected.

• Motherboard
• I/O Shield
• Quick Reference Guide
• 4 x SATA Cables
• Driver CD
• Metal Badge
• Cable Stickers
• Wi-Fi + BT Antenna

BIOS

The SuperO BIOS starts off with an EZ Mode which displays pertinent information about the current system state. Across the top gives date/time as well motherboard and BIOS version as well as information about the CPU (clock speed, BCLK, VCore) and Memory (capacity, frequency, voltage), and includes temperature readings for the CPU and chipset. 

Users are able to change the boot order and HDD list on the right side. As a side note about booting - the board arrives by default setup for legacy BIOS and I was unable to get the drive within the boot order until it was switched to UEFI. Outside of that, we are also able to load CPU profiles, enable/disable XMP profiles, as well as enable/disable Fast Boot from the EZ Mode Screen. One thing that does look out of place however is the text clipping between the motherboard name and some of the information.

Once in the Advanced Mode, the bottom 2/3 of the screen changes with a menu on the left side and display areas to the right. There are a total of six sections - CPU, Memory, Advanced, Thermal & Fan, Save & Exit, and BIOS Update. The BIOS is a new design from SuperO compared to past offerings. While most items are located in logical places, if you have never used a consumer level SuperO board, it may take a bit of getting used to. 

The CPU section is information on the first page with three options to dig down. The CPU Overclocking section (two smaller images below) contains most of the options needed for overclocking including CPU Ratio, BCLK, Voltages, and power limits among other items (no current limit settings, more on this in the overclocking section). The CPU configuration section is where we can enable/disable CPU specific features such as Hyperthreading or VT-d for example. 

 

The Memory section holds the keys to editing anything memory related. Users are able to enable XMP profiles, change memory frequency, timings, and voltage within this section. The board offers a lot of primary, secondary, and tertiary timings that can all be edited. There still needs to be tweaking with this design however, as shown with the inability to line up values in the list below.

 

The Advanced section contains multiple sub-headings where system features are able to be accessed and edited. Items such as Boot Features, Graphics Configuration, SATA and RST Configuration, and USB configuration among several others. 

 

The Thermal & Fan section displays system temperatures as well as voltages from the power supply as well as internally on the motherboard. Inside this section, users are able to configure fan speeds for each header. There are standard profiles as well as the ability to customize each. 

The Save and Exit section contains boot mode selections (Legacy and Dual) as well as boot order priorities. In order to get the board to recognize my standard SSD in the boot order, I needed to change it to 'Dual' upon first boot. Though oddly enough, once I selected dual and set back to optimized defaults, the drive was still there even though it was in Legacy mode again. 

Last but not least is the BIOS Update page. When selecting the Start Update function on this screen we are prompted to go to the SuperO website to download it, or not. If you click No, it will then open up a dialog box looking for the BIOS file. In previous generations it has been a struggle to update the BIOS on these sorts of boards, however we are glad to now have the option.

Overall, the BIOS worked out pretty well. As mentioned earlier, if you are not used to these BIOSes from SuperO, it may take some getting used to, however, almost all functions are there. I would like to have seen current limit settings as well as an LLC option so as to bypass the strict power limits (see overclocking section) and stabilize voltage under load. 

Software

The SuperO C7Z30-CG-IW's driver disk offers a basic list of drivers and software used to set up the system properly. Simply click on any of the buttons and the software will install, however there is not an 'install all in one shot' option (with the ability to deselect items not needed) as with the primary motherboard manufacturers. The latest drivers will need to be downloaded from the website as this disk as there is no live update tool.

The SuperOBooster software is SuperO's Windows-based utility for monitoring and overclocking/tweaking the system, updating the BIOS, as well as controlling the RGB LED lighting on/attached to the board. It also has profiles for overclocking with an OC Mode and an Auto Tuning function said to find the best overclock for the board. 

The Luminous section below is used for manipulating the RGB LEDs on board. It has a total of six different profiles users are able to select plus an off function to set these up just the way the user likes. 

For Audio, SuperO uses the premium ALC1220 codec and does not use additional software on top. Below is the Realtek HD Audio Manager software used to adjust any audio feature from pre-defined room acoustics to custom equalization. Your audio options will all be found here. 

Board Features

The SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW is the first gaming Mini-ITX board from the company, and according to SuperO is 'loaded with features that all gamers and enthusiasts would enjoy in a small, portable package'. The board has a 4+2 phase power delivery system with digital PWMs, Dr. MOS, and Ferrite chokes, as well as customizeable RGB LEDs, dual M.2 slots, and the SuperO Booster software for monitoring and tweaking the system. 

SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW
Warranty Period	3 Years
Product Page	LINK
Price	$192 (Newegg)
Size	Mini-ITX
CPU Interface	LGA1151
Chipset	Intel Z370
Memory Slots (DDR4)	Two DDR4 Dual Channel Supporting 32GB Up to DDR4 2666
Network Connectivity / Wi-Fi	1 x Intel I219V GbE 1 x Realtek TRL9922BE Wi-Fi ac 2T/2R
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC1220 7.1ch surround
Video Outputs	1 x HDMI (2.0) 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	2 x PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA modes
Onboard U.2	None
USB 3.1	ASMedia ASM3142 1 x Type-A 1 x Type-C
USB 3.0	Chipset 4 x back panel 2 x onboard 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 1 x 4-pin System Fan *Hybrid control, 2.5A max on each header
IO Panel	5 x USB 3.0 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C 1 x DisplayPort 1 x HDMI (2.0) 1 x Wi-Fi 1 x LAN (RJ45 port) 1 x Optical SPDIF Out port 1 x 7.1-ch Audio jacks

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	SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW (BIOS 1.0c)
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

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 high-TDP HEDT 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.

All of our tests were done with the 65W Power Limit removed unless where stated.

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.

In the Power Consumption testing, we can see the SuperO board uses 38W in Long Idle and 43W while idling in the OS. These values are a couple of watts lower than the other boards tested, but really within the margin of error with our Kill-A-Watt device. Load wattage mixed in with the other boards at 145W while the ASUS ROG SStrix z370-I Gaming leads the pack at 137W - 8W less than the SuperO board. 

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 SuperO have them at 32.1s default and 30.9 seconds stripped which places it at the back of the back. The NZXT N7 Z370 was just in front of it at 30 seconds, while the ASUS Z370 boards far and away took the least time to POST. Those boards do have Fast Boot enabled by default, so it was changed back to disabled for the results you see above. Though the boot times changed (by around 3-4 seconds) it still feels like there is something still enabled. 

Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5

Rightmark:AA indicates how well the sound system is built and isolated from electrical interference (either internally or externally). For this test we connect the Line Out to the Line In using a short six inch 3.5mm to 3.5mm high-quality jack, turn the OS speaker volume to 100%, and run the Rightmark default test suite at 192 kHz, 24-bit. The OS is tuned to 192 kHz/24-bit input and output, and the Line-In volume is adjusted until we have the best RMAA value in the mini-pretest. We look specifically at the Dynamic Range of the audio codec used on board, as well as the Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise.

Due to circumstances currently out of our control, we were unable to get RMAA results for this board, or any X299 board for that matter. The issue continues with Z370 as well. The problem does not lie with the board itself. Once (if) we are able to get it working properly, the space will be updated with data. 

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 on this platform so far, on average, are higher crossing the 300µs threshold with the ROG Maximus Apex. The SuperO, on the other hand, was still higher than our X299 platform and came in at 286µs which lands it the middle of our small dataset. When testing the audio, I did not hear any hitching, lag, or pops. 

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.

All of our tests were done with the 65W Power Limit removed unless where stated.

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.

Our Blender results for SuperO board (in red) shows the stock results coming in almost a minute slower than the rest of the Z370 based results. After investigating why this was, it was determined we were running into the power limit of the board. By default, the first power limit (PL) state was set to 65W, below default TDP of the chip itself. Once that value was raised to 95W or above, the new result (in orange) changed and the SuperO board results were in the ballpark of the other boards tested. If a user is running heavily threaded applications and would like the full power of Intel's CPU, they will need to raise the conservative power limit values. 

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 is another benchmark sensitive to frequency and able to use a lot of cores. Again we see two results on this board with the default scoring much lower than expected at 2842. Once we raised the power limit and re-ran this benchmark, the results fell right in line with the SuperO board reaching 3419 points per second, the second fastest Z370 run so far. It really seems that in order to use this processor fully, power limits need to be raised out of the box in order to prevent throttling at stock speeds with heavy multi-threaded loads. 

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.

WinRAR is another test where cores and threads matter, but not quite as much as we have seen above. The SuperO board drives the i7-8700K to complete this benchmark in 40.9 seconds placing it with the most other Z370 results.

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 show the SuperO board coming in last here with a score of 37591. This is around 1000 points away from what we would consider being the middle of the bell curve. We have a total of six results within 2000 points (or around 5%) of each other. Most of the differences, including the SuperO result, can be attributed to a margin of error or run variance. 

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 SuperO boards reached 1816 Mop/s, which happend to be last in this testing. That said, 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 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 i7-8700K coming in at 0.96, again at the bottom looking up at the others. The results here are all within around 5% as well. 

Gaming Performance

All of our tests were done with the 65W Power Limit removed unless where stated.

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. 

Our AOTSe results here on the Z370 platform are just as close together as our results on the X299 platform. The results can tell us AOTSe can do all of its work with a 6c/12t processor. The SuperO gaming board showed middling results at 1080p reaching 44.1 FPS. When we upped the resolution to 4K, the system was able to produce 32.4 FPS and was single FPS (about 3%) slower than our fastest result so far. One FPS, even down here in the borderline playable range, doesn't seem to make much of a difference in playability of this genre. 

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 SuperO board was 36.3 FPS which was in close proximity to the other results. So far, all of these runs are within a typical run variance and for all intents and purposes, wouldn't notice a difference. 

Overclocking

Experience with the SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW

I will be the first to admit I went into overclocking on the SuperO board with tempered expectations, but mostly because of the board's size and the fact that second tier manufacturers often have issues when it comes to overclocking. Mini-ITX boards aren't typically geared towards pushing overclocks very far, but many still can. In the case of the C7Z370-CG-IW, it was a disappointing outcome. In fact, in our stock testing, we ran into power limit issues with the AVX based multithreaded testing which needed manual intervention to raise the default 65W power limit so its performance would match the other board's performance (*Fixed in BIOS R1.1).

Overclocking using the SuperO Booster software presets didn't give us a huge increase either. The auto-tuning function yielded a 48x single-core result and 4.3 GHz AVX load using all cores/threads at 1.28V. The OC Mode function has a 4.7 GHz single core,  which is the stock boost and runs AVX loads at 4.2 GHz (no offsets). So long as the power limits were raised, which setting the CPU multiplier manually seems to do automatically, then it ran without a hitch. 

In the end, we were able to push the CPU to 4.4 GHz using all cores/threads without an AVX offset. After 4.4 GHz, we would see current limit throttling which then cuts the clock speed back. Running into current limits isn't anything new, however, the BIOS doesn't have options to raise current limit so we were, for all intents and purposes, stuck with the limits from the factory. Perhaps in the future SuperO will release a BIOS with the ability to raise the current limits which will extend overclocking headroom. Along those lines, the board did have significant vdroop. With the voltage set to 1.2V in the BIOS, load voltage dropped to 1.12V according to software. Typically this is combated with load line calibration (LLC) settings in the BIOS, however, this SuperO board does not appear to have LLC options. Vdroop isn't a big deal, in fact, it is part of the Intel specification, but many users prefer to minimize or eliminate vdroop which cannot be done on this board with the current BIOS. 

While a lot of the features and options are found in the C7Z370-CG-IW BIOS, we do have a couple of items missing that would help with overclocking. That said, we also have to realize this is a Mini-ITX sized board and really not intended for pushing overclocks. I do hope with future BIOS releases these options show up so the board is able to flex some of its muscle hidden underneath. 

Overclocking Methodology

Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.

For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (90ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.

Overclocking Results

The C7Z370-CG-IW took our i7-8700K to 4.4 GHz. We mentioned earlier we hit CPU clock speed limits in what I would describe as prematurely and was stopped dead in our tracks because of it. The CPU should be able to reach 5 GHz+ as it did on the NZXT N7. But until current limits are raised, there is a glass ceiling for overclocking on the board. The good news is even though the board supports up to DDR4-2666, it didn't have any issues running the XMP profile for our second set of sticks rated for 3200 MHz. But until the current limit is raised, overclocking is quite limited. 

 

Final Words

Many SFF builds attempt to pack as much performance in to a small box as they can, while others just want an HTPC to put something up on the screen. We haven't tested the other Mini-ITX boards yet on the Z370 platform, but we know from previous experience that a Mini-ITX board can be built to offer a good base of performance and design, each separated only by their features, controllers used, and style. Truth be told, there is nothing that sticks out as a shining star here on this board, however, that isn't really a bad thing. The SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW does have nearly all the features we are to expect out of this platform, even in its tiny size. The board has dual M.2 slots for PCIe drives, four SATA ports for mass storage, supports USB 3.1 on the back panel, uses the latest Realtek ALC1220 codecs, and supports all existing Coffee Lake CPUs, including the flagship i7-8700K. In the end, the C7Z370-CG-IW is a motherboard and has the base tools needed to play games in a small form factor. 

Most gaming motherboards these days has some sort of RGB LED implementation on them and the SuperO board we have is no different. In this case, a strip of RGB LEDs are on the back side of the board under the SATA ports and 24-pin ATX connector. They are able to be customized in groups through the SuperO Booster application and has a few different lighting effects as well as the ability to completely disable if that isn't preferred. 

In the future, we would like to see some adjustments made to the board. First, the power limit is set to 65W which is too low. In our testing, during AVX loads (Blender, POVRay, OCCT, Prime95) we saw power limit throttling which crippled performance in those benchmarks. Raising this limit to 95W (the TDP of the i7-8700K), resolved the issue and performance is right where it should be. Another sore point was the overclocking, which was quite a let down here. The Automatic overclocking raised the voltage too high and neither profile showed better performance over stock and was worse due to current limits being hit. The same goes for manual overclocking. On other boards, 5 GHz wasn't an issue, but here we managed to reach 4.4 GHz before the current limit gets in the way. Now, this is technically Intel specification, but the concern on this board is there are no current limit options in the BIOS to bypass these limits. We reached out to Supermicro when we ran into these issues. They are looking into adding options in a new BIOS release which should add that option in future releases. 

At default, our performance testing lands the C7Z370-CG-IW was right in line with the other boards we have tested so far though in some tests (Blender, POV-Ray), we experienced power limit throttling causing the scores to be well below the average. Once that option was set higher (to 95W), all power limit throttling was gone and all results were in line with the other datasets. It did manage to use a bit less power in idle states, otherwise, it was right there with the others. 

Overall, the SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW is a capable board, if peak performance is not much of a concern. At a price of $191, the SuperO board is at the higher end of the range compared to the competition - given that in the past we have seen ASRock and ASUS mini-ITX boards match the bigger ones with performance and overclocking, it does not bode well for the Supermicro brand here. Most users looking at building a performance-focused small form factor system are likely to approach the top tier vendors. The strengths of the Supermicro board are when the user is not overclocking, however cheaper chipsets are available.

 

Update 5/2:

We have had word from Supermicro - the 65W limit seems to be a run over from the Beta BIOS the board was shipped with (1.0c, the latest online is 1.0, from 10th November). A new BIOS, version 1.1, will be available online in a couple of days to fix this issue. We have asked if this new 1.1 BIOS will have the appropriate microcode mitigations for Smeltdown.

Update 5/18:

The latest BIOS (R1.1), has been confirmed to have the proper 95W power limit at default settings. This change prevents premature throttling during heavy loads at stock settings. We have also confirmed this BIOS does include the appropriate microcode mitigations for Smeltdown. 

Other AnandTech Z370 Motherboard Reviews:

• The Anandtech Coffee Lake Review: Initial Numbers on the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400
• Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards
   
• ($250) The NZXT N7 Z370 Review [LINK]
• ($191) The SuperO C7Z370-CG-IW Review [this review]
• ($150) The GIGABYTE Z370 Ultra Gaming Review [planned]
• ($144) The GIGABYTE Z370 Gaming WiFi Review [planned]
• ($397) The ASUS ROG Maximus X Apex Review [planned]
• ($180) The ASUS Z370-I Gaming [planned]