Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards
by Ian Cutress, Anton Shilov, Joe Shields & Gavin Bonshor on October 20, 2017 2:00 PM ESTASRock Z370 Pro4
The ASRock Z370 Pro4 falls on the lower end of the Z370 lineup and with that, a few of the features we’ve seen on the other boards don’t manage to make their way here. In an effort to shave a few dollars off, the Pro4 uses one VRM heatsink located on top of the left set, while the top set is left without a heatsink. In some cases, particularly when overclocking, this can lead to overheating, although this is more of an entry-level product. The board is free of any slot reinforcement, but has two M.2 slots, but only one of which is PCIe 3.0 x4 and the other supports only SATA based M.2 drives.
The Pro4’s design is predominately black, with a grey print on the PCB starting from the top of the audio section working its way by the PCIe slots through the chipset heatsink to the edge of the board. For the power delivery, the single heatsink and capacitors stick out on the board like drops of water on colored paper. The Pro4 does not look bad, but it is missing any window dressing (shrouds) and RGB LEDs. In fact, no RGB headers can be found on this board. (Ian: Perhaps that is a good thing.)
Even though this is an entry-level ‘Pro’ board, the full 64GB of memory can be used, with speeds up to DDR4-4266 listed as being supported. There are two full-length PCIe slots, but only the first is powered by the processor for x16 connectivity. The second full-length is a PCIe x4 from the chipset, and there are three other PCIe x1 slots also from the chipset. The final slot on the board is a legacy PCI slot. Overall, SLI is not supported, however Crossfire in x16/x4 mode is a possibility.
Storage options include six SATA ports and two M.2 ports. The SATA ports support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 and also share connectivity with the M.2 slots. If the first M.2 is occupied by a SATA type device, SATA 5 will be disabled. If the second M.2 slot has a SATA type device, SATA 0 will be disabled. Note only the top M.2 slot supports PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds, while the second M.2 slot is relegated to SATA only duties. For USB there are three USB 2.0 and one USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) headers.
Users will find four 4-pin fan headers on the board, with the Chassis Optional/Water Pump fan connector which can deliver a maximum of 1.5A/18W for water pumps that require extra power. The Realtek ALC892 audio codec is from the last generation and uses ELNA audio caps, and although this is a 7.1 channel audio codec, in order to configure 7.1 channel HD audio, the HD front panel audio is required and enabled through the driver. Networking duties are handled by the Intel I219-V gigabit Ethernet controller.
There is no USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) support here - instead, the back panel IO has five USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports and one Type-C port. On the rest of the back panel, users can find a PS/2 port, D-Sub/DVI-D/HDMI video outputs, and a three-jack audio stack.
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sor - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Damn. At least key it differently and call it LGA1151v2 or something.The changes are so minimal it really does seem like planned obsolescence. Does it really need more power pins to support new chips with the same power envelopes? Really? They couldn’t handle that on the CPU PCB?
KaarlisK - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Actually it is ~1.5 times peak current with the same average power envelope, so yes, they need the change.If they had not brought the launch forward and just launched together with the cheap chipsets, there would be far less complaints.
sor - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Where did you find information indicating current has increased 50%? I just spent about ten minutes trying to find a reference backing that up, perhaps something indicating the 8 series operates at a much lower voltage within same TDP, which would translate to higher current but they seem to operate in the same 1.2-1.3v range.You’re not just assuming they draw more current because they have two more cores, are you?
KaarlisK - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Notice the difference between average and peak.And the information is in publicly available documents. I did not bother to look it up, but others have, for example: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/intel-coffee-la...
Crono - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Nice roundup. That's a lot of motherboards to spec and summarize. I especially appreciate the handy chart at the end, it's a good, quick-and-dirty comparison tool.Landcross - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
You guys forgot 2 new Z370 boards from Supermicro :)https://motherboarddb.com/motherboards/?chipset=19...
Xpl1c1t - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
The mITX board looks incredible.+ Low ESR Tantalum capacitors! (first time seeing them on VRM duty on a mainboard)
+ HDMI 2.0
+ 2x M.2 Slots
+ USB 3.1 Type C
+ Optical SPDIF
- RGB.......
MadAd - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Great write up but for me its just another depressing generation of oversized, overpriced ATX form factor offerings on which the vast majority of users wont even plug a second gpu into, with the smaller and more size appropriate FF represented as a minority afterthought.With all the progress of PCs since the 90s whod have thought that I could still use the same ATX case today while every single other component (from floppy drives to 2d Mattrox cards) have long gone to the recyclers. I find it so annoying how manufacturers have stuck on this prehistoric gargantuan case size with the other sizes being an afterthought. It feels like like stifled innovation while everything else is moving on.
rocky12345 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Great article and a lot of work put in to get it out for us to read thank you.My only issue is and it is nit your fault is why these companies feel the need to totally blanket the market with basically the same boards just a different model number and basically a few tiny changes and spray paint it a different color and use the word gaming and put something x or x1 or k,k3 etc etc. For crap sakes just release three models not 7-10 models of the same crap it is pretty much just greed I guess.
The whole market is like this now with anything computer related of and if it has the words GAMING or RGB in it's got to be good for sure. My fav is that gaming mouse pad next it will have RGB lighting in it...lol
CitizenZer0 - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link
Agreed