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 ESTGIGABYTE Z370XP SLI
The Z370XP SLI is not part of the Gaming line of motherboards from GIGABYTE, but part of its Ultra Durable series. The basic features of the Z370 platform can be found on the board, but fewer bells and whistles are included with one major exception, SLI (as given in the name).
One of the first things one may notice is a lack of RGB LEDs most anywhere on the board. The only places where we can find non-standard LED implementations are for the audio separation line and the XMP LED up the upper right-hand corner. As a drop down from higher up models, the memory slots are not reinforced, but two of the full-length PCIe lanes do have the reinforcement. There is a rear IO shroud present, covering only the back panel area while leaving the audio parts unprotected. The Z370XP SLI matches the Ultra Gaming in phase count, and by having two M.2 slots. In essence, this comes out as a simplified, non-RGB version of the Ultra gaming.
Clearly, the aesthetic has changed on the Z370XP SLI. It has the same black PCB color, however, the AORUS Falcon stenciling is gone and replaced by a bright white, with more prominent markings taking a wide path from the bottom in the audio section, through the PCIe area, socket and DIMMs covering most of the board. The VRM heatsinks and shroud are different, although the same IO shroud has been used from the other mid-range or lower boards in the product stack. The Ultra Gaming uses RGB LEDs under the shroud, while the XP SLI does not. The PCH is also styled a bit differently compared to the other boards in this lineup.
Like the other Z370 boards, the Z370XP SLI supports a total of 64GB RAM. The PCIe connector configuration is the same as the other boards with three full-length slots and three PCIe 1x slots. The first two full-length CPU connected PCIe slots (x16 or x8/x8) have the steel reinforcement so common on many boards but removes the RGB LEDs we have seen on other implementations in order to keep costs down. There are two RGB LED headers on the board, one of which can perform RGBW. The board supports two-way SLI and three-way Crossfire.
Moving on to storage, the Z370XP SLI has six SATA ports driven by the chipset, and there are two M.2 slots available; one supporting 110mm drives, the other 80mm. Both do not come with heat spreaders. Regarding fan headers, the board has a total of five scattered around the board with all being hybrid headers with the ability to be PWM or voltage controlled. Audio processing is handled by the Realtek ALC1220 codec and has EMI shielding on the IC itself. The network side of things is handled by a single Intel NIC, likely an Intel i219V, with ESD and Surge protection.
USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) is supported by the ASMedia 3142 controller and has a USB Type-C port as well as a Type-A port on the back panel. Six USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) ports are found on the back panel as well, while the remaining four USB 2.0 ports are available through internal USB headers. Display output from the CPUs integrated graphics is handled by a single HDMI port. Rounding out connectivity on the rear IO are two PS/2 ports, the Intel NIC, and the audio stack.
| GIGABYTE Z370XP SLI | |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
| Product Page | Link |
| Price | Amazon US |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA1151 |
| Chipset | Intel Z370 Express |
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR4 Supporting 64GB Dual Channel Support DDR4 4133+ |
| Network Connectivity | 1 x Intel GbE LAN |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220 |
| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots @ x16 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots @ x8 |
| PCIe Slots for Other (from Chipset) | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots @ x4 3 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots @ x1 |
| Onboard SATA | 6 x Supporting RAID 0/1/5/10 |
| Onboard SATA Express | None |
| Onboard M.2 | 2 x PCIe 3.0 x4 - NVMe or SATA |
| Onboard U.2 | None |
| USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) | 1 x Type-C (ASMedia) 1 x Type-A (ASMedia) 4 x Rear Panel |
| USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) | 6 x Rear Panel |
| USB 2.0 | 4 x Headers (Chipset) |
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin EATX 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V |
| Fan Headers | 1 x CPU 1 x Watercooling CPU 2 x System Fan headers 1 x System Fan/ Water Pump header |
| IO Panel | 1 x PS/2.2 keyboard port 1 x PS/2 mouse port 1 x HDMI Port 6 x USB 3.1 ports 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port 6 x Audio Jacks |
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carldon - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Excellent summary and table in the last page. Good work!!!imaheadcase - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I got a few questions:1. Why do they put USB 2.0 ports if USB 3.0 is backward compatible anyways? Why not just all USB 3.0 ports..it can't be price.
2. Why do they have such a vary in memory timings? For %99 of people memory timings are not really a big deal right? Maybe in old PC days it was.
3. Mini-ITX vs Micro-ITX..isn't it silly both exist in first place? Any reason for this..the diminsions are really close to the same. In fact, most Micro-ITX is simply removing lots of stuff from mobo that you really want to begin with.
lordsutch - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I'd imagine they want to offer as many ports as they can without taking away too many PCIe lanes. The other option would be to embed a USB 3.x switch (or a PCIe switch) but of course now each port wouldn't simultaneously be able to operate at peak speed and 3.x switches are probably more expensive than USB 2 controllers.imaheadcase - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Ahh didn't think about that aspect.DanNeely - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Some USB audio and 2.4ghz wifi/bluetooth devices have had interference problems in 3.0 sockets. Dunno if they're fixed on new hardware (supposedly onboard hubs were a lot worse than chipset ports in this regard so room for QC to make it better); but even if they are there's going to be problems with once burned customers not trusting them.As pointed out elsewhere USB3 competes with PCIe lanes/SATA ports on the southbridge. Especially on full ATX boards if you go to max out the number of PCIe lanes to expansion slots and m.2 ports in addition to the lanes used on board for networking and audio you can get down to only a half dozen or so 3.0 lanes left from the chipset; but still able to hit 14 USB ports total by going USB2 with the rest.
People using older OSes (Windows 7 says hi) can't use USB3 ports to install the OS without jumping through a lot of hoops (the OS sees them as not USB2 and can't talk to them).
If any board size is at risk of going away it's probably full ATX; although for enthusiast sales I suspect it'll hold on better than mini ATX due to bigger is better irrationality.
MiniITX still has a decent capability gap vs mini ATX; but it's much smaller than it was a half dozen years ago when it only made sense if you were making a tiny box and were willing to accept major performance compromises to do so. Now as Mini ITX's capability continues to goes up and the need for expansion cards other than a single GPU goes down it's eating into an increasing chunk of Mini ATX's marketshare.
On the high side mainstream chips don't really have enough PCIe lanes to make good use of the extra 3 cards of space possible on the bigger boards/ Meanwhile multi-GPU gaming - the main reason an enthusiast would need a full size mobo is steadily going away (fewer games supporting it each year, no support for 3/4way at all in the newest cards from either company); and unless you need 2 GPUs + something else or extra space around the CPU for crazy OCing Mini ATX does almost everything that could be needed.
MadAd - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
> If any board size is at risk of going away it's probably full ATX; although for enthusiast sales I suspect it'll hold on better than mini ATX due to bigger is better irrationality.Irrationality indeed. I would have thought by now instead of a measly 5 mATX choices out of 50+ that it would be instead maybe 5 fullsize ATX with the main battleground being the two slot mATX market.
Its just laziness on the manufacturers side, with nobody steering the market to innovate on size. Theres nobody driving form factors, the CPU companies are present on all form factors so they dont need to drive change, the board partners are all set in their ways just slapping new images on mildly reworked designs so they dont have any need to innovate, weve seen video card manufacturers can shrink designs to better fit smaller factors but we still get chunky easy to produce cards for mainstream use as retooling would be an added cost, its just rolling train of new but nothing new generation after generation.
PC design is falling into mediocrity and I just wish the main players (intel+amd/board partners/nvidia+amd) would all get together to drive SFX/ITX and force retire ATX to the strictly enthusiast market, and maybe appeal to a more contemporary home user community (rather than just gamers which is where the marketing all seems to be these days) again too.
Liltorp - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
It is really true that the MSI PC Pro has a legacy PCI connector? I could use this for my TV tuner. But I thought PCI was not supported by newer boatds/CPU`s?Morawka - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Has anyone noticed how cheap these new Z370 motherboards are? Most are under $180 and there are several sub $130.IGTrading - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Tell this to the guys that already spent money on non-Z370 just a few months ago.Intel is already screwing them.
It would have been funny to sell a 250 USD motherboard to a 7700K buyer just last month, telling him his 250 USD are a good investment because of the good upgradeability.
Just 4 weeks later tell him: "Well ... Yeah ... About that upgrade ... It will cost you a minimum of 110 USD extra + the 360 USD for the new 8700 K.
775 was the last good & long lived platform from Intel.
edzieba - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
If people brought Z370 boards expecting them to support an additional CPU generation, they did it in spite of every Intel CPU release for the last decade: two CPU gens socket generation. There's no counter to ignoring the past.