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 ESTEVGA Z370 Micro
EVGA’s third board is the micro-ATX form factor Z370 Micro. Though smaller than the ATX format, the Z370 Micro offers an external clock generator, 2-way SLI support, wireless connectivity, and an M.2 slot for high-speed storage. It has plenty of USB support, however, it does not have USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports without buying an add-in card. It looks like a lot of considerations went into cable management by the use of horizontal headers on the bottom of the board as well as the unique notching for the 24-pin ATX connector and the supplemental 6-pin PCIe header on the bottom of the board.
Like its ATX brothers, the board is black and does not have any designs on the PCB. The power delivery heatsinks are black with some extended surface area - the chipset heatsink is also black with a few lines cut out giving it a bit more surface area. A debug LED and power/reset buttons are in the upper right-hand corner by the dual BIOS switch. Also noteworthy is the addition of an optional 4-pin EPS 12V by the CPU, alongside a regular 8-pin. From the images we have, there doesn’t appear to be native RGB LEDs, however, it does have two RGB headers for adding LED strips.
Contrary to other micro-ATX boards in this roundup, the Z370 Micro only has two memory DIMM slots instead of four, but both of these are reinforced. Only having two slots means that the maximum memory support is 32 GB, and EVGA is quoting a maximum memory support up to DDR4-4133. With the memory slots reinforced, there are also two full-length PCIe slots that are also reinforced, supporting x16 or x8/x8, and is good for 2-way SLI or Crossfire. The final PCIe slot is a PCIe x4 from the chipset.
The Z370 Micro supports six SATA ports and a single M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slot between the PCIe slots that will fit up to an 80mm module. For system cooling, the board has six 4-pin PWM headers around the board to attach compatible fans. Audio duties are handled by the Realtek ALC1220 codec., although there does not appear to be distinct PCB separation or EMI shielding, both commonly used by motherboard manufacturers to reduce signal interference in the audio. Networking comes via a single Intel I219-V GbE.
The rear panel is one of the few Z370 boards that has no video outputs, requiring a discrete graphics card for some video output. On the rear panel we find a Clear CMOS button, two USB 2.0 ports, a combination PS/2 connector, six USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) ports, the Intel network port, and the audio jacks with SPDIF. There is also a slot for an M.2 E-Key device, which usually takes the form of a Wi-Fi module. Users will have to supply their own (as far as we know).
| EVGA Z370 Micro | ||
| Warranty Period | 3 Years | |
| Product Page | Link | |
| Price | N/A | |
| Size | ATX | |
| CPU Interface | LGA1151 | |
| Chipset | Intel Z370 Express | |
| Memory Slots (DDR4) | Two DDR4 Supporting 32GB Dual Channel Support DDR4 4133+ |
|
| Network Connectivity | 1 x Intel I219-V 1 x M.2 Key-E for Wi-Fi |
|
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220 | |
| PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU) | 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (x16 or x8/x8) | |
| PCIe Slots for Other (from Chipset) | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 | |
| Onboard SATA | 6 x Supporting RAID 0/1/5/10 | |
| Onboard SATA Express | None | |
| Onboard M.2 | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 | |
| Onboard U.2 | None | |
| USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) | None | |
| USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) | 6 x Back Panel 1 x Header |
|
| USB 2.0 | 2 x Back Panel 2 x Headers |
|
| Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin EATX 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V |
|
| Fan Headers | 6 x PWM | |
| IO Panel | Clear CMOS 1 x Combination PS/2 2 x USB 2.0 6 x USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) 1 x Intel Network Port Audio Jacks 1 x M.2 Key-E for Wi-Fi |
|
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weevilone - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link
Notable that though the new boards are often very similar to their Z270 predecessors, Asus has dropped Thunderbolt 3 support from the Maximus X Hero board.masouth - Thursday, October 26, 2017 - link
ASUS ROG Z370 Maximus X Hero"....new metallic heat sinks that are an upgrade over the plastic heatsinks found on the Z270 version"
Please excuse my ignorance because I didn't own a ROG Z270 mb but...plastic HEAT SINKS? Not shrouds or decoration over a heat sink but the actual heat sinks themselves? That's either wrong, they performed their job pretty poorly, or plastic resins have advanced a lot farther in thermal conductivity (and cost for such) than I realized.
flowrush - Sunday, November 19, 2017 - link
"The other main distinguishable feature is the inclusion of integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi with an antenna (that can only be described as a shark fin) found on the F."The above is incorrect in the article. The integrated Wi-Fi module with antenna is found on the E not the F.
Coldgame - Saturday, November 25, 2017 - link
I'm looking to build a rig with the Z370 Gaming ITX/ac, a GTX-1070 card and an Apple Thunderbolt Display.The review states:
"The key difference in the support between the two boards is going to be the Thunderbolt 3 port on the Gaming-ITX. This port supports video outputs..."
So, can anyone confirm or deny that video generated by the GTX-1070 can be output through the onboard Thunderbolt 3 port?
hanselltc - Sunday, December 3, 2017 - link
Looking forward to low-middle end mITX choices from this platform. It'll probably be paired with a 8100/8300 and be my secondary machine.Roen - Sunday, February 4, 2018 - link
Where are the 10 Gbps ports on the back? They all look like 5 Gbps ports, even the Type C.rbarak - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
Is anyone using the Z370-P on Linux with two screens?I built a new machine based on the Z370-P, and both the DVI and the HDMI connected screens show the same image, and the RHEL7 setup/displays show only one Unknown Display.
I follwed the advice on stackexchange, and added this line:
$ grep GRUB_CMDLINE_LINE_DEFAULT /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINE_DEFAULT="i915.alpha_support=1"
Then I did:
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o "$(readlink /etc/grub2.conf)"
And rebooted, but still, the two displays are not shown.
dromoxen - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
Shocked to see that both the Asrock mitx boards are "szie=ATX" .. LOLThe addition of Tunderbolt sure seems to add a hefty premium £120 vs £160 , luckily I can do without.
Kroebo - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
Sadly, I discovered that the ZUG Gaming PLUS doesn't support SLI.trag - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
On the ASrock Z370M Pro4 the M.2 slot information is backwards. Both slots support NVME. One slot also supports SATA. As written, "The first M.2 slot is SATA only while the second supports PCIe." it seems to say that one slot is SATA only and the other slot is PCIe (NVME) only.