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 ESTMSI Z370M Gaming Pro AC
On the Micro-ATX side of things, MSI is bringing two boards to market. The first is the Z370M Gaming Pro AC from the Performance Gaming series.
The Z370M Gaming Pro AC has a black PCB but does not have any added stenciling design on the board itself. The only initial color comes from the red LEDs (which are not RGB) located on the back of the PCB, although an RGB LED strip can be added via the onboard header. The power delivery heatsinks are designed to match the board aesthetic, but again have only a hint of a design on it. The back panel cover has the Gaming Pro name on it and what looks like vents on the inside portion. The chipset heatsink here is also quite small, has the MSI name on it with white accents, and is attached to the motherboard with screws rather than push-pins.
Memory support for the Z370M goes up to 64 GB capacity, with an on-the-box rated speed up to DDR4-4000. There is no memory slot reinforcement, however it does use a double-sided memory latches to secure the memory. The Z370M Gaming Pro AC is equipped with two full-length PCIe slots, for x16/0 or x8/x8 bandwidth from the processor, supporting 2-way SLI and Crossfire. There are also two additional PCIe x1 slots.
Due to the smaller board size, MSI has only placed four SATA ports from the chipset, and in this case all four ports are together in a typical horizontal location. There are two M.2 slots for additional storage, with both of the slots here supporting PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA drives - the top slot is good for 110mm drives, while the slot between the PCIe lanes is good for 80mm drives.
The Z370M Gaming Pro AC has a total of five 4-pin headers scattered around the board, three in and around the socket area with the other two on the bottom of the board - all the headers support both PWM and voltage control. Networking connections are handled by the Intel I219-V Gigabit controller, with the AC also having an Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi module. Audio duties are processed by the latest Realtek ALC1220 codec, and we get some PCB separation for the codec to improve signal quality.
The Z370M Gaming Pro AC uses an ASMedia ASM3142 controller for its two USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) ports: one Type-A and one Type-C on the back panel, plus an additional onboard header. On the rear panel there are another four USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) ports, but no USB 2.0 ports. The remainder of the back panel IO has the Intel AC8265 Wi-Fi adapter, two PS/2 ports, DisplayPort and HDMI video outputs, the Intel I219-V network port, and the audio jacks from the ALC1220 plus SPDIF.
MSI Z370M Gaming Pro AC | |
Warranty Period | 3 Years |
Product Page | Link |
Price | Amazon US |
Size | Micro-ATX |
CPU Interface | LGA1151 |
Chipset | Intel Z370 Express |
Memory Slots (DDR4) | Four DDR4 Supporting 64GB Dual Channel Support DDR4 4000+ |
Network Connectivity | 1 x Intel I219-V 1 x Intel AC8265 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth |
Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC1220 |
PCIe from CPU | 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots @ x16 / x8 |
PCIe from Chipset | 2 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots |
Onboard SATA | 4 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 Rear Panel Type-C 1 x Rear Panel Type-A 1 x Onboard Header From ASMedia ASM3142 |
USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) | 4 x Rear Panel 2 x Headers |
USB 2.0 | 2 x Headers |
Power Connectors | 1 x 24-pin EATX 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V |
Fan Headers | 1 x 4-pin CPU 1 x 4-pin Waterpump 3 x 4-pin System Fan (All PWM or Voltage controlled) |
IO Panel | 2 x Antenna connectors 1 x PS/2 keyboard 1 x PS/2 /mouse 1 x DisplayPort 1 x HDMI 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C 4 x USB 3.1 Type-A (5 Gbps) 1 x LAN (RJ45) port 5 x Audio Jacks + SPDIF |
83 Comments
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Aichon - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Love this writeup. Thank you guys so much for putting it together so that we can make sense of the choices.peevee - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
"These motherboards range from $110 "AM4 MBs start from $40 on newegg. Yet another way AMD provides better value.
DigitalFreak - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
You want a cookie or something?cap87 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Nobody cares, this a Z370 article. Go back to your cave with the rest of you AMD buddies.imaheadcase - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Apples to oranges.IGTrading - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Very good comment. Not everybody is going to buy a 8700K and thr cheaper CPUs don't really make sense in a 150 USD motherboard.Also, because Intel doesn't guarantee the Boos frequencies anymore, you don't really know what you're going to get with a 8400 for example.
This was very well exemplified here: https://youtu.be/O98qP-FsIWo
psychocipher - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Theres a difference between value and quality. better quality with more features tend to cost more. Dont hate cause amd doesnt get motherboards like the apex. If zen+ increases clock speeds and increases overclocks to where intel is yall will be wishing you didnt buy a cheap $40 b350 motherboard. Yeah you get to keep your cheap b350 motherboard for zen+ but yeah lets buy a new cpu cause amd is providing better value.OFelix - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
I haven't read the article yet but I want to say that to make sense of 50+ MBs I'm going to need a comparison system which let's me find all MBs with ThunderBolt for example.Brett Howse - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Check the last page.Ian Cutress - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
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