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 Z370 Gaming M5
Another board currently in MSI’s Enthusiast Gaming lineup is the Z370 Gaming M5. Outside of size, the Gaming M5 is ATX versus the Godlike at E-ATX.
The overall theme on the board is a black PCB with a few grey highlights of components mixed in. The top half of the board should look pretty familiar when comparing the Gaming M5 to the Godlike Gaming flagship. While the shape of the shroud and VRM heatsinks are the same, the RGB LEDs inside on the Godlike were removed. It still carries over the fortified memory slots but loses some fan header connectivity as well as losing other RGB LEDs in that area. The PCIe area has a shroud between the slots and covers the audio portion of the board but it is not an extension of the back panel IO shroud. The PCH heatsink loses the GPU stand but keeps the same shape and RGB LEDs. Additional RGB strip support can be found through the RGB connector on the bottom of the board.
The four memory slots supports up to 64 GB in dual channel mode, with a supported speed up to DDR4-4000. There are a total of three full-length PCIe slots, the first two from the CPU using reinforced slots while the third is from the chipset. This allows for running in x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 configurations, and supports 3-way AMD Crossfire and 2-way NVIDIA SLI. Between the full-length slots are three x1 slots, getting their bandwidth from the chipset.
The board has the usual complement of six SATA ports all located on the right side of the board next to the chipset heatsink. As a side note, SATA 1/5 will be unavailable when an M.2 SATA SSD module has been installed in the first M.2 slot, while SATA 5/6 will be unavailable when an M.2 SATA SSD is used in the second M.2 slot. RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 are supported for all SATA devices. A total of six 4-pin fan headers are found in various locations throughout the board: four system fans, one water pump, and one CPU fan connector. The audio is handled by the latest Realtek ALC1220 codec along with Chemicon audio caps and the familiar audio separation line running splitting the audio section from the rest of the board, minimizing interference. A single Rivet Networks Killer E2500 gigabit Ethernet controller is found on the Gaming M5. The power, reset, and Game Boost knob are gone, however, a debug LED can still be found on the bottom of the board.
USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) is handled by the ASMedia 3142 controller and gives the board a Type-C and a Type-A port on the back panel IO. The chipset handles six USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) ports with two Type-A on the back panel and four more through internal USB connectors. There are three USB 2.0 ports on the back panel also, and four more through internal USB headers. The back panel also has a combination PS/2 connector, a CMOS reset button, DisplayPort and HDMI video outputs, the E2500 network port, and the audio stack with SPDIF.
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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