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 ESTASUS PRIME Z370-A
The ASUS Prime Z370-A has some of ASUS' classic mainstream look without offering some of the exotic PCB stylings that other products have. The Prime boards are typically a driving platform for the subtle inclusion of customizable RGB lighting, starting with the top right-hand side of the motherboard area with additional RGB headers, but users looking for something black and white (literally) can turn this off via the BIOS or the ASUS AURA SYNC software utility.
The Prime Z370-A uses three full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, with the top two having SafeSlot reinforcement and run at x16 or x8/x8 with two GPUs. The final bottom full-length slot, as well as the four PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, take their lanes directly from the chipset. Both SLI and Crossfire configurations are supported. The board supports two memory modules per channel, with an on-box rated speed up to DDR4-4000 (depending on the performance of the memory controller on the processor). ASUS likes to promote its T-Topology technology for their high-speed memory support.
The black PCB features plenty of triangle shaped white imprints on the PCB (which I believe detracts from the cleanness of the build), but the Prime Z370-A does drop most of the gaming-related specifics such as SupremeFX audio that the Strix and Maximus X boards use. The audio is the same Realtek ALC1220 codec, except this time the Crystal Sound 3 branding is present.
On the rear IO panel we find a pair of USB 3.1 10Gbps ports (one Type-A and one Type-C) with a further two Type-A USB 3.1 5Gbps and two USB 2.0 ports on the back. The front panel headers on this board allow for an additional four USB 3.1 5Gbps ports and four USB 2.0 ports in total. The Prime Z370-A is another adopter of the Intel I219-V gigabit Ethernet controller and Realtek ALC1220 codec, with an EMI shielded codec using gold Nichon audio capacitors. For the rear IO this means 3.5mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF output. Video outputs come from a DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI-D port.
For storage, the chipset heatsink hides one of the M.2 slots underneath which also aids in high-performance storage cooling. The top M.2 slot is placed alongside the top PCIe x1, and just above the most northerly placed full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot. The Prime Z370-A has a total of six SATA ports as well.
The Prime Z370-A offers ones of the most loaded cooling option header clusters from any ASUS boards in the sub $200 price point. On top of the AIO and thermal sensor headers, there are five 4-pin PWM headers.
The focus on the Prime Z370-A is for consumers that want a clean and clear board with the option of subtle RGB lighting thanks to a single RGB strip header, or a simple white and black contrasting theme is possible. It keeps a lot of the top features and components of the Strix range, but with a lower emphasis on gaming and more focus on traditional use.
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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