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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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.