Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards

Choosing the Right Motherboard

from Ian Cutress, Senior Motherboard Editor since 2011

With over 50 motherboards to choose from, when a user can get hold of an 8th Generation Coffee Lake processor it can be a minefield. When users and motherboard vendors ask us what do users look for in a motherboard, I usually give the following order:

1. Does it Require a Specific Feature

Users that have a particular idea about what their system needs might be on the lookout for a motherboard that can definitely support what they need. It might be one of the high-end features which can put in added cost, such as Thunderbolt 3 or 10 gigabit Ethernet, or it can be something simpler such as supporting more than six SATA drives, supporting HDMI 2.0, multiple ethernet ports, or even just the form factor. For users that have that specific requirement, it usually narrows the field down to only a handful of products. We've done the searching and got the lists ready for you.

Prices given from October 20th

There are other important features other than the list below that might be required for a purchasing decision: dual BIOS, USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) support, 64 GB DRAM support, a specific network controller, or a certain amount of PCIe x1 slots to satisfy all the IO cards a user might have, but ultimately those are rarely #1 priority items. We've also kept the list to purely the more active requirements than say heatpiped heatsinks.

Some of these features can be added using additional PCIe cards, but it is perhaps alarming that for some of these categories only has a single entrant, despite over 50 motherboards being listed overall.

2. Price

The second most important function is price. Because the motherboard is often fourth to sixth in the list of priorities when it comes to buying a typical system (after GPU, CPU, DRAM/Storage, PSU), whatever the budget was is often looking a little low. The motherboard is where some users will save $50 to get another 128 GB on their main storage drive, or bump up a GPU class.

Ultimately this is a little depressing, as the motherboard ends up being a commodity for just doing its function, rather than being a priority in the system. This is a result of all the motherboards doing all the basic functionality (taking a CPU at stock, taking some memory, taking a GPU, taking some storage, taking any PSU, driving a USB 3.0 drive) almost all the same. This was not the case a decade ago, where a substantial part of the investment might be in the compatibility of the product or its stability, especially when we had 20 motherboard vendors with mostly wobbly BIOS setups.

What this means for this decade is that motherboard manufacturers are looking for incentives to get users to part with a few extra $$$. This used to be in the form of functionality - more ports, more memory, more PCIe cards. For 2016, 2017, and the near future, those incentives are turning to RGB LEDs. Like them or hate them, vendors of many standard PCIe components are seeing sales rise then focus on the RGB models. It is quite astonishing. Vote with your wallet.

As part of this roundup, many of the boards listed should be available for purchase - a few of them are still 'announced' but waiting for a launch date, or are region locked.  

Pricing from Anton Shilov

We will start from ASUS. This motherboard vendor traditionally has one the broadest lineup of motherboards based on a high-end Intel chipset. In total, the company offers 12 SKUs featuring the Z370 PCH today and is more than likely to expand it in the coming months.

As it appears, most of the motherboards are available, but the Maximus X Apex is currently hard to find.

Moving on to ASRock, another major supplier of motherboards. ASRock's Intel Z370 lineup includes 11 models and it is among the broadest for features in the industry.

ASRock's top-of-the-range motherboards for hardcore enthusiasts (Z370 Professional Gaming i7 and Z370 Taichi) are readily available from all retailers. Meanwhile, there are mid-range products which are yet to ship.

Next up is GIGABYTE with its family of Intel Z370-based motherboards that currently includes 11 SKUs.

The most advanced GIGABYTE Aorus Z370 motherboards are readily available in all stores that we monitored, just like entry-level models. In the meantime, mid-range Intel Z370-based mainboards from GIGABYTE cannot be purchased in North America at all.

MSI's Z370 lineup includes 13 motherboards, surpassing ASUS. The family includes platforms for hardcore enthusiasts in EATX form-factor as well as mainboards in Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form-factors for mainstream and SFF gamers.

Most of MSI's motherboards powered by the Intel Z370 PCH are available, but there are very interesting products, such as the feature-packed MSI Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon AC for SFF PCs, which yet have to hit store shelves. Still, it is good to see both that MSI has managed to release Z370-based motherboards for nearly all market segments.

Consolidation of motherboard makers eliminated most of second-tier players and forced the remaining to shrink their product lineups and aim their mainboards at particular audiences or even sell in select countries only. For example, EVGA targets primarily enthusiasts and gamers, Biostar and ECS make products for more price-conscious buyers, whereas products from Colorful are targeted primarily at China and South Korea.

Among smaller motherboard manufacturers, none of them have currently released in our catchment area.

3. Brand Loyalty

Say as a user, there was no specific feature you wanted for stage 1, and there's $150 left to buy a motherboard in stage 2. There are now perhaps 6-10 motherboards to choose from, so the next element of choice selection usually ends up around brand loyalty. Even first time builders who have no experience with different motherboard vendors will look upon their peers for recommendations, and everyone has their own choices.

Users will have two major draws: financial investment and negative experiences.

The first one, financial investment, is more psychology-based than anything else, and is the driving force behind different fan factions. Users that have financially invested in an expensive product will want it to work. The product they have has to work - they are the smart users who purchased it, and if someone says it is the wrong choice it becomes an indictment of their character rather than on the product. No-one wants to be told that the brand they have just purchased (or have been purchasing for several years and several hundreds of dollars) is no good, and will defend their purchase, potentially leading to purchasing the same brand the next time around due to discussing the product with like-minded people. This is a deep rabbit hole of explanations beyond my research prowess, but can be one of the driving factors.

The only time that financial investment becomes a zero in the equation is when a user has a negative experience. If the product they purchased is dead on arrival, repeatedly, or has BIOS issues or update issues or causes more stress than it was worth, users are unlikely to buy that brand again without significant change. The best example of this is in mechanical hard drives (also known as 'spinning rust'). For users that have 4TB of data suddenly break for no apparent reason, and without backups, it can be a heart-wrenching experience. Even if the product is within warranty, a new drive does not return the data. Users can be extremely fickle with their hard drive recommendations - it only takes one wrong event to form a strong opinion. Even users that have multiple brands under the hood will have their recommendations shaped by previous experiences, and in the case of hard drives, almost negative ones.

The same thing applies to motherboards to a lesser extent - bad customer service or RMA procedures are usually the killer for some users. It can also be an overt plus - many US customers like EVGA as they handle RMA procedures directly, rather than through retailers or distributors.

4. Visuals

This part of the list might not apply to the regular AnandTech readers, but visuals can matter a lot for a large number of PC builders. How the system looks, or how it will look, may be part of the decision if stages 2 and 3 did not already narrow it down to a single product already. Many motherboards are now styled with designs in mind, or have LEDs to enhance how the system looks. RGB LEDs and the ability to make any system any color, with users modifying their cases with decals and designs, it can be an important part.

However, the reality is that most readers in the US will still end up on Newegg, going through the list of motherboards in their price range. The main element that grabs the attention will be that small, ravioli-sized thumbnail. If it can stand out among the crowd, then it is usually a plus point.

Note that users rarely buy get this far down the list of 'choosing the right motherboard' and stop just at the visuals. Visuals are nice, but after this point, it comes to reviews.

5. Reviews and Forums

This is where we come in! Oh wait, you stopped at number 3 and bought the motherboard already? Shame... 

For most users (who do not read AnandTech or the tech media), the main source of reviews will be the Newegg, Amazon ratings, PCPartPicker ratings, and reviews. If a motherboard has an average under 3 stars, it usually does not bode well for self-build users looking at that system. If anything, people look out for the negative comments - who had a bad experience and why. Too many negative reviews, especially recent negative reviews, and it will put casual users off that motherboard unless they know sometime in their close circle with a good experience.

The rest of the user base, including system integrators and technology forum hoppers, might actually come our way to read a review. This is often through search engines, forum links, or recommendations to read a review. For when you want the minutiae of a motherboard, that is what our reviewers are doing when that board spends a week on the test-bed being prodded in all sorts of ways. Some enthusiasts will comment that forum member analysis might be more detailed, especially when a forum user spends 3 months taking a single product apart, however our editors are pushing through different motherboards every week, getting a very wide scope of what is possible. We also speak to the manufacturers, although different media will have different levels of interaction within each company. 

AnandTech has had extensive long-term engineering contacts with all the major manufacturers, from R&D to design through to marketing and sales. We discuss why certain choices were made and why. We've currently have four editors working on motherboard reviews for different chipsets, so stay tuned for more motherboard content.