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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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.