The NZXT N7 Z370 Motherboard Review: A New Player in the Motherboard Market
by Joe Shields on January 9, 2018 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- NZXT
- Coffee Lake
- i7-8700K
Benchmark Overview
For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.
The benchmarks fall into several areas:
Short Form CPU
Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.
| CPU Short Form Benchmarks | |
| Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM) | 3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature. |
| The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized. | |
| WinRAR 5.4 | WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance. |
| POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4 | POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark. |
| HandBrake v1.0.2 | HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test. |
| 7-Zip 9.2 | 7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results. |
| DigiCortex v1.20 | The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. |
System Benchmarks
Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.
| System Benchmarks | |
| Power Consumption | One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet. |
| Non-UEFI POST Time | The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST. |
| Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5 | Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise. |
| USB Backup | USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard. |
| DPC Latency | Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks. |
Gaming
Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games.
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Tunrip - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
I appreciate I don't read as much as I used to, but I've been reading Anandtech for 20 years and this is the most confusing first page of an article I've ever read."Default performance on this board was tough to compare as we only have datasets with varied Uncore frequencies. However, that seems to be a function of the motherboard and will vary throughout the Z370 testing. It is tough to compare it directly to the i9-7900X because of its difference in core/thread count as well cost. We can almost purchase three i7 8700Ks for one 7900X."
1. What is Uncore?
2. Regarding this sentence in particular: "to compare it directly to the i9-7900X" I don't understand; you are trying to compare this motherboard to a CPU?
3. "We can almost purchase three i7 8700Ks for one 7900X." ... Ok? What is the significance of that to this review?
I apologise if I sound harsh, but I was fascinated to read about this unusual motherboard. Anandtech has been my "go to" site for years and I was excited to see this article, but I'm left feeling confused before I've even finished reading the first page.
Joe Shields - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Thanks for the input.1. Uncore is Non core parts of the CPU like Cache/Memory Controller, etc.
2. Its intent is to was to setup the fact that the only datasets I had available were the 7900X ones (otherwise it would have been two others with different uncores which I threw in there to at least have an apples to apples type of comparison.
3. When comparing performance, many people attach $ to it.
That paragraph could be improved indeed.
JohnMD1022 - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Shouldn't that be "transcore" and "ciscore"?lol
JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Ayyyyyyyy, gender memes in tech articles. Good one! I enjoy your witty sense of humor! You should feel good about yourself today for making that stretch.we - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Terms from gender ideology, which is all about extreme self-deception and lack of self-esteem, really don't lend themselves well as descriptors in any area of science and technology, whether with or without humerous intent.Death666Angel - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
Honestly, I just don't get it. But trans and cis are technical/science terms. They are used in chemistry all the time and to denounce psychology like that is rather ignorant.we - Tuesday, January 9, 2018 - link
@Death666Angel, Aha, was their scientific usage the implied reference? Anyhow, under the umbrella of psychology you'll find some proper science, but also a lot of nonsense. Sigmund Freud started it by speculating about early childhood sexuality. These theories have increasingly found their way into mainstream psychology during the last two decades, but they remain speculation and have no sound scientific basis. Same applies to gender ideology.Death666Angel - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
Well, whatever the reason may be for someone identifying as "trans" or "cis" in a gender context, what is unscientific about it? It is merely a descriptor for what kind of state they identify as. And science is nothing if not description first and foremost.mapesdhs - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
It's unscientific in a gender context because people who "identify" in that way are doing so based on *feelings*, which is not an argument.we - Thursday, January 11, 2018 - link
Collecting data based on self-reporting just stands at the beginning of a scientific inquiry. Insights should be based on proper scientific evaluation of the data, not on inferential jumps. The vast majority of human beings develop happily with their gender identity in accordance with their biological sex, but gender ideologists claim: it is a fact that dna only determines sex but not gender; a transgender state of mind is a natural state of identity (and healthy - if it was not for distress caused by the wrong body!); the correct response is affirmation by all involved (friends, family, teachers, physicians etc.); in the case of young persons it is desirable to propose puberty blockers, - without any conclusive scientific evidence to prove any of those claims. This is now very much off topic, so I will stop now. If you are interested in this topic, you could start a thread in an appropriate section of the forum, but you may find that technically and scientifically minded contributors show little support for gender ideology.