The GIGABYTE H370N WiFi Review: Mini-ITX with HDMI 2.0 and 802.11ac Wave 2
by Joe Shields on June 21, 2018 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
- Mini ITX
- Core 8th Gen
- Coffee Lake
- H370
Conclusion
When looking for a small form factor board like a Mini-ITX, people are looking for a small footprint. With this lack of real estate, there are ultimately some sacrifices that need to be made. In many cases, it's an M.2 slot, or two, that is forfeited, compared to its larger ATX brothers, or limiting the memory to only one module per channel. In this case, the H370N WIFI offers two M.2 ports by placing one on the front, and one on the back. The H370 chipset supports a maximum of six SATA ports, but in this case, GIGABYTE has only enabled four on the board. This can save space and also prevent port sharing and gives full availability to the onboard headers regardless if all are populated. The H370N WIFI is a jack of all trades motherboard designed for those who are not interested in paying a premium for other SFF boards that include features they do not use (such as overclocking). The $130 price point can be an attractive part of the package compared to some of the more expensive Z370 based Mini-ITX options available.
We talked about design aesthetics earlier and while the H370N isn't a perfect 10, it surely will not make anyone wince in displeasure with its black PCB and jet black heatsinks with white designs on it. The RGB LEDs on the bottom help with environmental illumination, but don't really do much for the board itself. This is a common design feature of these boards do not include RGB lighting on top - there just isn't a lot of room and many times these smaller boards are meant to be hidden anyway.
About the only updates I would add to this board is USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) support through either a back or front panel header and perhaps more USB ports in general. I would also like to have seen some kind of heatsink on the front M.2 port, especially considering the chipset heatsink is sitting right below it. Outside of that, I didn't have any complaints as what features we use and test worked fine in my experience with the board.
On the performance side of things, the H370N WIFI kept it on the bell curve we've established, though it was towards the bottom. Most of the differences can be attributed to run variance, however. The board did excel in power consumption in both our idle and load scenarios. The load scenario used almost 20W less power than the other boards we have tested so far even though it tests at the same clock speed (4.3 GHz all core turbo). We cannot speak to CPU overclocking as the board does not support that functionality.
The GIGABYTE H370N WIFI is a capable Mini-ITX size motherboard. The feature set is comparable to other H370 Mini-ITX boards and even some Z370 boards, minus the overclocking of course. The board supports dual M.2 ports and four SATA ports which should be plenty for most users. The board was stabled during all of our stock testing so it was fine on that front. Choosing the right SFF board (any board, really) will come down to what the users wants and needs as well as pricing. If you are looking for HDMI 2.0 support, this is one of the only H series based Mini-ITX boards that have the Megachips MCDP2800 converter to do so and will allow 4K resolution at 60 FPS.
The H370N WIFI is priced at $130 from Amazon.com with its direct competitor priced a bit higher at ~$140 without offering HDMI 2.0 support. Overall, the GIGABYTE H370N WIFI has proven to be a capable board with many of the features buyers are looking for and the only H370 board so far, and should suit any system builder that doesn't plan on overclocking.
AnandTech's Coffee Lake and 300-Series Mini-ITX Motherboard Coverage
- The Coffee Lake Review: The Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8400
- The Intel Core i7-8086K Review
- Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards
- The ASUS Z370-I Gaming Review
- The Supermicro C7Z370-CG-IW Motherboard Review
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close - Wednesday, June 27, 2018 - link
@MadAd: They could put at least 2 USB C ports there but I don't see why they would remove the USB A. Especially since that backpanel doesn't look cramped at all. It's amazing how many people only see their needs and wants in front of their eyes and can't even conceive that that vast majority of people want or need something else.close - Wednesday, June 27, 2018 - link
@MadAd. "Stop being a luddite, its the progress we need."Sure, why be stuck on century old analog tech when we can replace all the audio jacks with BT connections? Why put HDMI, DP, USB ports, etc. when all of these can be replace with TB3 over USB C port? Why be stuck on 1Gbps Ethernet when 2.5G-10G are already here?
Oh, it would make the board more expensive and most people would have to replace all of their cables, adapters, peripherals, etc? Progress.
There is no indication at this time that a significant number of people need more than 1 Type C on a PC. When USB 3.0 launched most MoBos had 1 or 2 ports, and almost no case had them. It's slow because people selling them don't have to think of only the 2 of you, but to the other thousands that need something else, they need that "legacy".
1_rick - Thursday, June 21, 2018 - link
That would mean you'd have to buy A-C adapters for your keyboard, mouse, existing thumb drives, etc., unless you were willing to buy a new keyboard, mouse, etc.Mr Perfect - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
That would be the dream some day, but for now we're in this weird chicken-and-the-egg scenario. Motherboards don't have more than one USB-C port(if that), and peripherals don't come with USB-C plugs. Someone's going to have to push the issue if the market is going to move anytime soon. Even then, people would probably want motherboards with half USB-A and half USB-C, just for existing peripherals.Motherboards having more then one USB-C would be a good start.
CharonPDX - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
For laptops, I agree. Even for compact custom-form-factor desktops, sure, maybe just one or two USB-A ports. But for desktops using a standard ATX I/O shield? No reason to skip USB-A. *MORE* USB-C, especially 10Gbit, and even more especially Thunderbolt-3 capable, should be standard, though.I want to see at least 4 USB-C ports on the back panel every motherboard, with at least 2 of them Thunderbolt-3 capable, and preferably all 10Gbit capable.
But I also understand that the vast majority of peripherals are still USB-A. Essentially all wired keyboard and mice have hardwired cables that end in a USB-A port. While most other external USB devices have removable cables that can easily be swapped for one that ends in a USB-C plug instead of a USB-A plug, it's still not the standard. (I was floored when my recently-purchased external Blu-ray drive included two cables in the box - one a micro-USB-B-3.0 to USB-A 3.0, and one female USB-A 3.0 to USB-C dongle. I would have preferred that it include a micro-USB-B-3.0 to USB-C that was as long as the micro-B-to-A it came with, than a female-A-to-C dongle, but it's a start.)
risa2000 - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
While it may look sexy to have full USB-C interface, I am not sure that mice, keyboards and most of the other stuff (BT, Wifi, gamepad dongles) require 10 Gbps speed, nor they require USB-C type connector which, from my experience, is less "holding" than typical Type A. Besides all those things I wrote above I typically connect once.The only device I own which would benefit from Type C connector is my smartphone. Everything else would need CtoA adapters, making the actual physical connection even less stable.
Galcobar - Thursday, June 21, 2018 - link
Typo, page 1, section Information on Intel's..."... Cutress reviewed a couple of processors (i7-8700K and i7-8400)... "
Perhaps that should be i5-8400, or i7-8700?
StormyParis - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
Nice review, thank you.I'm holding off on upgrading my 5 to rig until the "cache virus" situation is fixed in silicon, but when I'll finally move, I'll be looking for a very similar board. It's nice to see boards for regular folks tested, not just high-end stuff. This one is "riced" right.
timecop1818 - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
Why do you even care? None of single user desktop machines are affected. Update BIOS/microcode, install latest Windows, and disable all the spectre/meltdown mitigation shit to regain normal computing speeds. Done.CharonPDX - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
With the HDMI 2.0 port, I'm curious if this board has all the necessary firmware and hardware bits to support UHD Blu-ray playback.