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 ESTASRock Z370M Pro4
The last few boards from ASRock will be of the small form factor variety. We normally do not see too many options in this space, especially close to the chipset launch. ASRock got a head start with shrinking the ATX sized Pro4 to the micro-ATX format and calls it the Z370M Pro4. The Z370M Pro4 uses the same power delivery setup as the full-sized twin, albeit on a shorter board. Even though its smaller in size, there are two full-length PCIe slots as well as two M.2 slots. It looks to have very similar features, just in a smaller package.
For aesthetics, a gray color runs across the board from the top of the audio section through the PCIe area and past the chipset to the edge of the board. The chipset heatsink gets much smaller on the micro-ATX version due to the less free real estate on the smaller board. Outside of that, we get the same single VRM heatsink, the same capacitors, and the same vanilla appearance. Users will not find an RGB LED on the board, nor a header to add one.
Even in mATX form, we get four memory slots which handle up to 64GB, with a rated supported speed up to DDR4-4300. There are two full-length PCIe slots, the first from the CPU at x16 and the second from the chipset at x4, and two open-ended x1 slots to round out PCIe connections.
Six SATA ports can be found on the board, with four mounted horizontally and two vertically a bit further up the board. All the SATA ports support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. The Z370M Pro4 also has two M.2 slots, with both able to fit an 80mm module. The first M.2 slot is SATA only while the second supports PCIe. Due to lane sharing, if the first M.2 socket is occupied by a SATA type M.2 device, SATA 0 will be disabled.
The board has four fan headers, two for the CPU (1 x 3-pin, 1 x 4-pin) and two 4-pin chassis fan connectors that auto-detect if a three or four pin fan is in use. Audio duties are taken care of by the Realtek ALC892 codec and uses ELNA audio caps. Network support is handled by a single Intel I219-V GbE. Thunderbolt support is not found on the Z370M Pro4.
USB support on the back panel consists of four USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports and one Type-C port. Additionally, there is one USB 2.0 port. The rest of the back panel IO contains separate PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, D-Sub/DVI-D/HDMI video outputs, Intel gigabit Ethernet, and the three-jack audio stack.
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EricZBA - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
The Asus Strix Z370-G mATX may be up on Amazon's website, but it has been Out of Stock ever since the page went up with no shipping date in sight. NewEgg Canada has it out of stock and NewEgg's US website doesn't even have a page for it. To call it available is inaccurate.Rubinhood - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Coffee Lake & related hardware is the new Duke Nukem Forever :)xchaotic - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Well, I am typing this on Asus Strix Z370 I + i5 8400 PC so not entirely vaporware. People may be whining but it seems that Intel can't keep up with the demand...piiman - Thursday, October 26, 2017 - link
got an 8600k today at Newegg. They still have stock after 4 hours so it looks like they may be starting to get large shipments. I7 is still out of stock thoughimaheadcase - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Amazon is different than newegg, if it says Out of Stock, if you order it it will ship when it comes in stock. Sometimes it will be same day even or next day. Amazon will only show "This item is not available" if completely out of stock for foreseeable future. They do this because it stops items from completely selling out right away so supply can be steady.Morawka - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I have found that Asus treats USA customers like a red headed step child. They will send units to the UK, australia, and all of Europe before they will send 1 single board to the USA.Some advice: Start looking at Overclockers.UK and have it imported to the USA.. The $30 DHL International shipping is faster than USPS Priority Mail or UPS International Express Saver. No VAT tax either.
This is what i had to do to get a Rampage VI Extreme. Newegg hasn't gotten a R6E in stock for 2 months after the initial release batch.
SpartanJet - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
Does Asus USA cover warranty issues then since you bought it from UK?Xeres14 - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Yeah I've been waiting on the Asus z370-g. I can't find an i7-8700k right now either so it's all right. Hopefully I'll be able to get both before Christmas (along with the rest of the upgrade).stuffwhy - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
This is so great. I find it increasingly difficult to find the right mainboard and this type of posting consolidates a lot of research time.SanX - Sunday, October 22, 2017 - link
There are no "right" mobo here. Right future proof and super fast mobo has to be a dual-processor at least. Dual-SLI for example offers benefits for speed but in many cases the dual-chip is doing the same in simulations.