Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming Motherboard Review

Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming It's Z370 launch day and that means we're back with yet another feature packed motherboard! This one is from Aorus, the flagship gaming moniker from Gigabyte. The Ultra Gaming is, as you might have guessed, a gaming-focused motherboard. It features support for multiple graphics cards, high-performance memory, overclocking of the CPU, and blazing fast storage solutions. So let's dive in and take a closer look at what it has to offer. Features With 8th gen Intel Core Processor support, the new somewhat new Z370 platform is a small upgrade on the Z270 platform. Pretty much everything is what you will be familiar with, with the addition of a revised socket that allows the use of the new CPUs and their increased core counts, such as the 6-core i5-8400 and i7-8700K we reviewed. Supports 8th Gen Intel® Core™ Processors Dual Channel Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4, 4 DIMMs Intel® Optane™ Memory Ready ASMedia 3142 USB 3.1 Gen 2 with USB Type-C™ and Type-A Front USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C™ Header Multi-Way Graphics Support with Dual Armor and Ultra Durable™ Design ALC1220 120dB SNR HD Audio with Smart Headphone AMP and WIMA audio capacitors Intel GbE LAN Gaming Network with cFosSpeed Internet Accelerator Software RGB FUSION with Multi-Zone Digital LED Light Show design, support digital LED & RGB LED strips Swappable Overlay for Accent LED Smart Fan 5 features Multiple Temperature Sensors and Hybrid Fan Headers with FAN STOP Dual Ultra-Fast M.2 with PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA interface USB DAC-UP 2 with Adjustable Voltage Anti-Sulfur Resistors Design Ultra Durable™ 25KV ESD and 15KV Surge LAN Protection Lightning-Fast Intel® Thunderbolt™ 3 AIC Support APP Center Including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ Utilities What's in the Box? There's really not a lot with this motherboard, and I guess there doesn't need to be. You'll get the usual documentiation, a driver disc, a black backplate, and a few basic cables. That does cover all the basics, but there's no stickers and other fun stuff we often see (obviously, not a big deal). A Closer Look It's pretty common now that gaming motherboards have to look as good as they perform. Aesthetics are a big deal these days, and fortunately, the Aorus Ultra Gaming really does look the part. The black and grey PCB is a nice contrast for the metal armour on the PCIe and DIMMs. Of course, it's those huge black heat sinks, the rear I/O and other hardware that give it presence, with some subtle red highlights for good measure. The new socket is there in all its glory and is surrounded by durable black capacitors and chokes. Those huge heat sinks are pretty heavy duty too and should help ensure the motherboard hardware stays cool, especially while overclocking the CPU. Even if you're not overclocking, they're aesthetically pleasing too, which is no bad thing. The CPU takes its power from a single 8-pin header. I expect we'll see higher spec boards in the coming months with two, but for now, this is more than enough for the new 6-core CPUs to run at 5 GHz and maybe beyond. M.2 and Optane There are two M.2 drive mounts on this motherboard, although you can also use an Optane drive from Intel too for an extra performance boost. There are three full-size PCIe slots, two of which come with durable armour to help support the weight of modern graphics cards. They're spaced nicely too, so you can SLI/Crossfire some of the thicker cards on the market with relative ease. RGB DIMMS there's plenty of RGB lighting tucked away on this motherboard, but the ones that stand out the most are strip lights on the DIMM slots, as well as a bit of trim on the right edge. There are six SATA 3 ports, pretty standard stuff really, and they're configured with four on the edge, and two in the bottom right corner. Unfortunately, no on-board controls or BIOS reset buttons, but all the usual headers are here so you can still get the job done. The built-in Amp Up Audio hardware is on a PCB trace, keeping it separate from the primary hardware, and that should cut down on any unwanted interference. Finally, the rear I/O looks well equipped too. There's a good mixture of USB ports, GbE LAN, and audio connectors. There's an HDMI port, and even a PS2 and DVI connector for good measure. Testing and Methodology Test Procedure Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to motherboard reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Rember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there's always a margin for error when using the software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Each benchmark runs three times, and the average figure is taken to try to reduce the effect of hardware variation. Of course, any relevant details regarding the parameters will be listed below. Test Systems Z370 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Dual-channel 16GB Intel Core i7-8700K CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X399 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X299 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial DDR4 2400MHz Quad-Channel 32GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit AM4 Ryzen R3, R5 and R7 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - GeIL DDR4 2977MHz Dual Channel 16GB CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive - Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis - Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System - Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit Z270 Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM - Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler – Noctua D15S Graphics Card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply – BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit X99 - Our GPU Review Test Bench Motherboard – Changes Per Review RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz CPU Cooler - Noctua D15S with dual fans Graphics Card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Power Supply - BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850 Watt Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Games Used All games are tested on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off for all tests. Previously we would use "extreme" presets, but these have now been adjusted to "Medium" or equivalent to better test the capabilities of the CPU, not the GPU. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M Power usage recorded at 1024M 50% complete, thermals recorded at 75% CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Other Notes A rest period of 2-5 minutes is observed between each piece of software allowing the system to return to its idle power usage and temperatures. Background services like Windows Update are checked to not be running during the testing period by setting WiFi to Metered Connection. Thanks Thank you to Noctua, Crucial, ASUS, Gigabyte, Lian-Li, be quiet!, OCZ, for providing the hardware that helps makes these tests possible! Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark Firestrike The Gigabyte Aorus Ultra Gaming scored a little lower than expected in the stock testing. Of course, it's not a bad score, and it's still competitive, but we're not expecting many people to run the i7-8700K at stock. While overclocked, things certainly caught up, and it set our fourth highest score. Of course, it's virtually neck and neck with a few other motherboards too. Clearly, it's letting our GTX 1080 Ti get on with its job. Stock Overclocked Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme Another strong score for the Ultra, showing a competitive score when it comes to GPU bound tasks, nothing crazy, but again it's very competitive with everything else. Stock Overclocked PCMark 10 Express Again, nothing too crazy here in terms of performance, but still very competitive. The new 6-core 8700K is certainly a robust CPU and the Z370 CPUs are dominating the PCMark 10 Express benchmark. One thing I do like is that the Aorus scored 5845, but saw a boost up to 6282 once overclocked. Stock Overclocked WPrime 32M and 1024M The WPrime score could be better here, and it is the slowest time for the Z370 platform so far. Real world, not a huge problem, and I suspect another BIOS update will bring this in line with the other motherboards, as we know the CPU has more to offer. Of course, that's at stock clocks, who runs an i7-8700K at stock? Once overclocked, it's neck and neck with its competition and delivers a much tighter time of 101.289 seconds. Stock Overclocked Cinebench R15 The new CPU is right at home in the Ultra Gaming, delivering a respectable score of 1418 at stock clocks and 1623 while overclocked. Not the fastest score for Z370, but in the real world it's close enough that you wouldn't notice the difference and we're certainly happy with the performance so far. Stock Overclocked Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K The 4K conversion worked great on the Ultra too, hitting just over 60 FPS while overclocked. If you're transcoding a 4K movie, that's a little over 2x real-time processing, which is superb for a consumer motherboard and CPU combo. Stock Overclocked AIDA 64 Memory Bandwidth and Latency No surprises in terms of memory, everything ticked off as it should, and the XMP profiles were accepted by the motherboard first time. It also delivered consistent read and write performance, with nearly identical scores for each, combined with a good low latency time. Gaming Performance This is a gaming motherboard, and that's obviously the main focus for anyone buying this motherboard. It is a slightly more affordable model too though, so we weren't expecting it to top the charts. However, as with all the other tests we've run, it's performing as we expected and it remained competitive throughout. Overall it's not the fastest, and it's not the slowest gaming motherboard here. I don't like to use the word average as it sounds underwhelming. However, one surprise here is that on the most demanding game we test, it scored the highest of everything we've tested. The Aorus Ultra Gaming set a blazing score of 141.5 FPS in Ghost Recon. I think this board has more than it lets on, and perhaps another BIOS update away from being one of the most competitive boards on our charts. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Ghost Recon: Wildlands Far Cry Primal Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption While it's not been setting world records, it's still a great performing motherboard. What's most impressive is that it's pretty damn efficient even in overclocking tests. That's not a huge power saving, but at the end of the day, electricity doesn't come for free, and money saved always adds up. Stock Overclocked Final Thoughts Overview The Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming Motherboard is certainly appealing for a lot of system builders, and that's pretty much what Aorus were going for, mass appeal. It's not the most expensive motherboard in its class, it's not the particularly the fastest either. However, when it comes down to it, it's certainly competitive with anything else out there right now. While not the fastest Z370 board, it's certainly giving previous generations a good run thanks to the new Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake CPU that's powering it; the i7-8700K 6-Core 12-Thread. Overclocking was super easy on this motherboard, and the BIOS is what we've come to expect from Gigabyte, in that it's easy to understand and operate. Style Another big tick for this motherboard is the aesthetics. It's a great looking motherboard, and it's sure to appeal to most gamers looking to build a sweet looking rig. The choice of using darker black and grey hardware means that it'll easily blend into a chassis, no matter the colour scheme. The only standout colouring is the tiny red highlight on the rear I/O guard, and the audio hardware. Of course, the huge rear I/O guard plays a bit part in the style too, and it really keeps things looking neat and tidy. Performance There's a lot on offer here with straight up CPU performance. Of course, there's also the addition of two m.2 drive mounts with Optane support. This gives you a few more options when exploring the best way to squeeze more performance from your new build. Add to that, overclocking grade hardware, overclocking Dual-Channel DDR4 slots, and you're well on your way to PC gaming heaven. Connectivity ASMedia 3142 USB 3.1 Gen 2 with USB Type-C and Type-A, Front USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C Header, Intel GbE LAN, dual M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps, and Thunderbolt 3 AIC Support certainly tick all the right boxes there. However, don't forget the addition of those lovely PCIe slots, with Armour and Ultra Durable for multi-GPU goodness. Audio gets the right kind of boost too, with ALC1220 120dB SNR HD Audio, Smart Headphone AMP and WIMA audio capacitors. USB DAC-UP 2 with Adjustable Voltage is another welcome addition and gives you plenty of options dependant on what kind of audio hardware you want to hook up. Pros Good overall performance Competitively priced Trusted brand name Ultra Durable hardware Armoured components Huge rear I/O guard Excellent connectivity Powerful on-board audio Dual M.2 with Optane support Great aesthetics RGB lighting Cons None Neutral Some synthetic benchmarks slightly underperformed, but we expect a BIOS update will soon fix that "With just the right features, and just the right price and performance, the Gigabyte Aorus Ultra Gaming is set to be one of the more popular Z370 motherboards on the market. A great choice for anyone who wants a stylish and well-equipped motherboard."