EVGA Z370 Micro ATX Motherboard Review

EVGA Z370 Micro-ATX There are loads of impressive Z370 motherboards on the market already. Of course, that's great news for consumers! EVGA has a habit of not being the first to market, but instead take their time to create the motherboards they know their fans will love. Enter the Z370 Micro-ATX, which comes packed full of features that are sure to please the enthusiast PC gamer. Equipped with durable power delivery hardware, reinforced PCIe and DIMM slots, dual BIOS, 11 Phase VRM, and more, this board is built for stability. If you're eager to overclock, the upgraded hardware and massive VRM cooling should help you unleash your CPU of choice. Of course, specs here and there are one thing, how it performs in the real world is another. Let's get it on the test bench and see if EVGA can deliver the goods! Features 100% Solid State Capacitors. Clear CMOS, Power and Reset Buttons. Onboard CPU Temperature Monitor. 3 Year Warranty. Supports Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 Socket 1151 Coffee Lake-S Processors. Reinforced PCIe and DIMM slots. RGB Header Support. Switchable Dual BIOS. Highly-Efficient 11 Phase Digital VRM. External Clock Gen. Included Intel Dual-band WiFi / BT4.2 with an external antenna. Intel Optane™ Memory Ready. Specifications For in-depth specifications, please visit the official product page here. What EVGA Had to Say "The Z370 Micro ATX ushers in the new era of Intel’s mainstream motherboards with performance and features normally reserved for full-size motherboards. Supporting Coffee Lake-S, Intel’s 8th Generation Core processors, the Z370 Micro ATX can be driven by up to 6 physical cores + Hyper-Threading. This board contains standard features, including USB 3.0, M.2, Intel® Optane™ support, 7.1 Channel audio, reinforced PCI-e slots, an Intel Gigabit NIC and included Intel Dual-Band WiFi + Bluetooth. However, there is nothing standard about the Z370 Micro’s overclocking ability. The Micro ATX features a Highly-Efficient Digital VRM, 8 VCORE phases, an External Clock Generator, and full EVGA E-LEET X support. Lastly, a board this powerful would not be complete without 2-Way SLI Support to ensure your dominance over the field. With the EVGA Z370 Micro ATX, mainstream performance just found its new home." - EVGA A Closer Look Without a doubt, this is a gorgeous looking motherboard. I mean, all the usual hardware is where you would expect it to be, but it still looks somewhat unique. One of the standout features is the VRM and heatsink design. There's an 11-phase digital power delivery system, with some robust looking chokes. To keep everything cool, we've got one of the most competent looking coolers I've seen on any Z370 motherboard. Overall, this bodes well for those eager to overclock their CPU. To help with cable routing, the motherboard 24-pin slot is flipped on its side, and there's a cutaway in the motherboard to allow easier use of your chassis cable routing grommet too. The board only has two DIMM slots, but they're both reinforced and look neat and tidy. Some may want four slots, but it's not like there aren't other products on the market that offer it. One thing I am very pleased to see is a built-in BIOS Debug LED, as well as onboard power controls. There are also two RGBW headers here, for you lighting lovers. There are six SATA ports built-in, which is more than enough for most storage needs. Impressively, all the connections on the lower end of the motherboard are on their side too. Overall, this will really help keep a nice flow to your cable routing. There are two armoured PCIe slots, which should have no issue dealing with the heavy weight of modern GPUs. Also, an additional 6-pin header will provide a more stable voltage for your GPUs over PCIe. Not that its needed for most, but when overclocking your GPUs, it can improve stability. Finally, we have the rear I/O. It comes with eight USB ports, PS2, RJ45, and the usual audio jacks. Nothing crazy, but more than enough for a high-end system. Hiding at the top, a small CMOS reset button is handy for those who muck up their settings. Of course, it'll mean you can reset without having to open up your chassis and find the jumper pins. 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 CPU – Intel Core i7-8700K 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 X399 Motherboard – Changes Per Review CPU – Threadripper 1950X 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 CPU – Intel Core i9-7900X 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 CPU – Ryzen 7 1800X 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 CPU – Intel Core i7-7700K 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 CPU – Intel Core i7-5960X 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 Straight away, the EVGA FTW mATX motherboard is off to a fantastic start. The mATX set several of our highest scores to date in multiple benchmarks. While it didn't set any new records, it's rubbing shoulders with the fastest Z370 motherboards we've tested, and that's obviously good news for EVGA fans. Scoring a fantastic 23194 in 3DMark Fire Strike and 5555 in Unigine Superposition, proving it has the power required for high-end 3D performance. It did well in PCMark 10, WPrime, CineBench and Handbrake too. It's a multi-tasking powerhouse and competes with some pretty expensive full-ATX motherboards overall. 3DMark Firestrike Stock Overclocked Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme Stock Overclocked PCMark 10 Express Stock Overclocked WPrime 32M and 1024M Stock Overclocked Cinebench R15 Stock Overclocked Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K Stock Overclocked Gaming Performance This is a gaming motherboard from what I would call a gaming brand, so this is important. Fortunately, we see strong results in these benchmarks too. It scored our fourth highest score in Deus Ex at 151 FPS, and was just 0.8 FPS away from the top spot in Ghost Recon! Then we saw an amazing 202 FPS in Rise of the Tomb Raider. However, it's the 162 FPS in Far Cry Primal that impressed the most, our second highest score in this benchmark to date! Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Ghost Recon: Wildlands Far Cry Primal Power Consumption and Temperatures Power Consumption The power consumption is pretty decent too, although it's not the most efficient Z370 motherboard. It obviously uses more power and that's reflected in its performance, but if the benchmarks are anything to go by (they are), then the power is certainly not going to waste. Stock Overclocked Final Thoughts Pricing The EVGA Z370 FTW mATX Motherboard is available now from all the usual retailers. Make no mistake though, this is a premium quality product, and it comes with the price to match. At £205, it's one of the most expensive mATX Z370 motherboards on the market today. Overview We've seen many incredible EVGA products over the years. From their truly staggering GPUs to their unique motherboard designs, power supplies, and more recently even chassis. The new FTW motherboard series has gotten off to a good start. I loved their FTW ATX model, despite it not being anywhere near as fast as its mATX counterpart. Now with the mATX testing under our belt, I'm happy to say it's one of the best mATX motherboards on the market today. Build Quality EVGA has cut no corners here. The Z370 platform has had its issues with smaller VRM coolers, but that's not the case here. The cooling and subsequent power delivery on this motherboard are rock solid. When it comes to pushing to 5 GHz and beyond, then staying there 24/7, I have no concerns. The ATX model uses a single 8-pin CPU header, while this uses an additional 4-pin for even better stability at higher voltages. Solid capacitors, a durable PCB, armoured slots, it all adds up. Performance Setting some of the highest benchmarks we've seen to date is no easy task. The Z370 platform has been out a while though, and EVGA has been sitting quietly on the sidelines fine-tuning their product. It's great being first to market, but sometimes being patient can pay off too. When it comes to building an mATX gaming system, you'll struggle to find anything better. Should I Buy One EVGA has a fantastic product here, they really do. The design looks stunning, the angled motherboard headers are cool, the overclocking and performance are really on point. The only drawback is the price, and at just over £200, it's a bit of a wallet buster. However, EVGA has long had a premium on their top products, and I'm sure EVGA fans will still swoon for it. £30 cheaper wouldn't go amiss though, just to keep it close to some of its rivals concerning similar feature sets. Either way, it's not cheap, but the performance and build quality are tight, so it's hardly poor value for money.