Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 from Gigabyte – High end Intel 8th Gen mobo

1. Introduction and Overview2. Performance and Overclocking3. Closing Thoughts4. View All Pages

The Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard from Gigabyte is a high end piece of hardware that supports the latest Intel 8th Gen. Coffee Lake CPUs with an Intel Z370 chipset. The final part of that sentence is self-evident as Z370 is currently the only 8th Gen. chipset.

Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 looks rather understated and has a list of features as long as your arm, which gives an initial impressions of a professional motherboard, rather than a product aimed at gamers. Your view may well change through 180 degrees when you power up your PC as the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 is loaded with RGB lighting on almost every component, including the VRMs, memory slots, accent plate, audio, chipset, I/O panel and PCI Express x16 slots. The lighting is controlled by RGB Fusion software.

Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 Specification: Read detailed specs over HERE

We used the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 for our launch review of Intel 8th Gen and found it delivered rock solid performance with easy overclocking, which made it ideal for that particular job.

At that time we didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the finer points of the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 as we were focused on the CPU. That is a back-handed compliment to the Gaming 7 which did a fine job without any problems, yet the fact is there are a great many things to like about this motherboard.

The layout is very clean with a rugged design that is reminiscent of a high end X299 model. The top PCI Express expansion slot gets 16 lanes of PCIe from the CPU which is divided 8+8 if you install a second GPU. After that the third x16 slot gets 4 lanes from the chipset and the x1 slots are also powered from the chipset.

There are three M.2 slots, with the main slot hidden under a cover/heat spreader, and six SATA 6Gbps connections, so you have plenty of scope for adding as much storage as you desire. It is worth noting the M.2 slots share resources with SATA so as you populate M.2 you will find some SATA ports go dark.

Power connections are located in the classic positions with the main 24-pin at the side and the 8-pin EPS up top and close to the VRM heat sinks.

In total there are eight fan headers, although CPU and CPU Opt effectively count as one, and the Sys Fan 2 header is taken by the 40mm fan that is hidden in the I/O panel. That is a huge number of fan connections and to add to our joy they use the Smart Fan 5 system that automatically detects the fan type on each header and can even bring the fans to a complete halt. In addition to the fan headers there are nine temperature sensor connection points.

The eagle eyed viewer may spot an omission in our video during the run-down of the I/O panel where we mention the USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A port in red on the back panel but skip past the faster USB Type-C port that has USB 3.1 Gen 2 support. To summarise, you get a huge number of ports and connectors and should be perfectly happy with what Gigabyte provides.

Performance and overclocking

At stock clocks the Core i7-8700K receives 1.16V and runs at 4.3GHz on all cores. We used the preset profile in the UEFI to overclock to 5.0GHz and that simply changed the multiplier to 50x and increased to a nominal 1.4V (1.38V actual).

Gigabyte is keen to point out the extra power phases in the Gaming 7 make this possible and you will not necessarily see the same clock speeds from the same CPU on lesser motherboards such as the Gaming 5 or Ultra Gaming.

Naturally we could have manually overclocked the Core i7-8700K and aimed for something higher than 5.0GHz but there was no point as the CPU temperature was sitting at 89 degrees and our screen grab from HW Monitor shows maximum temperatures in the mid-90s.

This very likely means you would want to consider running your CPU slightly slower to help its longevity at, say, 4.9GHz.

Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 from Gigabyte is an impressive motherboard that packs in a list of features that fall in three areas. The ports and connectors are beyond reproach and give you everything you need, including headers for both USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2.

The motherboard has a sensible layout which means you can use most of the features with ease. If you were being very picky you might point out that the middle M.2 slot sits under the main graphics card but this is a minor point.

Then we have the Gigabyte take on things so the VRM hardware uses high end Intersil ISL99227B Smart Power Stage chips that are rated at 60A and cost around $5 each.

In addition each phase has a ‘server-level’ choke and the consequence is that the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 can handle pretty much anything you throw in its direction. We particularly likely the Smart Fan 5 feature that automatically detects the fan type on each header, whether it is DC or PWM, or even if you have connected a water pump that demands more current.

In the third category we have the features that might be considered as bling. Specifically we have the extensive RGB lighting which is somewhat over the top, but works well, Although the heat sinks on the VRMS look substantial they actually appears to be more of a carrier for the RGB lighting system. And finally we have the software.

You first have to install the Gigabyte App Centre and can then install each piece of software that is relevant to your specific motherboard. The list is lengthy and the fact is you can perform most of the functions in the UEFI so the software is slightly irrelevant.

The notable exception is RGB Fusion which has more features in Windows than the rudimentary lighting controls in the UEFI. We found @BIOS and System Information Viewer were worthwhile but would probably pass on (deep intake of breath) 3D OSD, BIOS Setup, Cloud Station, EasyTune, Fast Boot, Game Boost, ON/OFF Charge, Platform Power Management, Smart Backup, Smart Keyboard, Smart TimeLock, USB Blocker and V-Tuner.

Focus on the underlying hardware and you will see that Gigabyte has delivered an impressive motherboard in the Z370 Aorus Gaming 7.

Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 from Gigabyte – Read MORE over HERE.

Buy from Overclockers UK for £254.99 inc vat HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• High end VRM hardware.
• Superb array of ports and connectors.
• Excellent Auto overclocking.
• Smart Fan 5 automatically detects the fan type on each header.

Cons:

• You pay a premium for the extra power phases on the Gaming 7.
• Some people might find the RGB lighting is over the top.
• Software would benefit from a unified interface.

KitGuru says: Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 sets a benchmark for reliable performance along with plenty of RGB.

 

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