GIGABYTE Z370XP SLI (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z370 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: DDR4 support up to 4000mhz (oc) Dual M2 slots (up to 32gb/s) Amp Up Audio and smart headphone amp Smart Fan 5 Cooling 3 way crossfire, 2 way sli support Ultra durable armour Attractive Black and White theme Support for RGB Metal reinforced PCI-e slots Optane ready Intel Gigabyte LAN Dual Bios Easy bios to navigate App Center and easy tune software 7 x USB 3 ports and 1 x USB type C on rear IO G-connector 3 year warranty Silly price

Cons: Only supports 8th Gen Intel LGA 1151 cpu’s Not the best implementation of ALC 1220 audio RGB strips need to be purchased

Overall Review: This will be the 10th pc I’ve built in the last 5 or 6 months. Mainly for family and friends. I’ve used various cpu’s and chipsets, but this pc build was my first with a new 8th gen 6 core 8400 cpu. And I am extremely impressed. This pc was going to replace the X370 mother and Ryzen 1600 cpu that I used in my sons last build. Both he and I were not overly happy with the stability of that platform, so back to Intel we went. I was lucky enough to find an 8400 cpu and paired it with speedy pc 3000 DDR4 ram and this motherboard. My son went for this motherboard because of the black and white theme, which he told me looked cool. I agreed, but was also impressed with all of the features that this basic motherboard came with and the silly price (after rebate). By far this is the cheapest Z370 motherboard with ALC 1220 sound, but to be honest it does not sound as good as my other Gigabyte Aorus Z370 motherboard with ALC 1220, perhaps because this board skimps out on the WIMA capacitors? The pc was built in 30 mins and the reinforced PCI-e slot fully supported my sons GTX 980Ti without any sagging. The board comes with Dual Bios, so if an overclock or bios flash goes badly the board is not completely bricked as you can boot in to Windows using the backup bios. The bios was easy to navigate in using keyboard and mouse and comes with the new Smart Fan 5 which is excellent and allows me to create custom fan profiles easily. Once I installed the hardware, I was able to boot to the bios to tweak a few settings including ram speed and from there I booted in to the existing Windows 10 install on my sons SSD. I easily uninstalled the old AMD chipset drivers along with the video card drivers, rebooted again, cleaned up the windows system files using CCleaner and then reinstalled the new Z370 drivers along with the latest video card drivers. After one more reboot I was up and running without issue, everything worked perfectly. While I generally prefer a complete reinstall of Windows, an update from Ryzen to Z370 really did not necessitate this IMO. This motherboard comes with all of the important features I think are necessary for forward thinking and longevity in a new pc, including Realtek’s new ALC 1220 audio, crossfire and sli support, M2 support (up to 32Gb/s), Intel GbE LAN and USB 3.1 (type A and C). Although it does not come with any RGB, RGB is still supported in the bios and software app once an RGB LED strip is purchased and connected to the motherboard header. I decided on the intel core i5 8400 as this is a 6 core cpu running at a base rate of 2.8ghz and boost rate of 4.0ghz on a single core. It’s not a K cpu, so I will not be overclocking. Having said this, the Gigabyte motherboard has multicore enhancement functionality in the bios. This forces the cpu to run all cores at maximum boosted parameters when under load. In the case of the 8400, all cores boost to 3.8ghz. Performance is very strong. The motherboard was flawless, setup was easy, no issues. My son is happy with his upgraded pc and I must admit that this motherboard looks very cool. I added an RGB strip for some added ‘bling’. Very happy. The 3 year warranty and the price after rebate made me happier.

Pros: -Well laid out with good margins where needed. -More than enough headers for cooling flexibility. -Legacy PS/2, COM, and LPT ports (!); Would slot right in with a KVM/management console from the late 90's/early 00's. -Very good heat-sinking of the power supplies and chipset. -Plenty of USB support- and supporting charging while system is powered down (found this out by chance).

Cons: -NOISY analog audio output despite the so-called Audio Noise guard; more on this in the other section... -No rear-panel accessible digital audio output (optical or coax). -Have to keep SATA port 0 unused if you plan on using the upper M2 slot.

Overall Review: I've always been a fan of no-frills boards. I really don't care for fancy lighting (I'm the only one who ever sees my system); I'd rather the money be spent on better components or better layout. So, the Z370XP SLI seems to be the Core "K" capable board for me. It mostly does what it says on the box, and has a couple vintage surprises thrown in to boot. The UEFI interface is okay, but some of the settings could use better explanation, and some of the translations are poetic. It gets the job done though. All the headers are cleanly and unambiguously labeled, and the diagnostic LEDs are helpful. Being branded as "Ultra Durable", I expect it to last at least as long as my old MSI Z68A-G43 (which was purchased towards the end of 2011), but time will tell. Reading some of the other reviews is not encouraging when they're split almost evenly between negative and positive... Now to my BIG gripe, and the ONLY reason for the 3/5 score (it is perfect in my estimation in almost every other regard...), and that is the analog audio output. When the system is under load (playing games and such), there is an audible whining and buzzing that comes out of the speakers connected to it. For a system billed as possessing an "Audio Noise Guard" this is quite unacceptable, and would be unacceptable in a system that didn't even sport such a "feature". This is certainly the mobo causing this, as it changes in pitch dependent on the load, and the audio outputs are otherwise silent when simply playing music out of iTunes or streaming video/music online. Whether there is some grounding issue from the "isolated" audio paths or some board component is out of whack, I can't say, but I've never had such an issue with my old MSI board or the Asus or Intel boards I routinely used before that. For reference, I'm using the board with a Core i5-8600K (no overclock, yet) a GTX780, and 16GB of GSkill Ripjaws DDR4-2400 RAM.

Pros: -Easy Bios update - Easy Install - XMP worked - Looks good - 3rd Gigabyte board with no issues

Cons: - None yet

Overall Review: UPDATE 12-2-17 - I have now owned this Motherboard for over a month. I still cannot say anything negative. I have had NO issues at all and my 8400 runs perfect. Never crashed, already had a BIOS update to solve vulnerabilities from Intel and I am running GSkills 3200Mhz XMP Dual channel with no issues. -Installed my 8400 and everything worked perfect with No issues. Boots in about 10sec. I ran my XMP and it also works perfect. I cannot say I have found anything wrong at all.

Pros: Great price and nice configuration options.

Cons: Mine Came with F6 bios, so you need an older CPU if you are going to use a Gen 9 cpu. Lucky for me I had one.

Overall Review: Not a true ATX. Good if you need some extra space, but doesn't have the front mounting screws. My front USB3 ports caused the board not to POST.

Pros: - Excellent drivers support and tools (Windows 7 USB tool to add NVMe and USB drivers, this is awesome) - Great board for the price and the number of features supported, all working perfect

Cons: - None

Overall Review: Recommended

Pros: - Cheap for a Z370 board - 3 full PCIE slots - 2 M.2 slots

Cons: When the system is overclocked and under load, the VRMs overheat to over 127 degrees Celsius (the number overflows to -128 after this), causing the CPU to throttle its frequency down to 800Mhz every 5 seconds or so and then back up again. i8600K is supposed to OC to 5Ghz+ easily but at 4.7Ghz I ran into this issue and had to lower the OC to 4.5Ghz.

Pros: -Nice looking VRMs -Gigabyte G connector -Clear and thorough labeling -On rear I/O: I like that they took out a lot of garbage to give us lots of USB2 for a board at this price, including a USB3 and Type C. -Black with white stripe design is very tasteful -Low profile heatsinks -Cool (as in nice) chipset heatsink -4 Diagnostic LEDs

Cons: -They still have PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors on here. Why??? Take this old trash out of here. -The rear I/O shield pushes back against the motherboard quite hard. You have to push very hard to align the holes on the motherboard so the board can be installed. -RGB/LED shenanigans, see below.

Overall Review: TAKE NOTE: Though not explicitly stated anywhere, this is NOT a *standard* ATX board. It is ATX, but it deviates from the standard size of 12" x 9.6". You can see from the specifications here that it is 12" by 8.9". It is as long as a standard ATX board, but narrower by half an inch. This means they can't use the 3 normal standoffs at the right edge, so they used a microATX screw near the center standoff. I don't think this is a detriment, the board is just as secure, it was just not a fun surprise to be building and surprise! It's not ATX! Undo it and install a microATX standoff, and now the board won't cover that extra half inch of space you expected it to cover. I'm totally okay with this, just thought people ought to know. TAKE NOTE: This is NOT an RGB board. This is an rgb READY board. There are LEDs on the back of the board, yes. But they light up in one color: RED. Most of the light is on the left side, like the red lines show in the picture, around the audio circuits. You can make those lights pulse or turn them off in the BIOS. What they mean by the RGB logo on this board's marketing is that the BIOS itself contains presets to control the color of an LED strip you might purchase and plug into the LED connector on this motherboard. FUTHERMORE, you will of course enable XMP. When you enable XMP, another red LED will turn on at the top right back of the board, to light up "X M P". You cannot turn this off. If it weren't for this one red led that you can't turn off, it would be a very tasteful board that works in any color build. But instead, you have one angry red light on at the top middle of the case. -FRONT audio connector is still placed on the REAR of the board, the furthest away they could put it from where it needs to go. It's not a problem since it's a longstanding industry practice, so the cable is long enough to reach. -CMOS_CLEAR is still a jumper on this board. I haven't overclocked on this board yet (besides XMP technically). I may return later with new information. Overall, I'm happy with the board for the $137 I paid despite that one bright LED.

Pros: Very reasonably priced. A fair number of USB 3.0 and nice to have one 3.1a and USB C for the price. Straight forward BIOS GUI allows for easy OC/setup. No issues throughout the first year, knock on wood. Only have 2x8gb, never tried out other two DIMM slots. DDR4 runs smoothly at 3600mhz, didn't push it all the way to 4000mhz.

Cons: Onboard red LED cannot be turned off. Not POST LED, there is a separate GIGABYTE logo permanently lit. Even with most recent BIOS updates no change.