Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 review: A solid all-rounder enthusiast motherboard

Introduction

The Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 is the company’s flagship Intel Z370 motherboard. It comes with a decent selection of features, boasting generous storage expansion and connectivity options, customizable LEDs, and a beefed-up onboard audio solution.

It’s possible that Gigabyte may release a Gaming 9 board to plug the gap in the ultra-high-end segment, but until then, the Gaming 7 is the most feature-rich Z370 board you can get right now from Gigabyte.

That said, the laundry list of features reads more like that of a balanced all-rounder rather than that of an enthusiast-oriented model. For instance, there are no auxiliary power connectors for the CPU or an LN2 mode switch for serious overclocking. You also won’t find things like DIP switches to disable select PCIe or DIMM slots when you’re troubleshooting or tweaking your system.

However, what the board does have is a solid selection of core features that will prove far more useful to a wider swath of users. This decision is reflected in the fairly reasonable S$435 price tag, and you get everything you need, plus a little icing on the top.

For instance, there may not be any liquid cooling channels carved into the VRM heat sink, but you do still get eight 4-pin fan headers that can be configured to work in both PWM and voltage regulation modes. These headers are strategically spaced out around close to the edge of the board, so you don’t end up with wires running out from the middle of the PCB.

That said, you technically only have seven available headers, as the header next to the EPS12V connector is taken up by the tiny, built-in VRM fan that can spin up to 6,000RPM. This isn’t that common a feature on a motherboard, and it’s designed to turn on only in the most demanding of situations, such as when temperatures rise above 90°C.

However, if you want to have the fan running most of the time, you can probably set a custom fan curve in the BIOS itself. In fact, Gigabyte’s Smart Fan 5 controls let you define a temperature threshold below which your case fans will stop spinning for a more quiet experience.

The fan header located beside the 24-pin power connector is also a high amperage header that supports up to 3A. And together with a second header located at the bottom right of the board, it doubles up as a dedicated water cooling pump header as well.

I mentioned earlier that this board lacks certain features for more extreme overclockers, but that doesn’t mean it’s a slouch either. It is equipped with an 8+2-phase power design for the CPU and iGPU, and uses Intersil’s latest digital PWM and Smart Power Stages to supply up to 60A for each of the eight phases for the CPU Vcore.

These eight phases are achieved using phase doublers though, so there are really only four true phases.

You also get all the essential buttons, including ones for power, reset, and clearing CMOS. However, I’d have preferred to see the CLR_CMOS button located at the rear I/O instead, as it’d make troubleshooting a lot easier once you’ve completed your build. In addition, you’ll find a one-click OC button in the same area for a quick and hassle-free overclock.

The Gaming 7 features three full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, and supports up to two-way SLI or three-way CrossFire. As with most boards today, all three slots have been reinforced with metal to ensure that they stand up well under the weight of the heaviest graphics cards.

Gigabyte says it uses a one-piece stainless steel design with additional anchor points for an even stronger implementation.

An extra large gap sits between the first and second PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, which is good news for two-way setups as it provides more room for cooling the first card, and makes space for larger and thicker cards. The slots will run in x8/x8 mode when both are filled, while the third slot draws on four lanes from the chipset. This means that it shares bandwidth with all three M.2 sockets and any other device connected to the PCH, and will drop to x2 mode if the third M.2 socket is occupied.

The latter will probably be the most egregious case of bandwidth sharing on this board for enthusiasts, but most folks probably aren’t going to have more than two M.2 drives and two graphics cards at once.

Similarly, the first M.2 socket also shares resources with two of the six SATA 6Gbps connectors, but I don’t see many people having more than four SATA drives. And speaking of the SATA ports, they’re thoughtfully located a little closer to the bottom edge of the board, so your graphics card doesn’t end up blocking access to them.

The topmost M.2 socket is equipped with a Thermal Guard that looks inspired by MSI’s M.2 Shield. The M.2 drive is shielded by a metal cover that acts as a passive heat sink for the tiny SSD, which is particularly important given how close it is to heat-generating components like the CPU and GPU.

That said, it’s a little disappointing to not see the other two sockets receive the same treatment.

Finally, the board also has a couple of nice features that tend to slip under the radar. This includes an ESS Sabre 9018 DAC for onboard audio, a second Ethernet port powered by the Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet controller, and an internal USB 3.1 (Gen 2) header that feeds a front-panel USB-C port. To cap things off, you can replace the overlay at the top right with your own 3D-printed design, which will change the lighting pattern of the LEDs underneath. 

Test setup and performance benchmarks

Here’s a look at the system configuration we used for this review:

• Intel Core i7-8700K (3.7GHz, 12MB L3 cache) cooled by Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240
• Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7
• 2 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3000 at 2,666MHz (Auto timings: CAS 15-15-15-35)
• ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 Ti OC (GeForce Driver Version 388.59)
• Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD
• Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

We compared the Gigabyte board against competing models from ASUS, ASRock, and MSI to get an idea of how it measures up against the rest of the field. These boards all sit at the top, or near the top, of their respective product stacks, so someone considering one of these would probably have an eye on the others as well.

Here’s a list of all the boards we tested:

• Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7
• ASRock Z370 Taichi
• ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero
• MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC

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Benchmarks

Finally, we used to following benchmarks to assess the boards:

• BAPCo SYSmark 2014 SE v2.0.1.81
• SPECviewperf 12.1
• Cinebench R15
• 3DMark
• Ashes of the Singularity
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Performance results

SYSmark 2014 SE

SYSmark is a general productivity benchmark suite that measures the response times of tasks on a PC using real-world applications like Microsoft Office 2013 and Adobe Photoshop and simulated user input. Task response times are used to generate a performance rating that reflects actual user experience, so the faster a PC responds to application workloads, the higher its score will be. The method of measuring response times can take many forms, such as the time it takes for an application to show a pop-up completion message, or how long it takes a progress dialog to disappear and for a user to regain application control.

The 2014 SE version of SYSmark adds a new Responsiveness usage model, where the system's ability to react quickly to user input affects the overall user experience. This means situations where the system needs to respond smoothly and quickly, such as with application launches, multi-tab web browsing, file copying, and background app installation.

Unsurprisingly, there’s little to distinguish the boards in SYSmark, and they performed very similarly given the otherwise identical configurations. But even though the Gigabyte board looks like it is the bottom performer in terms of overall scores, the difference between the ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero and the former is just under 3 per cent - which is within a reasonable tolerance of deviation.

 

SPECviewperf 12.1

SPECviewperf is used to assess the 3D graphics performance of systems in professional applications. Each individual workload, called a viewset, represents graphics and content from an actual real-world application. SPECviewperf actually runs a total of eight different viewsets, but we’ve picked the four which have the greatest performance variation across CPUs display here.

The 3ds-max viewset comes from traces of the graphics workload generated by 3ds Max 2016, while maya-04 is derived from Autodesk’s Maya 2013 application. The catia-04 viewset involves the numerous rendering modes from the CATIA V6 R2012 application, and includes things like anti-aliasing, depth of field, and ambient occlusion. Finally, the sw-03 viewset comes from SolidWorks 2013 SP1, and involves various rendering modes including environment maps

Performance was similarly close in SPECviewperf 12.1, but the Gigabyte board acquitted itself quite well here, coming ahead in the 3ds-max and maya-04 viewsets.

Cinebench R15

Cinebench is a benchmark tool used to compare CPU performance across different systems, so we’ll be using it to evaluate how well our Intel Core i7-8700K plays with the different motherboards. The multi-threaded test scenario uses all of the system’s processing power – it can utilize up to 256 threads – to render a photorealistic 3D scene, making use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. Conversely, the single-core test stresses just one core.

A meager 0.97 per cent separates the Gigabyte and ASUS motherboards – the bottom and top performing boards respectively – in the multi-threaded benchmarks. Similarly, there was little to distinguish them in the single-core benchmark.

The Gigabyte board may have ended up at the bottom in both cases, but it’s really nothing you’re going to notice in real-world use.

3DMark

3DMark is a synthetic gaming benchmark that tests graphics and computational performance at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K. A series of two graphics test, one physics test, and then a combined test stresses your hardware in turn to assess its performance.

We’ve also teased out the Physics and CPU scores for the Fire Strike and Time Spy tests and compiled them in separate tables to give a better idea of CPU performance on each board.

The results were similarly unremarkable here, and are pretty much too close to call. 3DMark scores can vary up to 3 per cent between runs, so for all practical intents and purposes, there’s once again no significant difference here.

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity is one of the few CPU-bound games out there, if you’re playing on lower resolutions and settings that is.

The numbers pretty much speak for themselves, and it’s safe to say that in this case at least, benchmark performance isn’t going to be a major factor in your decision as to where to put your money. What’s more, there was never a single board that consistently took the lead, and they all traded blows for the most part.

These benchmark figures are therefore more useful in sussing out a board that performs below expectations, and the good news is that the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 doesn’t disappoint here.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is one of the most demanding games out there right now, where the GPU is a major limiting factor.

The same story repeats itself in Mankind Divided, and there’s really little point in splitting hairs over these minuscule performance differences.

Temperature, power consumption & overclocking

Temperature

We measured the temperatures of the VRM and PCH heatsinks after running 40 loops of the 3DMark Fire Strike Stress Test. You’ll naturally want lower temperatures since it shows that the respective heatsinks are doing a more effective job of dissipating heat.

That said, the Gigabyte board recorded the lowest VRM temperatures, but the highest PCH numbers. The board does come with a fan under its I/O shield for the express purpose of lowering VRM temperatures, so it’s good to see this paying off in practice.

Power consumption

To test power, we ran the energy-01 viewset in SPECviewperf 12.1 and recorded the peak power consumption. Idle power consumption was recorded after the system had idled at desktop for a while.

The Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. It uses a 10-phase power design for both the CPU and iGPU, the same as the ASUS and MSI motherboards.

Still, even though it consumed marginally more power than the latter two, it did better than the ASRock board. The ASRock Z370 Taichi has 12 phases dedicated to both the CPU and iGPU, so it should in theory have better power efficiency and better power regulation. As a result, it’s to the Gigabyte board’s credit that that wasn’t the case.

Overclocking

In order to assess the respective overclocking performance of the boards, we first tweaked the CPU multiplier ratio and raised the voltage accordingly. After ascertaining that the achieved clock speed was stable, we then proceeded to increase the BCLK value to get smaller overclock increments.

The table below shows the clock speeds we achieved, along with the CPU vCore, multiplier, and RAM frequencies. We've also included the respective BIOS versions of the boards for those who are keen to know such details.

The Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 enabled us to achieve the highest overclock here, and we were able to push the CPU to a high of 5.2GHz. Having said that, it’s important to note that this didn’t necessarily mean the absolute best performance, as the ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero squeaked ahead in Cinebench R15, despite managing a top speed of “only” 5.15GHz.

I also had to play with the LLC levels of the board to get it to perform at its best, eventually settling on the High setting. In a nutshell, LLC, or Load-Line Calibration helps reduce Vdroop, which is the drop in CPU voltage as load increases. This means a less stable vCore, which doesn’t bode well for overclocking stability, and a higher LLC level helps combat that.

Finally, I’d have preferred to see settings for the CPU, DRAM, and voltage located on the same page in the BIOS settings, as opposed to sequestering each of them under a different header.

But overall, the Gigabyte board’s performance shows that it is clearly one of the best Intel Z370 motherboards you can get if you intend to overclock, far outclassing its MSI and ASRock counterparts.

All the core features you’d need

All things considered, the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7 is one quality motherboard. There’s something for everyone here, ranging from overclockers to the casual user.

And if you like to toy around with RGB lighting, you won’t be disappointed either, as the board offers a good selection of customization options, in addition to support for external digital LED strips with individually addressable LEDs. There’s also the swappable overlay on the top right, which you can replace with your own 3D-printed design.

The board also uses Intersil’s latest Smart Power Stages and 76A inductors (the same as those on Gigabyte’s X299 motherboards), which is testament to the quality of the components used.

More importantly, its core feature set checks most of the right boxes with a good number of connectors and storage expansion options. It features a total of three M.2 sockets and six SATA 6Gbps connectors, with few major resource-sharing conflicts with the PCIe slots, so most users shouldn’t find their setup hampered by the way the board is allocating its PCIe lanes.

At S$435, the board is also quite reasonably priced, and it should do quite a good job at satisfying power users without breaking the bank. However, it’d have been nice to see features like onboard Wi-Fi and perhaps more USB ports at this price point.

Having said that, this is an otherwise well-designed motherboard that you can’t go wrong with.

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