Product Showcase
The Gigabyte Aorus H370 Gaming 3 motherboard is to be considered the mainstream solution in that Coffee Lake (8th gen) series motherboard range that sits under the 150 USD mark. As much as they could, Gigabyte packed it with features like DDR4 XMP support up to 2667 MHz (this is an Intel restriction), one full PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2, Realtek ALC 1220 audio and an Intel Gbe LAN. The Gigabyte Aorus H370 Gaming 3 is built using their Ultra Durable standard, assuring high reliability and proper components.
The motherboard includes all of the standardized H370 enhancements like the ability for one full x4 PCIe Gen 3 M.2 SSD slot and then a second one running at half speed. The board has a Crossfire label, however that second X16 slot runs x4, we would not recommend it. You'll also spot a variety of USB3.1 Type-A & Type-C Gen2 ports. Quick note; the four red blocks behind the audio capacitors are actually WIMA film capacitors, these are high-end grade Polypropylene Capacitors and thus implemented (despite that color) for good reason.
The I/O panel of the H370 Gaming 3 reveals six USB 3.1 ports with one type-c connector. Intel does not have native USB 3.1 Gen 2 support. The motherboard features two PCIe x16 Gen 3.0 (x16:x4) expansion slots and four x1 slots.
A Realtek ALC1220 audio codec is the source for audio which will utilize enhanced quality capacitors following the AMP-UP logic that Gigabyte offers on most motherboards these days. The board gets one 10/100/1000 Ethernet controller from Intel, there is WIFI available as an option, it, however, is an add-on module with a horrible green PCB that leads to an antenna connected through an expansion slot.
The board is powered by one 8-pin ATX power header to the processor. A small detail, the PCI-Express slots are metal protected and reinforced which helps with the stability of heavy graphics cards.
You will hopefully agree with me that once powered up the aesthetics change quite a bit. The board has four DIMM slots. Coffee Lake is limited to dual-channel. This board supports up-to DDR4 2667 MHz memory, you may install up-to 64 GB of it.
