Final Words & Conclusion
Conclusion
You know, normally I'd never considered a B series chipset as often they are dull looking cheapo boards. While the memory frequency limitation is in place, as well as being more limited in PCIe lanes and tweaking, realistically, a board like this could be golden if you are on a budget yet pair it with the right processor. Honestly, I personally might even prefer it over the H370 as really, you can install a full speed M2 SSD, one full x16 Gen 3.0 PCIe lanes, you'll USB 3.1 options and still get six SATA3 ports. If you pair it with a proper processor (say a Core i5 8600), really all your bases have been covered (as long as you can live with the accumulated PCIe lane limitation). But for any regular Joe, you can reach flagship gaming performance on this sub 100 Euro motherboard. And that is not a bad proposition really. For B360 you normally expect a very dull motherboard, but yeah even at an aesthetic level this motherboard looks fine to me. The B360 and H370 series are going to be 'roughly' as fast as a Z370 chipset, there's no doubt about that. Since it is as fast, Intel needed to cut away and limit some stuff, being tweaking options, a fixed DDR4 memory frequency at 2667 MHz and smaller chipset limitations in the form of four less PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes, and for B360 another four less plus a few more limits on USB 3.1. In the end though, if you are savvy with one graphics card and one full speed M2 SSD, you still are looking at the same perf level as a non-tweaked Z370 platform, that fixed 2667 MHz memory speed really isn't that dramatic for anything with an Intel chip. Pair it with say a Core i5 8600 (non-K model), and you'll have an incredibly fast gaming rig.
Performance & tweaking
We have had a good look at this B360 motherboard, all with the latest BIOS, this once again felt solid overall. Paired with the right processor you can achieve terrific performance, again, recommended again would be a Core i5 8600 (review), which I find to be a tremendous sweet spot. It is a non-K model, which applies to this non-tweakable board. Even with the cut-off on DDR4 memory frequency, you need to realize Intel has been able to refine their memory controllers, pop in anything XMP 2.0. So yes, CPU performance based on this chipset, the baseline we cannot complain about. SATA3, USB 3.x, and NVMe also reveal proper performance.
Power consumption
We actually tested both the 8600 non-K and 8700K on this motherboard but use the 8700K for the baseline test, and yeah with a six-core, twelve threaded proc equals a 95 Watt TDP processor. With the system at idle with a GeForce GTX 1080 installed / 16 GB memory / SSD and the H370 motherboard, I hovered at roughly 30~35 Watts in IDLE. That's just impressive, the load values are okay as well, fairly similar for both procs. When we stressed the processor 100% run we reach roughly 135 Watts with the 6-core 8700K part. When we game we hover at ~250 Watts with the GeForce GTX 1080, but obviously that factor is dependent on the type of graphics card you use of course and sure, most games certainly do not utilize the six CPU cores. Overall I have no worries here.
DDR4 Memory
For Coffee Lake (8th Gen Intel procs) DDR4 may be clocked a notch faster at 2400 MHz as per Intel reference, there is, of course, a hard lock at 2667 MHz. We always say, volume matters more than frequency. A 3,200 MHz kit, for example, is more expensive, does offer better bandwidth but the performance increases in real-world usage will be hard to find compared to a cheaper 2677MHz kit. Unless you transcode videos over the processor a lot. On an Intel platform, as always, my recommendation is to go for slower clocked DDR4 memory with decent timings, but simply get more of it. Don't go for 8 GB, get yourself 16 GB.
Final words
Let's be brutally honest here, the Z series chipset over the years have become expensive, are the H and B series becoming the new mainstream norm? It certainly looks to be that way as this ROG STRIX B360-F Gaming from ASUS is just a great looking product while offering you value at a price in that 100 USD/EUR price bracket. Non-tweaked the motherboard offers performance close to the Z370 chipset can offer, yet have some features sliced away like limited memory frequency support, four fewer PCIe lanes and tweaking limitations. But combined with what the Core i5 and i7 (Coffee Lake) have got to offer, that's plenty enough for a proper high-end gaming rig. You get one full x16 PCIe slot, dual M.2 (here again only one full speed), Gigabit LAN and a handful of USB 3.1 options. Also, you will get a six SATA3 ports. Looks and design are terrific, once powered on you can alter the LEDs which bring in a very refined and personalized look and feel. Tweaking was the biggest limitation, but we also understand that most people do not overclock at all. And that's where H370 and B360 can make a lot of sense. The ROG STRIX B360-F Gaming is a mighty appealing proposition, this is the new B class chipset motherboard series from ASUS, and it's impressive for what you get and what you can achieve with it performance wise.
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