Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Gaming 7 review - Product Showcase

The Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Gaming 7 motherboard is to be considered the more high-end solution in that Z370 series motherboard range. Gigabyte packed it with features like DDR4 XMP support up to 4133MHz, triple PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2, ESS SABRE DAC Creative SoundBlaster 720°, Killer E2500 and Intel Gbe LAN. The Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Gaming 7 is built using their Ultra Durable standard, assuring high reliability and proper components. 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) with good reason.

The motherboard includes all of the standardized Z370 enhancements like the ability for three full x4 PCIe Gen 3 M.2 SSD slots (RAID compatible) and will support SLI and Crossfire. You'll also spot a variety of USB3.1 Type-A & Type-C Gen2 ports.

 
The I/O panel of the Gaming 7 reveals six 3.1 ports and one type-c connector. Intel does not have native USB 3.1 Gen 2 support from the processor hence Gigabyte makes use of external 3rd party controllers like the ASMedia 3142. The motherboard features three PCIe x16 Gen 3.0 expansion slots and three x1 slots. A Realtek ALC1220 audio codec is the source for audio which will utilise enhanced quality capacitors following the AMP-UP logic that Gigabyte offers on most motherboards these days. AMP-UP Audio now offers ESS SABRE with a DAC that adopts the concept of a high-end audiophile sound system design into a micro-system within the motherboard. The board gets two 10/100/1000 Ethernet controllers, one Intel and one KillerNIC (E2500), unfortunately there is no WIFI and/or 5/10 GBit/s Ethernet implemented. There is a single PS/2 combo port that can be used for either a keyboard or mouse.

 
The board is powered by one 8-pin ATX power header to the processor. A small detail, see the metal protected PCI-Express slots? These actually have LED strips along the sides of them and these light up, let me show you that:

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 4133 MHz memory (overclocked), you may install up-to 64 GB of it. 

So the AORUS Z370 motherboard features the Gigabyte RGB Fusion LED system. You can customize anything in any color and animation, use a static color and simply turn it all off if you dislike it, with the RGB Fusion App including customizable multiple zones. In a powered on chassis, it looks absolutely amazing.