Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming review - Introduction

Gigabyte Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming motherboard
More affordable - just as fast

In this review we test the affordable Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming motherboard, we'll pair it with the new six-core Core i7 8700K. Will it perform as fast as the more expensive SKUs? Well yeah of course it will, heck it'll even tweak as good as the more expensive motherboards as well. However the looks are a bit dimmed down, the features a bit more truncated. But hey, the Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming is all about proper good value.

Yes we test the new Coffee Lake platform. Coffee Lake are the new 8th generation desktop processors from Intel, including the new mainstream six-core part. A product line that is the direct answer and effect from what AMD has been pursuing aggressively in the desktop processor channel. With this first 'mainstream' step from intel they will offer 6-core processors. These will need to be paired with a new motherboard chipset and thus motherboard, the Z370 based ranges. 

With the introduction of Ryzen and more recently the announcement of Threadripper processors the processor market and channel has been turned up-side down, and Intel is slowly waking up from it's S3 deep-sleep state finally realizing that they cannot keep serving just quad-core processors in mainstream, as they have been doing for subsequent years now. AMD gave Intel a serious awakening call and as such they needed to step up, significantly. Intel’s primary processor business has been releasing and refreshing quad-core processors for many years combined with high-margin spicy priced E type (e.g. Broadwell-E / Haswell-E / Skylake-X) processor release every now and then. You can't really blame Intel either as there simply was no competition - hence they had no rush and have been relaxed all the way for years now. Intel did anticipate Zen (or Ryzen), but the AMD consumer aimed Threadripper 16-core and Naples server segment 32-core made Intel step up its game a notch as they shifted into a higher gear ever since Ryzen was released. Over the summer Skylake-X processors have been announced with limited releases and availability for the highest core count procs. Skylake-X however is available in good quantities at for the 10-cores ans 12-core parts, but these start ay 999 Euros for the 10-core version. There is a Intel Core i7-7800X hexa-core avai;able at the sub-400 Euro ranger though, but it needs to be tied towards an X299 motherboard, but these start at 350 euros. Ergo, AMD is outflanking Intel in any and every product segment price wise. This now changes with the Coffee Lake generation of processors that have up-to six-cores alongside more affordable Z370 motherboards.

In this article we look at the value oriented Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming, we'll again pair it with a Core i7 8700K. The board as stated is positioned in a more value region, but still looks great. Gigabyte shaved off a few tenners by simply implementing one Ethernet jack, not three but two M2 slots and well, stuff like that really. Nothing dramatic at all. The end result is a better priced product that offers very competitive performance and tweaks just as well as it's bigger brother, the gaming 7. Wanna check out this board with us? Next page my man.