Touted as a cost-effective route to Intel Z370 and Coffee Lake, GAMING PLUS is an entry-level motherboard offering basic functionality for gamers.
Product on Review: Z370 GAMING PLUS
Manufacturer & Sponsor: MSI
Street Price: UK £129 @ CCL Computers US $129
High-end motherboards which offer a multitude of features are designed for a specific user and one which has equally deep pockets. This element of the market is unlikely to appeal to all system builders, especially if a tight budget is imposed. So, there is something to be said for a product which has been tailored to be more cost-effective and we have to admit, we love a good bargain here at Vortez.
So today, we turn to MSI for a detailed look at what they have to offer in the form of the Z370 GAMING PLUS – a motherboard equipped for Intel’s 8th Generation of CPUs codenamed Coffee Lake. If you’re wanting basic functionality and a passage to Intel Z370, while keeping the costs down, then this motherboard could be for you. We get all of the essential features and a price-tag which should appeal.
About MSI
As a world leading gaming brand, MSI’s goal is to become the most trusted name in gaming and e-sport. We’ve dedicated countless hours and committed numerous resources to the eSports community to support the world’s most aspiring and best gamers and use their knowledge and expertise in our products in return. The insistence on 100% in-house design and manufacturing gives MSI the solid capability to implement innovative ideas and optimized design in our products.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications concerning the Z370 GAMING PLUS:
CPU
• Supports 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset
• Intel® Z370 Chipset
Main Memory
• 4 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 64GB
– Supports DDR4 Up to 4000MHz
• Dual channel memory architecture
• Supports ECC, un-buffered memory
– ECC UDIMM memory (non-ECC mode)
• Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Slots
• 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (Modes: 16, 4)
• 4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot
Onboard Graphics
• 1 x DVI-D
• 1 x D-Sub
• 1 x Displayport™ port (1.2)
Multi-GPU
• Supports 2-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology
Storage
• Intel® Z370 Chipset
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
• 1 x M.2 slot (Supports Intel Optane Memory – 8th Gen Processor required)
RAID
• Intel® Z370 Chipset
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 for SATA storage devices
Audio
• Realtek ALC 892 Codec
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
LAN
• 1 x Intel i219 Gigabit LAN controller
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x PS/2 mouse / keyboard combo port
– 2 x USB 2.0 ports
– 1 x VGA port
– 1 x DVI-D port
– 1 x DisplayPort port
– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
– 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports
– 6 x OFC audio jacks
Dimension
• 12 inch x 9.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm )
• ATX Form Factor
• Supports 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset
• Intel® Z370 Chipset
Main Memory
• 4 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 64GB
– Supports DDR4 Up to 4000MHz
• Dual channel memory architecture
• Supports ECC, un-buffered memory
– ECC UDIMM memory (non-ECC mode)
• Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Slots
• 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (Modes: 16, 4)
• 4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot
Onboard Graphics
• 1 x DVI-D
• 1 x D-Sub
• 1 x Displayport™ port (1.2)
Multi-GPU
• Supports 2-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology
Storage
• Intel® Z370 Chipset
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
• 1 x M.2 slot (Supports Intel Optane Memory – 8th Gen Processor required)
RAID
• Intel® Z370 Chipset
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 for SATA storage devices
Audio
• Realtek ALC 892 Codec
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
LAN
• 1 x Intel i219 Gigabit LAN controller
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x PS/2 mouse / keyboard combo port
– 2 x USB 2.0 ports
– 1 x VGA port
– 1 x DVI-D port
– 1 x DisplayPort port
– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
– 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports
– 6 x OFC audio jacks
Dimension
• 12 inch x 9.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm )
• ATX Form Factor
Unboxing & Video Review
For this review we’ve produced a video showcasing the items included in the box and a detailed rundown of the included features on this motherboard. Please click on this link or watch the video below:
Test Setup, Methodology & Overclocking
Test Setup
CPU Intel Core i7-8700K
Cooling Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard MSI Z370 GAMING PLUS
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics AMD Radeon 480
Storage OCZ Vector 180 240GB SSD
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Monitor AOC U2879VF
Capture Device Epiphan AV.iO 4K
Cooling Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard MSI Z370 GAMING PLUS
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics AMD Radeon 480
Storage OCZ Vector 180 240GB SSD
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Monitor AOC U2879VF
Capture Device Epiphan AV.iO 4K
Benchmarks
Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
Other Software
Temperature Analysis: Real Temp
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Overclocking
Like previous generations, the Intel Core i7-8700K is unlocked and also has flexible attributes in terms of the BCLK and ratio/multiplier. This makes the job of overclocking much easier.
While we were able to shift the 8700K up to our current milestone of 5GHz, we required a substantial 1.41v to achieve this and under the current BIOS (7B61v10) we had difficulty getting the CPU to settle at 5GHz under load. Setting fixed or dynamic modes resulted the frequency bouncing between 3GHz and 5GHz. We have spoken to MSI about this, and were advised to modify certain settings which did not alleviate the problem.
Benchmarks: Power Consumption
It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using the Z370 chipset, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.
Benchmarks: Cinebench R15
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Life of Pi or Prometheus and many more.
Benchmarks: X264 HD
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but we believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.
Benchmarks: POV-RAY
Persistence of Vision Raytracer’s PovRay is a free and open source 3D animator application with versions for computers with different operating systems.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
Benchmarks: TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt a partition or (under Microsoft Windows except Windows 8 with GPT) the entire storage device (pre-boot authentication).
Benchmarks: AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageThis simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8 & PCMark 10
PCMark 8 combines performance benchmarking with battery life measurement and includes tests based on popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 will help you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. It’s the complete PC performance benchmark for home and business.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8 Photoshop
The PCMark 8 Applications benchmark measures system performance using popular applications from the Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. You can choose which tests to run based on the applications installed on your system. Each test automatically steps through a series of actions such as opening, editing and saving a file. The results are used to calculate the PCMark 8 Applications scores for the system.
Benchmarks: 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy
3DMark FireStrike Product PageFire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.
Benchmarks: ROT Tomb Raider & Total War: WARHAMMER
It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two recent gaming titles.
Conclusion
The MSI Z370 GAMING PLUS is a bit of a mixed bag. While it does offer some good features, there has been some compromises which may deter some system builders moving over to Intel Coffee Lake.
We can’t argue about the chosen livery – adding in some colour to a market which is dominated by the plain and understated tones of black/grey, the GAMING PLUS seeks to liven things up and will supply an attractive canvas for any red-themed configuration.
Feature-wise, its pleasing to see trademark MSI options available on this board, including MSI Audio Boost and DDR4 Boost. We get a generous selection of fan headers including options specifically for CPU fan and water pumps and even little extras such as EZ Debug LED – allowing you to identify potential problems on bootup.
We are however dismayed to discover no USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports and although we have two X16 PCI Express slots, only AMD CrossfireX is supported.
For the asking price of £129 GBP @ CCL Computers / $129 USD, we expect a little bit more for our money given that there are other solutions for a smidgen more which offer far more features. To remain competitive, we advise MSI to drop the price down further on this model as the supplied features are representative of a motherboard costing around the £100 / $100 mark.
Z370 GAMING PLUS offers us good performance in a range of different tests but this was slightly overshadowed by the necessity for additional CPU voltage when overclocking.
For those who don’t have a huge wedge of cash to drop on a new Z370 motherboard, the MSI Z370 GAMING PLUS is a worthwhile consideration!
Pros
+ Coloured theme
+ Good performance
+ Features a strengthened PCI express slot
+ Generous amount of fan headers
+ Offers good audio
Cons
– Should be cheaper
– No NVIDIA SLI support
– No USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports
– Weak overclock
+ Coloured theme
+ Good performance
+ Features a strengthened PCI express slot
+ Generous amount of fan headers
+ Offers good audio
Cons
– Should be cheaper
– No NVIDIA SLI support
– No USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports
– Weak overclock
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