The MSI Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon AC (mITX) Motherboard Review: Balanced Gaming Diet
by Joe Shields on August 23, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- Mini ITX
- Coffee Lake
- Z370
Benchmark Overview
For our testing, depending on the product, we attempt to tailor the presentation of our global benchmark suite down into what users who would buy this hardware might actually want to run. For CPUs, our full test suite is typically used to gather data and all the results are placed into Bench, our benchmark database for users that want to look at non-typical benchmarks or legacy data. For motherboards, we run our short form CPU tests, the gaming tests with half the GPUs of our processor suite, and our system benchmark tests which focus on non-typical and non-obvious performance metrics that are the focal point for specific groups of users.
The benchmarks fall into several areas:
Short Form CPU
Our short form testing script uses a straight run through of a mixture of known apps or workloads and requires about four hours. These are typically the CPU tests we run in our motherboard suite, to identify any performance anomalies.
| CPU Short Form Benchmarks | |
| Three Dimensional Particle Movement v2.1 (3DPM) | 3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, derived from my academic research years looking at particle movement parallelism. The coding for this tool was rough, but emulates the real world in being non-CompSci trained code for a scientific endeavor. The code is unoptimized, but the test uses OpenMP to move particles around a field using one of six 3D movement algorithms in turn, each of which is found in the academic literature. |
| The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized. | |
| WinRAR 5.4 | WinRAR is a compression based software to reduce file size at the expense of CPU cycles. We use the version that has been a stable part of our benchmark database through 2015, and run the default settings on a 1.52GB directory containing over 2800 files representing a small website with around thirty half-minute videos. We take the average of several runs in this instance. |
| POV-Ray 3.7.1 b4 | POV-Ray is a common ray-tracing tool used to generate realistic looking scenes. We've used POV-Ray in its various guises over the years as a good benchmark for performance, as well as a tool on the march to ray-tracing limited immersive environments. We use the built-in multi threaded benchmark. |
| HandBrake v1.0.2 | HandBrake is a freeware video conversion tool. We use the tool in to process two different videos into x264 in an MP4 container - first a 'low quality' two-hour video at 640x388 resolution to x264, then a 'high quality' ten-minute video at 4320x3840, and finally the second video again but into HEVC. The low-quality video scales at lower performance hardware, whereas the buffers required for high-quality tests can stretch even the biggest processors. At current, this is a CPU only test. |
| 7-Zip 9.2 | 7-Zip is a freeware compression/decompression tool that is widely deployed across the world. We run the included benchmark tool using a 50MB library and take the average of a set of fixed-time results. |
| DigiCortex v1.20 | The newest benchmark in our suite is DigiCortex, a simulation of biologically plausible neural network circuits, and simulates activity of neurons and synapses. DigiCortex relies heavily on a mix of DRAM speed and computational throughput, indicating that systems which apply memory profiles properly should benefit and those that play fast and loose with overclocking settings might get some extra speed up. |
System Benchmarks
Our system benchmarks are designed to probe motherboard controller performance, particularly any additional USB controllers or the audio controller. As general platform tests we have DPC Latency measurements and system boot time, which can be difficult to optimize for on the board design and manufacturing level.
| System Benchmarks | |
| Power Consumption | One of the primary differences between different motherboads is power consumption. Aside from the base defaults that every motherboard needs, things like power delivery, controller choice, routing and firmware can all contribute to how much power a system can draw. This increases for features such as PLX chips and multi-gigabit ethernet. |
| Non-UEFI POST Time | The POST sequence of the motherboard becomes before loading the OS, and involves pre-testing of onboard controllers, the CPU, the DRAM and everything else to ensure base stability. The number of controllers, as well as firmware optimizations, affect the POST time a lot. We test the BIOS defaults as well as attempt a stripped POST. |
| Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.2.5 | Testing onboard audio is difficult, especially with the numerous amount of post-processing packages now being bundled with hardware. Nonetheless, manufacturers put time and effort into offering a 'cleaner' sound that is loud and of a high quality. RMAA, with version 6.2.5 (newer versions have issues), under the right settings can be used to test the signal-to-noise ratio, signal crossover, and harmonic distortion with noise. |
| USB Backup | USB ports can come from a variety of sources: chipsets, controllers or hubs. More often than not, the design of the traces can lead to direct impacts on USB performance as well as firmware level choices relating to signal integrity on the motherboard. |
| DPC Latency | Another element is deferred procedure call latency, or the ability to handle interrupt servicing. Depending on the motherboard firmware and controller selection, some motherboards handle these interrupts quicker than others. A poor result could lead to delays in performance, or for example with audio, a delayed request can manifest in distinct audible pauses, pops or clicks. |
Gaming
Our gaming benchmarks are designed to show any differences in performance when playing games.
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eek2121 - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
I would like to know how many people actually have multiple m.2 drives. I typically just install a single drive and if I need additional storage, fallback to SATA.I might have to pick up one of these and a Node 202 case or something for a small, compact gaming PC.
AdditionalPylons - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
I bought the ASRock AB350M Pro4 specifically because it had two M.2 slots. (One supporting both PCIe and S-ATA and the other one only S-ATA.) This allows for one very fast system and application drive and one bigger and cheaper as video editing scratch disk. This keeps the number of cables lower. Airflow can probably be debated because on one hand M.2 drives may not get much air, but on the other hand S-ATA PCBs are enclosed and don't get much airflow either.Price-wise M.2 S-ATA drives are almost the same as 2.5" S-ATA drives. I wouldn't be surprised if M.2 got cheaper than S-ATA over time due to the size of the enclosure and packaging, but it's more likely mostly due to supply and demand.
katsetus - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
In case of Node 202, the other m.2 slot would come in handy for expansion. I have the Asus z370i strix in it, and with a large gpu and non-modular psu, the hdd bracket would be a nuisance, and I am unsure if it would even fit. With storage-oriented (as compared to performance-oriented) nvme drives coming down in price, I would consider buying another nvme drive for expanded storage rather than a 2.5 inch ssd. At least in case of Node 202, that is.Hxx - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
m.2 drives have come down in price especially if you're going for a SATA m.2. Much more elegant, no cable clutter, and generally faster for a small price premiumDanNeely - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
For people going with even smaller new SFF cases than you're co, there might not even be an HDD bay at all making it m.2 or MacGyver for solid state drives.Gothmoth - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
i have 3 x 1TB drives. in my TR system.Dug - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
I use 2 m.2 drives and wish I could use three, but there would be a performance hit for doing so.1 for OS and all apps. 2nd for games and editing files. Sata drive for back up and photos.
NobodyYouKnow - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
I currently use 3 M.2 cards (2x PCIe M.2 & 1x Sata M.2) on the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon. Got 1 PCIe M.2 in the top slot, the sata M.2 in the bottom, and an older PCIe M.2 in a M.2 PCIe x4 add-in adapter card (Akasa AK-PCCM2P-01). The latter is in the bottom PCIe x8 slot.The plan is to buy a 1TB PCIe M.2 that will go in the bottom M.2 slot and move the sata M.2 in the Akasa adapter. The card currently in the adapter is not enough for my games but will work just fine in a htpc.
prateekprakash - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
One query: is it possible to connect multiple headphones using the back audio jacks? ( Without using any splitter or external DAC, just those 3.5mm ports)I just need stereo audio through each headphones, nothing fancy...
DanNeely - Thursday, August 23, 2018 - link
AFAIK no boards support this unless you've got a pair that can connect over the optical port (do these exist?). The various analog pins are to support separate location channels for surround sound, so if you plug in multiple headphones the audio controller will think you've got front, and center, or side, or etc speakers.