ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac: Mini-ITX Motherboard With Dual NICs, WiFi, Triple Display For ~$130 USD

Written by Michael Larabel in Motherboards on 12 October 2017 at 09:30 AM EDT. Page 3 of 3. 42 Comments.

My ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac build initially consisted of using the Core i3 8100 quad-core CPU, 2 x 8GB DDR4-3000 memory, 60GB DREVO X1 SSD, the onboard UHD Graphics 630, and was housed within a Rosewill 2U rackmount chassis while using the Intel stock heatsink fan. As mentioned, the tests up to now have been done using Ubuntu 17.10 with the Linux 4.13 kernel and booting with i915.alpha_support=1. The performance of the Z370M-ITX AC motherboard have been found to be basically on par to just faintly behind the higher-end ASUS PRIME Z370-A motherboard we've been using in other Coffeelake Linux benchmarks:

Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks
Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks
Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks
Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks
Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks
Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks

I also did some Core i3 8100 CPU thermal recordings when pushing this system in its 2U chassis and with the reference heatsink under a variety of single and multi-threaded workloads as outlined with this OpenBenchmarking.org test.

Intel Z370 ASUS ASRock Ubuntu Motherboard Linux Benchmarks

The i3-8100 with the ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac ran fine in this small form factor / 2U enclosure with an average temperature of 41°C and a peak of 53°C under load.

Overall I am very happy with the ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac thus far. For about $130 USD this mini-ITX motherboard has plenty of USB 3.0 and SATA ports, dual Gigabit NICs, 802.11ac WiFi + Bluetooth, dual HDMI + one DP for triple monitor support, one M.2 slot, and has been working fine on Linux sans the lack of any onboard sensors support at this point.

Those interested in this Intel Z370 motherboard can find it in stock from NewEgg.com currently for $135 USD while there is also a $10 mail in rebate running through the end of October.

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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.