Overclocking

As per usual we don't have much reference at launch for overclocking or performance compared to other boards, as this is the first we've pitched against our Core i7-8700K. Even so, hitting the magic 5GHz figure was pretty impressive and no doubt partly helped along thanks to the motherboard's hefty 18-phase power delivery.

We managed this with a vcore of 1.285V, which was perfectly stable in all our tests and tameable by an all-in-one liquid-cooler, albeit still pushing 85°C under full load in Prime95's smallFFT test. It remains to be seen if you'll need a board of quite this calibre to get the most out of Coffee Lake CPUs, though.

MSI's software and EFI are nearly identical to those introduced with X299, so you can see our coverage of this here.

Performance Analysis

Again, we have very few comparison numbers especially as far as the raw performance figures go, but the key comparisons between Z370 and Z270 are mostly storage and audio performance. As very little has changed here, both in terms of the chipset and the typical Realtek ALC 1220 audio codec that's still doing the rounds, both of these figures are very similar to what you'd see from a Z270 board.

For example, the dynamic range level of 110 dBA and noise level of -108.2 dBA are above average scores when in the mix with Z270 Realtek ALC 1220 implementations. Sadly, though, it does look as if this is yet another area that hasn't seen much improvement with the move to Z370, and it seems like storage is another, apart from a few extra heatsinks here and there, of course.The M.2 read and write speeds of 3,331MB/sec and 1,801MB/sec are pretty much what you'd expect from a Z270 motherboard, but the limit here is probably our SSD.

Conclusion

We can't comment too much on performance numbers, as we're still very early days with Z370, but in terms of price, you do get an awful lot on the PCB and in the box for your money. The most recent board we've seen to cost this much was Asus' ROG Zenith Extreme for X399 and Threadripper CPUs, and there are a few extra bits and bobs there that make that board seem like a much better option for the same amount of cash - 10Gbit LAN, DIMM.2, VRM heatsink fan, fan hub, and an integrated I/O shield really give the Zenith a strong argument for its price tag. 

Z370 appears to be more expensive in terms of motherboards, though, with MSI's own Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon slated to cost £190 compared to roughly £150 when we looked at its predecessor in January. That's a steep climb, and from what we're hearing, Asus and Gigabyte certainly won't be cutting prices either. This has much wider implications than just motherboard choice, of course, as it potentially impacts on the whole AMD versus Intel argument too. For now, though, we're willing to give this stunning high-end board the benefit of the doubt and dish out our Extreme award, as the board itself as well as MSI's EFI, software, and accessory package are fantastic, but if this is way out of your budget, then hang tight as we have more affordable options inbound.