The ASRock X370 Gaming-ITX/ac Motherboard Review
by Gavin Bonshor on April 18, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gaming
- AMD
- ASRock
- Mini ITX
- ITX
- AM4
- Ryzen
- X370
- X370 Gaming-ITX/ac
CPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v1.0.2: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. For HandBrake, we take two videos and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container: a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short. We also take the third video and transcode it to HEVC. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
Compression – WinRAR 5.4: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2017. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test v2.1: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here. We are using the latest version of 3DPM, which has a significant number of tweaks over the original version to avoid issues with cache management and speeding up some of the algorithms.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1b4: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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1_rick - Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - link
On the antenna? Yeah, I made a mistake on my previous post: the antenna wire pulled right out of the plug. Looks like it was only inserted or crimped in by pressure; no solder: the end of the wire is clean and not ragged. I tried pushing it back in but it didn't make a good enough connection; I never good good signal after that. (Oddly, even with both leads plugged in it got poor reception.)I'm using one of these now: https://www.frys.com/product/7411565. Keep meaning to buy a second, but the machine runs OK with just one.
Not sure what's going on with the ethernet port, if it died or if I killed it, although I don't know what I could've done to it. If the wifi didn't work I'd be more concerned.
My board couldn't run RAM at over 2133-2400 stably until the most recent BIOS updates; now it runs my 3000 ram at 2933 just fine.
Also these comments inspired me to try OC a bit more--currently I'm running at 4.0 with 1.39375. Games fine; haven't tried a stress test yet.
The_Assimilator - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
This board exposes 2x 480Mbps (USB 2.0), 2x 5Gbps (USB 3.1/3.1 gen 1), and 2x 10Gbps (USB 3.1 gen 2) USB ports on its IO. The X370GTN exposes 4x 5Gbps and 2x 10Gbps ports.jtd871 - Monday, April 30, 2018 - link
Check your eyes, sir. Neither this board nor the B350 version claim Gen 2 support. http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty%20X370%20Gam... http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty%20AB350%20Ga...Hifihedgehog - Wednesday, April 18, 2018 - link
Gavin, despite what manufacturers may say, HDMI 2.0 works on all 300-series motherboards as well. I thoroughly investigated and tested this with Raven Ridge. In fact, my family's current HTPC, with a Ryzen 5 2400G and ASRock AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac, works flawlessly at 4K@60Hz and 12-bit color. The so-called "specification" these motherboard manufacturers list is really regarding certification alone. The ports really are just straight traces to the processor's video outputs. See here for more details:smallformfactor (dot) net/forum/threads/raven-ridge-hdmi-2-0-compatibility-1st-gen-am4-motherboard-test-request-megathread.6709/
John_M - Saturday, April 28, 2018 - link
I couldn't see the point of paying extra for the X370 version of this ITX board when the B350 delivers exactly the same performance and functionality so I bought the latter. Apart from the chipset used the only difference I can find is the different WiFi card. Does anyone disagree?jtd871 - Monday, April 30, 2018 - link
That appears to be one of very few differences that I can spot between the official specs for each board. The X370 claims 2T/ 2R on the wifi. The other difference that I noticed was a claimed difference in watercooling support (see CPU section on the respective spec page of each board via AsRock.com). I second your recommendation to get the B350 board as it is significantly less expensive as of this post.John_M - Saturday, April 28, 2018 - link
What do you mean when you use the term "ambient cooling"? I Googled it and found that it refers to the building of datacentres in locations that are naturally cool so as to save costs on cooling. But what does it mean in the conetxt of this review?John_M - Saturday, April 28, 2018 - link
There are five 3.5mm audio jacks, not six.John_M - Saturday, April 28, 2018 - link
You can overclock the iGPU of a Raven Ridge APU in the BIOS, though it's hidden quite deep in the menus of the Advanced page.wswab - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
HOW DO YOU SET THE (IT WAS ERP READY IN MY GIGABYTE BOARD ) OR WHERE IS SETTING TO STOP USB PORTS FROM STAYING POWERED ON AFTER SHUTDOWN !! LED,S STAY LIT !! HELP APPRECIATED ..