Best Z370 Mini ITX Motherboards For Intel Coffee Lake 8700K and 8600K

Looking for the best Z370 Mini ITX motherboards for your brand new Intel Coffee Lake, Intel 8th generation CPU? If yes then check out our first top picks before you settle your mind. Right now, only a handful exist today. However, we hope to see many more new motherboards to support the platform.

Also Read: Best Gold & Bronze Rated Mini ITX Power Supply 

It’s been a month since Intel moved one generation up by launching its 8^th generation chips. Their 7^th gen chips were code-named Kaby (Cabby) Lake where this new 8th generation CPU’s are codenamed Coffee Lake. Following are some highlights about these processors:

• Much faster (20-40%) compared to 7^th gen Kaby Lake processors
• Extra number of cores allowing superior multitasking
• Expensive compared to Ryzen CPUs [equivalent] if you take the entire build into consideration
• You will need new z370 chipset motherboard which is not backward compatible

Also Read: Best Z370 Chipset ATX Motherboards

Best Z370 Mini ITX motherboards for Intel Coffee Lake CPU’s

So as the last point above indicates, you will need to purchase a new motherboard, which in some cases means that you will require building an entirely new rig. There are not many motherboards launched for coffee Lake Chipset yet. Today, we will be talking about mini ITX motherboards with Z370 chipset. Currently there Asus, MSI, and ASRock are the only ones to launch the Z370 motherboard with mini ITX form factor. Two of them are available on various online marketplaces where MSI one is yet to be released. We recommend bookmarking this page as we will keep updating the article as new models will be released. Following is a brief discussion:

1. ASUS ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming:

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Right now, this one is the only motherboard from Asus designed for 8^th gen Intel Coffee lake processors with mini ITX form factor. It maximizes the connectivity speed to an entirely new level. There is a lot to look forward to including dual M.2 slots (RAID Configurable), 802.11ac Wi-Fi, gigabit lane and IOM technology compatibility. It delivers dynamic system cooling, auto-tuning, FanXpert 4 and 5-way optimization, making it suitable for various types of builds. It comes with ASUS AURA compatibility and additional RGB header, allowing a lot of customization and personalization to your rig. The PCIe slots features on this board are quite sturdy and thus compatible with heavyweight graphics cards. Here is a quick look at some important specs:

2. ASRock Z370M ITX/ac:

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Important things first, this is a Virtual reality ready motherboard. Since your motherboard is key components that link all your components together, you must look for a VR compatible one to take full advantage of your VR rig. It squeezes most out of your DDR4 memory sticks with hyper DDR4 technology. It comes with dual LAN port with teaming function support allowing plugging two LAN cables at once. For wireless connectivity, it features 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v4.2. With M.2 slots, you can push our transfer speed up to 32 GB/s. Storage and transfer speed is further enhanced with Intel Optane Storage Technology. High-density glass fabric design is used with less gap between PCB layers to protect against electrical shorts from humidity. Following are some important specs:

3. MSI Z370-I Gaming Pro Carbon AC:

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If you are planning a fully custom build look wise, this motherboard is exactly what you are looking for. It offers 16.8 million colors and 17 effects with RGB LED. MSI claims that this mobo is capable of taking out the most from 8^th gen Coffee Lake processors from Intel. It has various features that give you the slight advantage while gaming such as gaming hotkey support, gaming device port, multi GPU support, 1 second OC, MSI game boost mode, etc. It is equipped with suitable technology and hardware for smooth virtual reality experience. Along with this, it delivers impressive audio quality with MSI audio boost-4 technology. Following are some important specifications:

4. Gigabyte Z370N Wi-Fi:

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This motherboard from Gigabyte comes with support to all 8^th gen Intel core processors. It has two DIMM slots supporting dual-channel non-ECC, unbuffered DDR4 memory modules. This model is Intel Optane Memory technology compatible. The PCIe x16 slot can be bifurcated in 2 x8 slot mode using a compatible PCIe riser card. The motherboard offers integrated HDMI 2.0 support. You might feel a bit troubled while assembling the build since it offers tight constraints, being a mini ITX board. However, once the build is set up and ready, it just runs flawlessly without any issue, if everything is done right. Following table summarizes all the important specifications and technical details:

Conclusion

Asrock is the undisputed king of manufacturing pony motherboards. Apart from Asrock, we expect more mini ITX designs from other motherboard manufacturers soon. As on when they are available, we hope to update our list as well.

We hope you like our article on the best Z370 Mini ITX motherboards available on the market. For any questions or suggestions, please feel free to drop us a comment below.