Final Words & Conclusion
Conclusion
A B360 motherboard is more limited in PCIe lanes and tweaking. Other than that, I personally might even prefer it over the H370 as really, you can install a full speed M2 SSD, one full x16 Gen 3.0 PCIe lanes, you'll have enough of USB 3.x options and still get six SATA3 ports. If you pair it with a proper processor (Core i5 8600 recommended), really all your bases have been covered (as long as you can live with the accumulated PCIe lane limitation). But for any regular Joe, you can reach flagship gaming performance on this 100 Euro motherboard. And that is not a bad proposition really. For B360 you normally expect a very dull motherboard, but yeah even at an aesthetic level this motherboard looks fine to me. You could argue the 892 codecs over the Realtek 1220 one, but that's as far as the discussion can go, at best. The B360 and H370 series are going to be 'roughly' as fast as a Z370 chipset, there's no doubt about that. Since it is as fast, Intel needed to cut away and limit some stuff, being tweaking options, a fixed DDR4 memory frequency at 2667 MHz and smaller chipset limitations in the form of four less PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes, and for B360 another four less. In the end though, if you are savvy with one graphics card and one full speed M2 SSD, you still are looking at the same perf level as a non-tweaked Z370 platform, that fixed 2667 MHz memory speed really isn't that dramatic for anything with an Intel chip. Pair it with say a Core i5 8600 (non-K model), and you'll have an incredibly fast gaming rig.
Performance & tweaking
While testing this B360 motherboard, I wasn't even the slightest bit disappointed or worried, paired with the right processor, you can get very good performance, again the Core i5 8600 (review) I find to be a terrific choice here. Even with the cut-off on DDR4 memory frequency, you need to realize Intel has been able to refine their memory controllers, pop in anything XMP 2.0 So yes, CPU performance based on this chipset, in the baseline we cannot complain about. SATA3, USB 3.x, and NVMe also reveal proper perf.
Power consumption
We actually tested both the 8600 non-K and 8700K on this motherboard but use the 8700K for the baseline test, and yeah with a six-core, twelve threaded proc equals a 95 Watt TDP processor. With the system at idle with a GeForce GTX 1080 installed / 16 GB memory / SSD and the H370 motherboard, I hovered at roughly 30~35 Watts in IDLE. That's just impressive, the load values are okay as well, fairly similar for both procs. When we stressed the processor 100% run we reach roughly 135 Watts with the 6-core 8700K part. When we game we hover at ~250 Watts with the GeForce GTX 1080, but obviously that factor is dependent on the type of graphics card you use of course and sure, most games certainly do not utilize the six CPU cores. Overall I have no worries here.
DDR4 Memory
For Coffee Lake (8th Gen Intel procs) DDR4 may be clocked a notch faster at 2400 MHz as per Intel reference, there is, of course, a hard lock at 2666 MHz. We always say, volume matters more than frequency. A 3,200 MHz kit, for example, is more expensive, does offer better bandwidth but the performance increases in real-world usage will be hard to find towards a cheaper 2677MHz kit. Unless you transcode videos over the processor a lot. On an Intel platform, as always, my recommendation is to go for slower clocked DDR4 memory with decent timings, but simply get more of it. Don't go for 8 GB, get yourself 16 GB.
Final words
As mentioned in the first paragraph, if all you need is x16 PCIe lanes for your hyper-fast graphics card, a full speed M2 SSD and a couple of SATA3 HDDs, that and you can part with the idea of overclocking, hey at just over 100 USD/EURO this board offers it all, even including AC WIFI. Give or take a bit, the motherboards offer every bit of performance the Z370 chipset can offer, yet has some features sliced away. You can argue the lesser Realtek ALC 892 codec, but here again, that one will be totally fine for the 99% of you guys. The overall looks and design are good as well, this board does have LEDs stripped away, but ironically, a lot of you won't even mind that to be a fact. I praised the H370 chipset, but if it is pure value you are after, the B360 Gaming 3 will offer terrific value for money. All the bases have been covered, it's a nice build and looking motherboard, paired with the right processor you can create a screamingly fast monster of a PC, and that's a true fact. Yes, B360 Gaming 3 is appealing alright, be gone dull B series motherboards, this is the new B class chipset motherboard series from Gigabyte, and it's very impressive what you can get and achieve with it, the AC WIFI enabled version is proper value at roughly 119 USD/Euro, and we expect the non-WIFI version to hover at a hundred bucks, and that is a proper price.
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