The ASRock B360M-ITX/ac Motherboard Review: Tiny Take on B360, Sub $100
by Joe Shields on September 17, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- ASRock
- Mini ITX
- 802.11ac
- Wi-Fi
- Coffee Lake
- i7-8700K
- B360
Gaming Performance
AoTS Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity is a Real Time Strategy game developed by Oxide Games and Stardock Entertainment. The original AoTS was released back in March of 2016 while the standalone expansion pack, Escalation, was released in November of 2016 adding more structures, maps, and units. We use this specific benchmark as it relies on both a good GPU as well as on the CPU in order to get the most frames per second. This balance is able to better display any system differences in gaming as opposed to a more GPU heavy title where the CPU and system don't matter quite as much. We use the default "Crazy" in-game settings using the DX11 rendering path in both 1080p and 4K UHD resolutions. The benchmark is run four times and the results averaged then plugged into the graph.
In AOTSe, our results fell right in line with the other results hitting 45.3 FPS in 1080p. When using 4K UHD resolution, we see the same story with the ASRock B360M-ITXC/ac reaching 33.6 FPS. Though it is towards the top of our list, most results are tightly packed together and we do not see much difference between the boards as expected.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story.
One of the unique aspects of this benchmark is that it’s actually the average of 3 sub-benchmarks that fly through different environments, which keeps the benchmark from being too weighted towards a GPU’s performance characteristics under any one scene.
Rise of the Tomb Raider results for the B360M-ITX/ac landed with the other results using the latest OS and Spectre/Meltdown patches. These results are a few percent above the other results that did not have the script changes. The results here look fine as well.
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katsetus - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
So... It's not very good?Power delivery being overloaded by a "95 watt" CPU is not a good sign. Everyone knows that Intel's TDPs are by and large arbitrary numbers, especially motherboard engineers.
Although, I guess, same as you do, that this will not be paired with higher-end CPUs and neither will they be pushed to the limits. Still, a poor effort in my mind, especially for a B-series motherboard.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
I'm thinking the 8700k is an outlier CPU in this motherboard under those particular workload conditions would be unusual. It's likely any of the non-K i5 and i3 processors equipped with a retail boxed cooler wouldn't exhibit the same problems when fully loaded. They're far more likely candidates for a motherboard in this price range anyway.Yeah, it the board should handle the workload better given its rated for a 95W chip, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to cheap out on the motherboard when trying to squeeze everything you can out of a K CPU.
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
This makes me wonder how well it would do with an 8600 non-k. It's a little silly to get a Z3x0 overclocking chipset for a locked processor, so a B360 like this would have been worth considering.Yaldabaoth - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
Page 8: " On the audio side of things, the Realtek ALC887 codec is used and supports 7.1ch surround. "Please educate me. How can this board support that with the audio I/O it provides? Doesn't it need more, or am I that behind the times?
katsetus - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
*To configure 7.1 CH HD Audio, it is required to use an HD front panel audio module and enable the multi-channel audio feature through the audio driver.The jacks have 2 poles, so you get 4 channels from front panel.
Also a fun fact: ALC887 is now over 10 years old.
Yaldabaoth - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
Thanks for that insight!kmi187 - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
What I found funny about this chip is that it can sound extremely horrible, and also very good. A lot depends on how the manufacturer decided to implement the chip on the board and with what components. Since they usually end up in very cheap boards, not a lot attention is given so most people think they sound bad. Rightfully so, if you hear bad sound, it's probably bad. But then on other boards with the same chip, it can sound really nice.Now I'm not saying this is a great chip, it's average at best and that's all it ever will be. But how it's implemented on a board, defenitly makes a difference in the end result that you get to hear.
bigpondsupport - Tuesday, September 18, 2018 - link
For more details http://bigpondsupporthelp.strikingly.com/Samus - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
The audio codec kills the board as an option for me. I'm looking to build an i5-8400 replacement for my FT03-mini still running an H87 Xeon V3 board. Basically I'd like NVMe M.2, native USB 3.1, and modern PCIe.But since ITX boards naturally only have ONE PCIe slot, every other component needs to be future-proof. The ALC 887 IS NOT future-proof. It's a terrible codec by modern standards. The SNR isn't competitive no matter how it is implemented.
The fact it struggled with a 95w CPU isn't all that surprising, but follows the theme of corner-cutting through this boards development. This would be a good board for $50-$60, because it's obviously the worst ITX board you can buy for Coffee Lake. At it's current price it's a no-brainer to just buy the ASUS for $20 more...
vlado08 - Monday, September 17, 2018 - link
I don't think there is a HDMI 2.0 on this board