ECS Z370-Lightsaber - Review 2022

Intel's Coffee Lake-S processors don't support older chipsets, which ways you'll need to invest in a motherboard bearing the new Z370 chipset if y'all pick upwards an eighth-generation Core CPU. All of the major motherboard brands take Z370 boards at this point, in multiple versions to appeal to the very unlike business and gamer markets. ECS has ever aimed for gamers with its "Leet"-series boards, which at present include the $199 Z370-Lightsaber, an ATX motherboard sporting onboard overclocking and gaming-centric features. Information technology's a fair entry into the Z370 stakes, but it'due south best for experienced PC builders looking to build a basic-but-overclockable, sealed-box rig (and all-time if you find information technology on sale). The manual is sparse, and the board lacks certain cutting-edge connectivity items or any RGB bling.

The Z370 Balancing Act

We expected the ECS Z370-Lightsaber to be on the low end of the Z370 board price range, only ECS plans to sell the lath in the nigh futurity on both Newegg and Amazon at an MSRP of $199. That puts it a little beneath the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming seven and at nearly the same toll as the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon Ac.

ECS performed a very hard balancing act when it designed this motherboard. It cut some mutual features, such as RGB lighting, Wi-Fi, and USB 3.ane Type-C ports, but it added an array of buttons that volition help gamers who want to overclock. It's a take a chance: If you accept a locked processor, you may be less interested in overclocking tools than some of the features that this board does without.

The Z370-Lightsaber's blackness (and very, very night greyness) colour scheme would make LEGO Batman proud. ECS should get a pocket-size award for its component labels, which are easy to read, thank you to the white messages. ECS besides spiced things up a chip with a white dragon logo most the Z370 chipset. The chipset itself has a heatsink and cover that looks vaguely similar a sword and shield and bears the Leet logo. The overall effect of the Z370-Lightsaber'southward design is distinctly gamer without being obnoxious. This seems to exist a tendency amongst motherboard makers in full general, and I'yard not the least bit disappointed.

ECS skipped a different motherboard tendency, though: metal-braced board slots. Whereas many motherboard makers are wrapping expansion slots and sometimes fifty-fifty DIMM slots in steel (for meliorate support when the organisation is moved), ECS keeps things bones, fifty-fifty though this is all the same a premium-price board. The plastic memory slots lack steel, every bit do the PCI Express x16 slots. Few buyers volition worry about the lack of memory-slot braces, merely some will balk at picking up a board that doesn't accept metallic support for heavy video cards.

That's not to say that the PCI Express slots aren't sturdy; they didn't budge when I tried to wiggle them, and the top slot held a midsize GeForce GTX 1060 video card without whatever visible problems. Still, with many gamer motherboards sporting actress back up on PCI Express slots in recent years, customers take come to look at least the main slot girded in boards at this price.

The Z370-Lightsaber also lacks the I/O-area finesse that we've seen on virtually new gaming motherboards. Brands like MSI and Gigabyte have been wrapping the unsightly I/O-port clusters in a canopy or comprehend, often taking advantage of the extra surfaces to install LED lights or spiffy designs. ECS skips the coverings for the I/O department and the audio components, just it does place some sizable heatsinks over the power phases. ECS didn't add any lights to these heatsinks, though the tiered fins requite the lath a little extra mental attitude. (See our guide to motherboard lingo, Buying a Motherboard: 20 Terms You Need to Know.)

The pinnacle half of the Z370-Lightsaber looks somewhat cluttered, due to the lack of an I/O-area encompass and the buttons and capacitors that crowd the correct side of the board. Still, the Intel LGA 1151 socket has plenty of clearance around it for coolers, including bulky, high-end air coolers. The simply component crowding the CPU socket area is the left-most retentivity slot, and I had a sliver of infinite left over after I attached a liquid-cooler heatsink to the processor.

The dual-channel memory slots support up to 64GB of DDR4 retention (16GB per slot), with DIMMs at speeds up to DDR4 3200 (overclocked). ECS differentiates the two channels by coloring the slots greyness and black, which is a nice bear on, especially for new DIY PC builders, who aren't likely to be familiar with the nuances of installing retentivity.

The lower one-half of the Z370-Lightsaber doesn't look equally chaotic, but that'southward non to say that it doesn't have enough of features. ECS put two M.2 slots on the lath, along with 3 PCI Limited x16 slots and iii PCI Limited x1 slots.

Both Grand.2 slots support storage devices up to size 2280 (80mm long), which encompasses most M.2 SSDs you lot'd install today. (Come across our guide to the best M.two solid-country drives.) Nearly of the gaming boards I've seen recently have at least one Grand.2 slot that supports Type-22110 devices, but this won't be a deciding factor for most buyers, equally M.2 drives of this size are uncommon.

ECS put i of the Yard.2 slots just above the top PCI Express x16 slot. That'south a mutual location for the M.2 slot, but ECS faced the slot toward the right side of the lath, which is a little unusual. The position shouldn't make the slot any harder to accomplish once the PC has been built. The other G.2 slot sits betwixt the concluding two PCI Express x16 slots, which makes perfect sense. Unless you're running a multiple-video-card configuration, that slot should be articulate to access anytime.

When information technology comes to onboard LEDs, the Z370-Lightsaber's lighting simply doesn't do justice to the motherboard's proper noun. ECS put an excellent LED strip forth the left side of the board and snaked it around the Killer Ethernet E2500 chip and sound capacitors. But much of the board is dark, including the sword-and-shield emblem on the Z370 heatsink. Some backlit buttons provide a fiddling extra lighting, but it's overall more Low-cal-sober than Lightsaber.

The back of the Z370-Lightsaber is clean. Several screws concur the chipset heatsink and other parts in place, merely the screws are low to the lath, and are much shorter than typical motherboard standoffs, and then they won't present clearance issues. You tin come across the Z370-Lightsaber's LED strip more clearly from this side.

Ports and Headers: Just a Basic Mix

The ECS Z370-Lightsaber has enough of external USB ports, including two USB three.1 Type-A ports. Those modern ports are accompanied past 4 USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports.

The I/O panel as well includes the usual audio ports and both DisplayPort and HDMI port for video. The PS/2 port is a nod to gamers with keyboards that require the port for N-key rollover, and the gigabit Ethernet port is some other gamer-friendly feature: It's powered by the Killer Ethernet E2500 chip, which is designed to evangelize low-latency gaming. ECS also added a Clear CMOS push button, which is some other squeamish affect for overclockers.

ECS opted for merely 5 fan headers, which is on the depression side for a gaming motherboard like the Z370-Lightsaber. ECS spread them out, putting one each on the left and correct sides of the board, two on the lower edge, and ane at the elevation. That layout volition work for many gaming-PC buildouts, but DIY builders who are used to having two fan headers about the top of the board (a common pattern choice) may wish for a 2nd header in that location.

The right edge of the board sports vi SATA ports and a USB 3.0 header, along with the aforementioned four-pin fan header. The standard 24-pin power connector too sits on this side of the lath. An boosted eight-pivot power connector sits at the top of the Z370-Lightsaber, near the power-stage heatsinks.

ECS installed some backlit buttons and a large digital debug display in the upper-right corner. A large ruby button marked "Start" lets you ability on the PC, while the nearby black button resets the computer. These buttons are large and easy to reach.

The front-panel headers sit at the bottom-right corner of the motherboard, where you'd expect to see them. The Z370-Lightsaber sports dual BIOSes; the actual fries sit down side by side to a big switch. The switch's size and location are ideal. Y'all'll be able to accomplish it easily in nearly system builds.

ECS lined the lower edge of the Z370-Lightsaber with connectors, including the usual audio header, a USB 2.0 header, two fan headers, and a case alarm. ECS also put a full of four RGB LED headers on the board, letting you add plenty of your own lighting strips to your PC.

The lower edge of the board too features three big buttons, which come replete with backlit icons and labels. One is a one-touch BIOS-update button, while some other boots you direct to the BIOS settings. The 3rd button is a fast overclocking push that lets yous auto-boost the PC with a impact. So long equally you lot don't put a menu in the lowest PCI Limited x16 slot, y'all shouldn't have whatsoever trouble reaching these buttons.

The Accessories and the BIOS

The ECS Z370-Lightsaber's accessories package is spare for any motherboard, let alone a premium-priced gaming one. The motherboard maker puts a driver disc, a lean manual, the I/O shield, and 2 SATA cables in the box.

Both SATA cables have directly connectors. I would accept liked to encounter at to the lowest degree one SATA cable with an L-shaped connector, which makes for easier cable direction in some installs. RGB extension cables also would accept been a nice touch here. Nevertheless, with motherboards trending toward smaller accessory kits, it's not surprising that the price-conscious Z370-Lightsaber packs light.

ECS ships the Z370-Lightsaber with a bare-bones manual, with well-nigh 12 pages dedicated to identifying parts and providing instructions. I missed the more detailed item descriptions that appear in many motherboard manuals. Instructions for installing retention in different configurations (ii DIMMs versus four DIMMs, for case) would be useful. The manual besides didn't include the typical list of codes for the debug display, and I couldn't find the error codes on the Z370-Lightsaber's driver disc, nor on ECS'south website.

As for the BIOS, you can enter the ECS Z370-Lightsaber's BIOS by pressing the Delete key or F2 as the figurer starts upwards. The BIOS displays its basic menu by default, though there is nothing bones about the interface. Information technology has an array of status indicators, images of potential kick devices, and temperatures. You tin can actually switch betwixt two similar basic menus (featuring slightly different layouts) by pressing F9. The requirement to employ that second menu version appears to be a detached video card in your PC.

New DIY PC builders will like the basic carte. You tin easily check of import temperatures and fans. Y'all tin even tune your system with a unmarried click, thanks to the performance buttons on the left side of the menu. I like that you tin adjust the boot priority by simply clicking and dragging storage device icons here, rather than digging into a boot submenu.

Head into the Advanced menu, and you'll be working with typical driblet-down menus. A row of icons nigh the top of the page breaks the settings into categories. One of the categories, marked Advanced, contains the bulk of the settings about users will demand to access, including a PC Health Condition page and standard CPU information and options.

Overclocking options reside in the M.I.B. X category. Y'all can dig into the operation settings for multiple components here. Interestingly, this category is also dwelling house to the settings for the motherboard'southward onboard LEDs. The BIOS doesn't appear to accept a BIOS-update utility characteristic in either the basic or Avant-garde menus, which is a little surprising. ECS provides BIOS-update software via its website.

A Little Lightsaber Exam Build

I congenital a full system around the ECS Z370-Lightsaber to go a feel for how the lath might wait in a typical gaming PC. (Edifice a arrangement also unearths any blueprint issues that might touch y'all when you build your ain PC with this board.) As we mentioned earlier, the Z370 chipset is aimed solely at eighth-generation Intel Core CPUs, so I paired it with 1 that recently won our Editors' Choice award: the Intel Core i5-8400.

Nosotros chose a Corsair Hydro H100i GTX liquid cooler for our Coffee Lake CPU, forth with a G.Skill TridentZ F4-3200C16Q-32GTZSK retention kit and a bulky XFX Radeon R7 370 Double Dissipation Black Edition video card.

I kicked off the installation past popping the Z370-Lightsaber'southward I/O plate into the back of SilverStone'southward Primera PM01-RGB PC instance and attaching the lath to the case's standoffs. The PM01-RGB has enough of elbow room, so I was able to install the board without incident. And because virtually all of the headers stand up perpendicular to the board, the close proximity of the PM01-RGB'south power-supply divider doesn't affect cable management. The SATA ports are the but connectors that face off the side of the motherboard. I had no trouble snaking a SATA cable through the motherboard tray's grommeted cutouts to the connectors.

The debug LED sits at the summit-right corner of the Z370-Lightsaber, then I was able to see it hands when I booted the PC. (Unfortunately, as mentioned, the manual doesn't include error-code descriptions to help you troubleshoot should problems arise.) Spotting the motherboard'due south simply decorative LED proved more hard. The video card blocked much of our view of the Z370-Lightsaber's onboard LED strip. Its position (at the very left side of the motherboard) ways information technology probably won't be the first affair that people notice when looking through a case's side console window.

Light on Value

Motherboard makers don't have much room to cut corners when they design boards for gamers. They can't ignore aesthetic features, as they might when designing a board for typical home or business use. And performance is crucial, including performance-boosting tools such every bit overclocking features. ECS checked many of the boxes when it designed the Z370-Lightsaber, merely whether the board will tempt many gamers abroad from similarly priced Z370 boards from ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI is difficult to say.

Gamers and overclockers (who are oftentimes one and the same) will love the large buttons on the Z370-Lightsaber. The bright-cherry-red Kickoff button has appeal, as do the icons ECS put on the other buttons. Even if you lot can't see the white button labels on the PCB, you can figure out each button's purpose from its icon.

But the Z370-Lightsaber lacks some features that other, cheaper Z370 boards accept. The minimal lighting may turn off some would-be buyers, though the abundance of RGB light-strip headers can permit you make upwards for that, if y'all like. Certain, your board may not take a killer lighting scheme out of the box, but if you lot're building a PC yourself, yous're certainly capable of stringing lights.

Wi-Fi isn't a critical feature for a gaming motherboard, seeing as an Ethernet connection is a gamer's go-to, but the lack of Wi-Fi on the Z370-Lightsaber stings a bit considering its cost appears to friction match, for example, the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon Air-conditioning, which sports a wireless AC card.

Bold that the pricing stays in the neighborhood of $199 once the board reaches wider availability, that makes it a tough sell. If information technology stays that loftier, the board could have a hard time competing with the likes of the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon Air-conditioning and similar boards in that range. Gamers on a upkeep should keep this in mind when comparison the ECS Z370-Lightsaber to other Z370 boards. Taking a large piece off the list price could brand this Lightsaber a lot more appealing.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/processors/26949/ecs-z370-lightsaber

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