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The Asus Republic of Gamers STRIX Z370-I Gaming is the first mini-ITX motherboard that to arrive with Intel’s new Z370 chipset and revised LGA 1151 socket – which means it’s the first small board we’ve seen to support Coffee Lake processors. This new mini-ITX board tries to cram in as many features as possible onto its 17cm-square black PCB: there are two M.2 sockets, loads of USB 3.1 ports, improved memory speed support and the ubiquitous RGB LEDs.
This updated Asus ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming costs £193, which is about the same as Z370 ATX boards – there might be less PCB in this product, but the cost of miniaturisation can’t be ignored.
We’ve compared this product to last year’s Asus equivalent board and a couple of ATX contenders from the current ranks to find out if Z370’s mini-ITX debut can earn a place in your PC.
| Asus ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming | |
| Form Factor | Mini-ITX, 17cm x 17cm |
| CPU Socket | Intel LGA 1151 Version 2 |
| Chipset | Intel Z370 |
| Memory | DDR4, 4 DIMMs, up to 32GB, up to 4333MHz+ with OC |
| Onboard Graphics | Intel HD Graphics (supported CPUs) |
| Discrete Graphics | n/a |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x PCIe 3.0 X16 (16) |
| Storage | 4 x SATA III 6Gbps 1 x M.2 PCIe 32Gbps or SATA III 6Gbps1 x M.2 PCIe 32GBps |
| USB | 7 x USB 3.1 (4 Rear, 2 Front, 1 via ASM3142) 6 x USB 2.0 (4 Rear, 2 Front, via Z370) |
| Networking | Intel I219V Gigabit LAN Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 |
| Audio | SupremeFX S1220A Codec (1 front, 5 rear) 7.1 channel HD audio |
| Fan Headers | 3, all support 3/4 pin fans (1 CPU, 1 x W_PUMP, 1 x SYS) |
| Rear I/O | 4 x USB 2.0 Type-A ports 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports 1 x HDMI port1 x DisplayPort 1 x LAN (RJ45) port 5 x OFC audio jacks 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector |
| UEFI | UEFI AMI, 1 x 128Mb |
