Connectors and I/O

ASUS equipped the ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming with four straight SATA ports. All of them offer 6Gbps bandwidth. There aren't any SATA Express ports but we find two M.2 slots which have been wired using four PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes each. One of the M.2 slots is hidden underneath the PCH cooler while the other one is on the back side of the motherboard. Since there is not much space available on mini-ITX motherboards to begin with ASUS created a PCH heatsink that doubles as a cooler for the first M.2 drive. Having a look around the board we don't find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons and there is also no debug LED on this board as well. What you get is a MemOK button, which has proven useful in the past. ASUS decided to place a PCIe x16 slot right below the PCH. This being a miniITX motherobard removing a high-end graphics card can be tight if you're using a large heatsink.



There is a total of three fan headers on the ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming which is enough, to provide a well equipped miniITX system with fresh air. The headers have been located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows. Furthermore there is a plethora of additional headers you find listed below:

Lighting

• 1 x Aura RGB Strip Headers

Fan headers

• 1 x CPU Fan connector(s) (1 x 4 -pin)
• 1 x Chassis Fan connector(s) (1 x 4 -pin)

Watercooling connectors

• 1 x AIO_PUMP connector (1 x 4 -pin)
• 1 x Thermal sensor connector

Additional connectors

• 1 x USB 3.1 front panel connector
• 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)

Connectors

• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 4 x USB 3.1 Gen 1
• 4 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 5 x Audio jack(s)
• 1 x ASUS 2x2 Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth v4.2 module

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 11 - SiSoft Sandra 1
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 12 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 3 - Features	Page 13 - UC Bench
Page 4 - Layout	Page 14 - Super Pi 1M
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 15 - Right Mark Audio Analyzer
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 16 - Crystal Disk Mark 5
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 17 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 18 - Performance Rating
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 19 - Price Comparison
Page 10 - Cinebench R15	Page 20 - Conclusion