Connectors and I/O
In total, ASUS equipped the 970 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard with six SATA 6Gbps connectors, which have all been natively wired to the SB950 controller. This
means you get six native SATA-III ports. Close to the bottom edge of this board there is one M.2 x2 Gen 3 slot, which is compatible with 2242, 2260 and 2280 form factor M.2 drives. Having a closer look at the full-sized PCIe Gen 2 slots, we find two PCIe 2.0 x16, two PCIe 2.0 x1 and two legacy PCI. This model is also compatible with Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire. Regarding onboard audio there is ASUS' latest SupremeFX solution. Also on this version of ASUS' SupremeFX audio solution there are high quality Nichicon capacitors as well as an ES9023P DAC.
Unfortunately there are no
practical onboard power- and reset-buttons and there is also no debug LED.
The ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard features a total of five fan headers,
which is basically enough to provide a punchy AMD system with fresh air. A closer look at the pictures below shows where they have
been placed. All fan headers feature 4 pins and support PWM functionality. Therefore it's possible to control fan speeds from within Windows as well as the BIOS.
Looking at the external connectors placed directly at the I/O-panel, ASUS
equipped the new 970 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard with a P/S2 connector, two USB 3.1
ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port as well as an analogue audio
panel with optical out. Unfortunately there is no CMOS reset button.