Layout

With the Z270E STRIX Gaming ASUS decided to go for a design that's based on a matte black PCB and aluminum heatsinks, which received silver and black sheet metal covers. Apart from that there is the RGB lighting, which ASUS calls Aura. It allows you to make the board shine in your preferred color. The layout itself is well thought and since ASUS is always taking Intel's reference specifications regarding socket clearance into account, there is enough space to install large aircoolers. The fact that there are SATA connectors which have been angled by 90 degrees allows an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.

The ASUS Z270E STRIX Gaming comes with a digital 8+2+1 phase power design. The CPU is backed up by eight phases, the iGPU can rely on two phases and the memory receives stable current supply from one phase. In general the power design on this board is adequate for the job at hand. It's even good for aircooled and water cooled overclocking, but we would not recommend this board for extreme overclocking. For that purpose ASUS has more suitable boards in its portfolio. Comparing the power design to the higher-end models from the ROG line-up it becomes clear that ASUS has been saving a buck every here and there. Especially in the case of the inductors ASUS chose cheaper ones.

This board has been equipped with a total of four DIMM-slots. Officially supported is everything up to DDR4 3866 (O.C.). There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 2.0.

On the Z270E STRIX Gaming the southbridge is being cooled by a passive cooling block. A closer look at the VRM area shows there are two more individual heatsinks without heatpipe. The overall build quality of the blocks is good, which makes for product that feels very nice, when you're holding it in your hands.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 8	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1