Connectors and I/O

ASUS equipped the ROG Strix Z270I 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. On 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 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 Z270I 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

Overclocking and debugging connectors

• 1 x MemOK! button(s)

Additional connectors

• 1 x USB 3.1 front panel connector
• 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
• 1 x System panel(s) (Q-Connector)
• 1 x TPM connector(s)

Looking at the external connectors and buttons directly at the back-panel ASUS equipped the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming with one DisplayPort, one HDMI, one RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet connector, one USB 3.1 Type-A connector, one USB 3.1 Type-C connector, two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, one optical audio out (S/PDIF), five audio jacks and two threads for WiFi anntennas.

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