ASUS ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming Review
Published by Luca Rocchi on 18.12.17Page:
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| A closer look at the motherboard lineup from ASUS reveals that the ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming is their high-end model with miniITX form factor. Therefore it comes with some really neat features, like for example ASUS's SupremeFX audio solution, Aura RGB Lighting and two M.2 slots as well as a great looking design in general. Sure the ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming is a good motherboard but with a price of 190 Euro it's a little more expensive then what could be expected. Although the layout is almost perfect, we would have liked to two of the four SATA ports angled for better cable manaegment. | -
Design - Layout |
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| Layout | + | - | |
| Overall, the ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming's layout has been well-thought. As we already mentioned on this page there is a total of four straight SATA ports. On such small motherboards it's not possible to use all the angled SATA connectors, since the memory would have have to be moved closer to the CPU socket. On the other hand we like the fact, that there is an internal USB 3.1 header. Unfortunately there are no practical power- and reset-buttons as well as debug LED. Again on the plus side we have a steel-reinforced PCI Express Gen3 x16. We liked the position of the CPU socket, which allows for installing large air coolers. There were quite a few boards in the past, which had the socket rather close to the PCI Express slot. That meant you had to install a stock cooler or an all-in-one liquid cooler. A quick look at the back I/O panel reveals there are plenty of USB 3.1 as well as USB 3.0 ports, which in combination with the display and network connectors as well as WiFi module make for a good connectivity mix. | - Space around the CPU
socket
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- No power/reset button and no debug LED - SATA ports not angled | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| At the moment our test setup includes only three motherboards but during next weeks we will add more models. Calculating the average of all benchmark results we ran, we see that this board scores 2nd. If we check a bit closer, we see that the ROG STRIX Z370-I Gaming is about 1,6% faster than the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon in 3D Mark benchmark. Furthermore, speaking about 2D performance, we see good results from this tiny ASUS motherboard regarding Crystal Disk Mark. On another note, we had a look at energy efficiency where this board comes in 3rd. | - 2D Performance |
- Power consumption | |
| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| The UEFI BIOS gets a black background and there are a few additional red and white design elements. Meanwhile it's almost normal that a BIOS is complete, offering countless features. If you're looking for overclocking options you'll find a great many of them and they are equally practical for novices and extreme overclockers. We always love the pre-defined profiles, which make overclocking quite a bit more efficient. Boosting our CPU to 5 GHz was absolutely no problem at all. | - Sheer amount of
options - Design |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| The ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming is a well-equipped Z370 motherboard. This board is also quick according to our 2D and 3D benchmarks we're running. On top of that it comes with a vast feature set yet the price of 190 Euro excluding shipping costs is pretty steep. | |||
| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming excellent 4 out of 5 stars. | |||
| Navigate through the articles | |
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MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon Review
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