Asus ROG Strix X470-I Gaming
The Power User Choice.
Price $ 329 www.asus.com/au
Our
pick of motherboards for a power user is the Asus ROG Strix X470-I Gaming. This board is a perfect choice to maximise the strengths of the AMD Ryzen series of processors. Pair it up with a highly recommended 8-core Ryzen 2700 processor and you’ll be all set with a mini powerhouse of a system capable of performing any reasonable task you’re likely to throw at a desktop PC.
PINT SIZED POWERHOUSE
It’s not easy to pack the X470 feature set, plus all the premium high end additions you’d expect, into an ITX motherboard. However, Asus did exactly that, and did it with style. AMD’s Ryzen series brings unprecedented computing power into the mainstream, plus you also get fully unlocked overclocking of the CPU and memory for some extra grunt. Do you want to game? Check. Transcode video? Check. How about streaming? No problem. Ryzen and this powerful Asus ITX board will do it all, and all the while packed into a system you can fit into a shoebox.
Even Asus can’t include everything it wants onto an ITX PCB, so it’s added a small daughterboard that combines an M.2 slot for a single NVMe drive with an audio module, which also means the quality Realtek ALC-1220 audio is well separated from the rest of the board. There’s a second M.2 slot on the back of the motherboard, making the Asus X470-I a great choice to match with a powerful NVMe storage sub system.
The board features four SATA connectors, Intel I211-AT LAN, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The VRM solution is solid, and cooled by a beefy metal heatsink that’s easily capable of getting your Ryzen processor above that magical 4GHZ on all cores. There’s also a little bit of RGB on the board, plus a pair of addressable headers. Imagine an ITX case with tempered glass and some RGB fans! Lovely!
The rear I/O is probably the only area that’s a touch lacking, but it’s adequate for purpose. There’s the 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna ports, HDMI port, GbE port, and nice looking illuminated audio jacks. The USB complement consists of four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and a pair of USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports. There are also case headers for an extra four USB ports.
The Asus ROG BIOS is jam-packed with features. It takes a little bit of menu
This board is a perfect choice to maximise the strengths of the AMD Ryzen series of processors.
hopping at times but it’s loaded with settings for tweakers, and feels quite refined compared to somewhat buggy first generation X370 motherboards.
THE LITTLE BOARD THAT COULD
The Asus ROG Strix X470-I Gaming is a refined motherboard with impressive overclocking support. Its diminutive size is easily capable of unleashing Ryzen to its fullest extent. Place this little beastie into a tempered glass case and it will eat up multithreaded applications and multitasking with ease, and look great too. Packing an 8-core processor into a pint-sized case with capabilities like this is something that perfectly illustrates what an ITX system can do. Why use a one-meterhigh, space-hogging case when you can do all this while taking up a fraction of the space? CHRIS SZEWCZYK