ASUS Introduces X370 and B350 Mini-ITX Motherboards
Ron Perillo / 7 years ago
ASUS may not be the first to have one, but they are making up for it by offering two mini-ITX motherboards at the same time. Announcing the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming and ROG Strix XB350-I Gaming, both sporting similar exclusive features as their ATX board members from the ROG Strix family. This includes individually addressable RGB LED, liquid cooling headers, SupremeFX audio and more.
ASUS ROG Strix X370-I/B350-I Gaming Features
Since there is limited real estate on the mini-ITX layout, ASUS had to be creative. Which is why these boards feature a “floating” audio subsystem which doubles as an M.2 slot. This also comes with a heatsink cover so the M.2 card is thermally manageable. Underneath this daughter card is the B350 or X370 chipset itself which has its own heatsink.
This area sits in between the lone PCIe x16 slot and the CPU socket, so the VRM area is to the left. ASUS even put a heatsink on these MOSFETs so that overclocking will not be a problem. Plus, it has a full 8-pin CPU connector so there is enough juice fed to the processor for overclocking. Despite the crammed space, they also managed to include a Wi-Fi/BT card and RGB LED lit the right edge. It even has Aura Sync support.
Pricing and Availability
The ROG Strix B350-I Gaming retails for 157.99 GBP, while the ROG Strix X370-I Gaming will cost 184.99 GBP. Both should be available in UK retail stores by the end of October.