ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-I Gaming WiFi Motherboard Review
Peter Donnell / 1 year ago
How Much Does It Cost?
There is some good news and bad news regarding this motherboard, the first is that you can buy it now, but then the bad news is that it’s pretty damn expensive. It’s on Amazon for a painful £426.43 which is a tiny bit under the £429.99 MSRP. However, you can buy it direct from ASUS right now for a more reasonable £388.88, so be sure to shop around for the best price.
Overview
This motherboard is pretty fantastic, but obviously, it’s quite a specialist item too, most notably due to its form factor being small and its retail price being rather high. Clearly, it’s built for the enthusiast PC users out there, but while it is expensive, I can’t say that it is overpriced, as it has a level of features and performance that more than justify the asking price.
When it came to our benchmarks, it’s a total beast and even managed to out perform many larger and more expensive motherboards in CPU-bound tasks. The 10+1 VRM and the heatsinks may be limited, but they’re very well engineered, as our CPU was able to deliver fast and consistent benchmarking performance. Gaming performance wasn’t the best, but I’d never call it bad, it’s a fast motherboard and for those building a compact gaming PC, you’ll not find anything faster in this size class.
Its connectivity is next level too, and moving the soundcard, some USB ports, audio controls, and even the BIOS/Flexkey to the external Hive controller allowed ASUS to cram in two M.2 storage slots above the PCIe 5.0 slot, making this motherboard more versatile and easy to use on a day-to-day basis. You get all the benefits of a smaller motherboard and PC but don’t lose out on that high-end level of connectivity.
Should I Buy One?
It’s pretty expensive, but when it comes to mini-ITX motherboards, I can’t think of any other I would rather invest in. It’s very well made, offers more storage options than other boards of its size, and the addition of the desktop Hive unit to provide audio and I/O without needing to reach the rear of your computer is a game changer. Of course, when it comes to performance, it’s one of the fastest motherboards I’ve tested, even outpacing the flagship ASUS EXTREME in many benchmarks.
