ASUS ROG STRIX-I Gaming Z490 Motherboard Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The ASUS ROG STRIX-I Gaming Z490 Motherboard is available now (albeit stock is already erratic or slow to show at some retailers). You’ll find it priced around £289.99 here in the UK and $299.99 in the US. Yes that is expensive, but at the end of the day, mini-ITX often comes at a premium, and this is a ROG STRIX board, so you’re paying for a lot of high-end hardware too.

Overview

We love mini-ITX motherboards here at eTeknix and honestly, I think most PC enthusiasts do. All that power but in a tiny PC build? YES PLEASE! While around £300 seems like a lot for a motherboard that’s less than half the size of the ATX STRIX models, it does still pack in an enormous feature set that can easily keep up with many of its big brothers. It’s pretty deep and heavy for its size, they really haven’t left much to chance here.

Build Quality & Design

Straightaway, this is a stunning looking motherboard, there’s no beating around the bush needed for that one. Despite the size, it houses two massive VRM heatsinks around the CPU with the left most one blending into the rear I/O shield. The PCB is thicker and has more layers, to help deal with the extensive feature set too. Then you have that triple-decker raised M.2 madness going on where you’ll find storage mounts and what’s basically a high-end sound card. It’s almost like they took an mATX and folded it up at the bottom. It’s fantastic to look at though, no doubt about it.

Performance

The mini-ITX model may have less phases, but it didn’t stop it from maxing out our i9-10900K just as well as the big motherboards did. That being said, 8+2 phases in a mini-ITX board is awesome, and with the chunky VRM and powerful chokes, it’s no wonder it put out some great performance figures. The addition of big cooling on the M.2 and CPU hardware, the fast memory support, etc, all add up in a big way.

Added Value

Connectivity is king here, and while it may be small, it’s I/O is not. You still get 4 SATA ports and 2 M.2 slots here. The fantastic class-leading audio from the ROG SupremeFX 8-channel HDaudio codec, with dual OP AMPs. There’s both 2.5G LAN and WiFi 6, There’s USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C, HDMI, Display Port. ASUS, you’ve done a fantastic job here, there’s more than enough on this motherboard to satisfy any SFF gaming build.

Should I Buy One?

Not everyone needs a mini-ITX build, but if you do, and you want it to be a punchy high-performance gaming PC when its done, then this is certainly a winner. It’s one of the best looking motherboards out there, and it packs a load of really cool features too!