ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-I Gaming Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The ASUS RoG STRIX Z370-Gaming should be available from most major retailers today. It has an MSRP of £189.99, which isn’t particularly cheap. However, given the overall performance we’ve seen today, it seems like a fair price for what you get in return. Given it’s priced cheaper than some other Z370 motherboards, yet still manages to outperform them, its value speaks for its self. The old Z270 model ranges from £160-200, so again, it’s priced fairly.

Overview

This motherboard is certainly interesting, but it does all feel a little familiar. Those of you who follow ASUS products will notice that it’s pretty much the last generation board, and damn near nothing has been changed on it. Of course, there is one important change, and that’s the CPU socket. However, that’s honestly about it, at least as far as the consumer is concerned. Of course “if it ain’t broken don’t fix it” certainly applies to the design. This motherboard was great on Z270 and the same holds true now.

Z370

Intel has taken a lot of stick for Z370, it IS Z270 with a slightly revised socket. Maybe the failed to plan Z270 to correctly deal with upcoming processors, we’re not sure. Either way, it’s the same socket as Kaby Lake, but with a tweak to the pin layout, that means that while CPUs will fit, you can’t use Kaby Lake in this board, nor can you used Coffee Lake in a Z270 board. That being said, the new 6-core i7-8700K we used in this review is a sweet bit of kit, and one of the best gaming CPUs we’ve ever tested! Match that with this stunning little motherboard, and you’ve got a great combination on your hands.

Added Value

All of the value for this motherboard is certainly in the performance. For such a small motherboard to mix it with the big boys, and even show them a few tricks of its own when it comes to gaming performance is incredible. For a gamer, this board is a no-brainer. However, new CPU support isn’t all it has to offer. With Aura Sync RGB lighting built in, dual M.2 drive mounts and Optane support, one-click overclocking, powerful audio, built-in Wifi, and more, it’s certainly well equipped. In fact, it may even be my favourite Z370 board of the bunch.

Pros

• Incredible gaming performance
• Great aesthetics
• RGB lighting
• Easy to overclock
• Supports 8th Gen Intel CPUs
• Optane support
• Good memory performance
• Mini-ITX with ATX performance
• Good quality audio hardware
• Built-in WiFi
• Dual M.2 thanks to rear mount

Cons

• None

Neutral

• Looks identical to the Z270 version

“While ASUS did nothing with the design for this generation, the Z370-I Gaming Mini-ITX is one of the best Z370 boards we’ve seen. It delivers incredible gaming performance in a compact form factor that’s sure to appeal to any gamer or system builder!”