ASUS Goes Small With ROG STRIX X370-I And B350-I Mini-ITX AMD Ryzen Motherboards

ASUS has announced some new mainboards that are available for gamers out there looking to build up a compact gaming rig using an AMD Ryzen processor. Both of the new boards are mini-ITX form factor and promise to shoehorn in all the features that gamers expect of a ROG mainboard in a much smaller package. The first new board is the ROG STRIX X370-I GAMING (AMD X370 chipset), while the other is the STRIX B350-I GAMING (AMD B350 chipset), both using Socket AM4.

Both boards have very similar spec sheets and are ready for liquid cooling and have addressable RGB lighting for those wanting bing to go along with their Ryzen performance. Both of the boards also feature an integrated M.2 SSD heatsink and improved audio components that live on a riser card so the board can be compact, but you get better sound than most mini-ITX mainboards.

Other features of the boards include integrated Aura Sync, 802.11AC WiFi, USB 3.1 ports, and FanExpert tech to allow you to keep the machines cool no matter what you are doing with the PC. To get around the limitations of small dimensions with a mini-ITX form factor, ASUS went to riser cards to keep the features that Gamers expect. The audio cared riser has a M.2 Audio Combo card with SupremeFX sound and an additional slot for M.2 storage expansion.

The small riser board is crammed in between the heatsink for the M.2 drive and the platform chipset so it can be cooled efficiently without taking up excess space inside the computer. Both the X370-I and the B350-I boards are able to take full advantage of Ryzen overclocking with six-phase VRM design just as the full size ASUS mainboards offer. The board features shorter traces for the dual-DIMM RAM configuration allowing DDR4-3600 RAM to be supported.

ASUS also integrates 5-way Optimization that makes overclocking easier to perform for beginners and experts alike. The intelligent auto-tuner will automatically overclock the CPU and configure cooling depending on the parts you use in the build. Both boards will be available in North America in late October.