One of the points in favor of the consoles is undoubtedly the little place they occupy in the living room or our bedroom, unlike a common ATX PC, which has much larger dimensions. In recent years, however, this advantage has vanished, in fact, motherboard manufacturers, for consumer-type CPUs, have created a form factor of their Mini ITX mother boards. It is an extremely small form factor, able to fit inside a case similar in size to a console. These motherboards are able to pack enormous power within a very small space, thus creating a real killer console. With the advent of Ryzen CPUs based on Zen 2 architecture, Asus has renewed its range of motherboards, adopting the new X570 chipset and introducing its new Mini ITX mother board.
As you could well understand, today we are here to tell you about Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming, a concentrate of power enclosed in a tiny space.
The packaging that encloses the motherboard is the typical one that we could find in other ROG products reviewed in the past. The color of the product is black embellished with red finishes. On the front we find an image of the card, the model name and some main information such as the presence of the X570 socket and that of the PCI Express type 4.
On the back we find other information, but described in more detail, such as the presence of active cooling, the presence of the M.2 slot and all the I / O ports installed on the card. The bundle is the typical one of every ROG product and has everything you need to start using the mother board immediately. We find:
- Shiled I / O ports;
- Sata cables;
- Wi-Fi antenna;
- RGB LED extension;
- ROG Sticker;
- ROG branded cardboard coaster;
- DVD containing the drivers;
- Instruction and warranty manual.
As already said a few lines up Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming is a motherboard with Mini ITX form factor, therefore extremely small and compact, but which embodies a high power. The measurements are about 17 cm in length and 17 cm in width, making it in fact little longer than a smartphone today. If you buy a Mini ITX motherboard, pay attention to the case in which you are going to put it: any chassis supports this type of motherboard, but if you insert it inside a Full Tower the aesthetic result is not exactly the best. The design recalls that of the other motherboards of the Asus ROG Strix family.
At the center of the motherboard we find the AMD AM4 Socket compatible with all Ryzen CPUs, from the first to the third generation. To the right of it we find two slots for our RAM memories for a maximum total of 64 GB at an overclocked speed of 4800 Mhz.
Also on the right front we find the 24-pin connector, two Sata 6 Gb / s ports, a header to connect the front buttons of the case, a USB 3.0 and a 2.0 leader. Above the Socket we will find three 4 Pin PWM connectors to connect our fans, two headers to connect the LEDs, one of which is RGB and one ARGB, both compatible with the AURA proprietary lighting system. Above we also find the 8 Pin connector for the power supply of our CPU.
The power supply of the CPU is entrusted to a total of 10 phases, flanked by 10 mosfets, one for each single phase, in order to make the current inside as stable as possible. As for the RAM memories we have only one phase availableThis is because there are only two slots and not four as happens in motherboards with other form factors. Mosfets as we all know, represent the hottest part of our motherboard:
To keep the temperature of this electronic component at bay, Asus has equipped Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming with a huge active heatsink. Since the motherboard is very compact in size, this heatsink will develop very vertically, rather than horizontally as is the case with larger motherboards. This heatsink will also have the function of dissipating the heat generated by the X570 chipset which, unlike the x470 predecessor, will consume 15w.
As already mentioned it will be of the active type, and we will find two small fans used for heat dissipation, one placed in the highest part of the heat sink and one placed in the lower part. The heatsink is finally covered with two black and gray plastic plates, which will recall the design of the other motherboards of the ROG family.
Above the only PCI Express 4.0 slot, we find a last heatsink, this one equipped with RGB lighting, where under it we will find the slot to insert an M.2 drive. The PCIe slot mentioned above will be reinforced, so as not to flex if the weight of the video card we are going to install is excessively high.
On the left side we find all the I / O ports, consisting of:
- 1 x 2 × 2 Wi-Fi module;
- 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 x Type-C and 3 x Type-A red);
- 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Blue;
- 1 x Anti-surge 2.5G LAN;
- 1 x DisplayPort 1.4;
- 1 x HDMI 2.0;
- 3 x Gold Plated Audio Jacks.
Asus has always spoiled its customers by providing them with a precise, simple and intuitive BIOS that at the same time allows you to manage every single parameter of the installed components. We have two interfaces available, one called EZ Mode, simple and basic, where the options are reduced to the bone, and one Advanced Mode. In EZ Mode there will be a utility called EZ Turing Wizard, which will apply a slight overclock to our system, all automatically. In Advanced Mode we can instead overclock CPU and RAM manually, looking for the ideal voltage.
We will have the ability to change the timing of the RAM, manage the PCI Express ports and each component on board. With the BIOS that we find on board Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming we can do everything, and the user friendly interface with the descriptions of each single item will help us understand every setting right away.
And now the most awaited part: the tests. The test configuration is composed as follows:
- Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming;
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700X;
- 2 × 8 GB G.Skill Trident Z 4400 Mhz;
- Samsung 2 EVO M.970 SSD;
- Nvidia Gefroce RTX 2080 Ti;
- NZXT E850 80+ Gold;
- Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit.
The CPU used for testing was cooled using NZXT's All in One liquid cooler, the Kraken X52, while the video card was air-cooled using the original cooler.
We tested every part of the Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming using different synthetic benchmarks and video games. The first test we performed is Cinebench R15, a well-known CPU benchmark that simulates a rendering situation, excellent for testing the power of our processor and checking its stability in an over-clock situation. AMD Ryzen 7 3700X along with Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming scored a single thread score of 190 CB, while in multi thread it totaled 2053 CB. The second test is Cinebench R20, the latest version of the famous benchmark with Ray tracing support. The pairing has totaled a single thread score of 485 CB, while in multi thread it totaled 4753 CB. For theThe third test we used V-Ray, a benchmark that simulates a rendering situation. Here we have a score of 12366, a truly amazing result. Then we used 7-Zip, a well-known archive compression and decompression program that uses multi thread. In compression we got a score of 47,93 MB / s, while in decompression he got a score of 938,73 MB / s. To test the two 8 GB DDR4 modules of G.Skill 4400 Mhz, we used AIDA 64. Unfortunately, we were unable to bring the RAM to their frequency, because it was too high and the system often crashed, so we decided to test them for a more stable frequency, that is 3200 Mhz. The memories coupled with Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming, have totaled in read 89.743 MB / s, write 77.871 MB / s and copy 76.230 MB / s.
Certainly could not miss a test with the well-known 3D Mark suite. We used the Time Spy scenario, which takes advantage of Microsoft's proprietary DirectX 12 libraries. The system scored a Total Score of 12702 points, while the CPU alone scored 8711 points. Finally we tried the combination AMD Ryzen 7 3700Xe Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming with some video games, to be precise Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5. For Shadow of the Tomb Raider we used the same graphics settings that we use during the our reviews of the GPUs, then ultra presets, DirectX 12 active and antialiasing set to TAA. With 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, we have achieved 152 average FPS, while at 2560 x 1440 resolution we got 103 FPS medi.
Also for Far Cry 5 we used the same graphic settings we use during the other reviews, so ultra presets and active HDR. With a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels we obtained an average 79 FPS: a fairly evident bottleneck, in fact the GPU was used for about 60% of its power. On the other hand, at a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, the combination totaled 121 Average FPS, and this makes us understand how evident the bottleneck was in Full HD. Despite this, even in WQHD there is the bottleneck, but lighter than the 1080p resolution.
The VRMs, the component that heats the most in a motherboard, on Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming turn out to be extremely cold, thanks to the huge active heatsink that we find supplied. Even with the CPU overclocked, the VRMs hit the maximum temperature of 56 °. The PCH, despite the triple consumption compared to the previous version, thanks to the supplied fan did not have particular temperature problems, recording a maximum peak of 64 °.
Small and extremely powerful, this is Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming. The card is able to offer extreme compatibility with all AMD processors of the Ryzen family, whether they are based on the first and second generation Zen architecture. The board adopts the same design that we find in other ROG branded motherboards, making it extremely beautiful and captivating to see. The VRMs, the hottest and most critical point of any electronic device, turn out to be quite cool here, thanks to the huge active heatsink that we find on board. If you too want to create a killer console, extremely powerful to keep in the living room, this motherboard could be the starting point for you.
Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming can be purchased at a price of about 290 € including VAT.
