ASUS ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z370 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Pros: works as intended

Cons: received and not sealed. fingerprints all over it. a couple bent pins but works.

Overall Review: i'll update this soon

Pros: Has everything you would need out of a motherboard. 2 M.2 slots is great.

Cons: None

Overall Review: The 2 SATA ports on the other side of the ram are probably hard to use once you have cpu cooler, ram, and video card installed. A couple of the case plug ins are tough to get at, one is between the wifi and audio ports. These really aren't that big of issues because going with a Mini ITX you know what you're getting into and Asus being able to get all of this on a tiny ITX board is crazy in the first place

Pros: The BIOS is great The look of the MB is amazing Craftsmanship is what you would expect from ASUS - amazing Installation was a breeze Easily maxed out ram speed & got 5ghz stable on 8700k The M.2 slot on front is no joke and rock solid I love the two dimm slots because on a gaming PC that is all you need Unlike the old boards almost all of the lighting is back lit and very little is on the front distracting from what ever colors you choose.

Cons: RGB backlight needs to be diffused to avoid looking tacky and i wish they just went the simple route like GSKILL does with their ram. Big AIO coolers like the Kraken will have ram clearance issues and have to be rotated 90 degrees - this isnt on ASUS but know this if you intend to purchase one.

Overall Review: I bought my first ASUS mb a few years back and it was a Maximus Gene VII, i havent looked back since. While the price for this board is high the quality, features, and software make this totally worth it. ASUS will continue to have my patronage 100% in terms of motherboard purchases. This board in an mITX form is a very capable over clocker and even competes with some of the bigger much more expensive options. Im excited to see what ASUS does next.

Pros: The Strix Z370-I Gaming motherboard shares a similar layout as the previous Strix Z270-I Gaming except a USB 2.0 header is finally added above the PCIe slot to allow the use of internal USB devices like AIO liquid coolers (such as the NZXT Kraken X62 or Corsair H115i) without using a USB 3.0 to 2.0 adapter which allows the use of the front panel USB 3.0 ports of the case without routing the cable out the back of the case. Other minor changes involves the RGB header being previously a non addressable header on the Z270 and an addressable header on the Z370.

Cons: Not backwards compatible with 7th gen (Kaby Lake) or 6th gen (Sky Lake). Cannot use now because all 8th gen (Coffee Lake) CPU’s are currently out of stock everywhere (waiting for i7 8700K availability). Cannot use non addressable RGB LED strips. Windows 10 support only(no official Windows 7 support) for those who still running Win7. HDMI port is still v1.4b not HDMI 2.0b for those that wanted to use onboard graphics for 4K (3840 x 2160 at 60Hz) but can be resolved using a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 adapter.

Overall Review: If upgrading from the previous Strix Z270-I, almost no cable rerouting required except the AIO USB cable can now be connected to the dedicated USB 2.0 header.

Pros: Best choice of all Mini ITX boards out there. Not sure why anyone would buy a larger board. With only 16 PCIe lanes to the CPU, you can only use one graphics card to take advantage of full PCIex16 @x16. The chipset offers additional lanes to support 1-2 m.2 NVMe SSD at full speed. Everything works great with BIOS Version 0430 installed. The BIOS is very easy to use and adjust settings. Using the CPU 5G OC profile preset option may cause the system to crash. Just use the EZ System Tuning option to overclock or adjust settings manually in the BIOS to reach 5GHz. This board is very stable with the current processor installed and all the features work great including USB 3.1, etc.

Cons: This is my first experience with Mini ITX and it is SMALL. It was really tight when installing CPU cooler and connecting cables, etc. but I like the small package. For some reason the 5GHz band of the wireless was very weak. It could be a bad antenna. And the Realtek audio software is buggy, does not work well with Windows 10. After installing, only the AC97 option worked with sound coming from desktop speakers. And plugging in headphones through the front port did not turn off sound coming from desktop speakers. All of this worked fine with Windows 7. I thought the m.2 on the back of the board was useless. It's not very convenient to use if the SSD doesn't work and needs to be replaced. Also not a big fan of the RGB lighting either. So there is a disco in my case, I can't see it.

Overall Review: Contrary to what other people say, this board and the Coffee Lake processors DO work fine with Windows 7. You may have to slip drivers for USB and NVMe as well as updates into a new install but it DOES work. Be sure to update the BIOS to the latest version before doing anything! And Newegg rocks! I received this item from the NJ warehouse in just a couple days, shipping was fast!

Pros: Every needed feature plus a handful of nice extras. Fantastic bios. Plug, play, and install ease. Quality quality quality RGB

Cons: Cost - paired with 8350K so the Z370 is worth being able to OC the CPU and RAM but wow these are spendy. More expensive than ATX - how does that make sense.

Overall Review: Very easy setup. Installed CPU, RAM, M2 SSD then booted. Changed RAM to XMP settings and saved. Windows installed off USB without having to change a single setting. Stable, cool and quiet. 10/10 experience.

Pros: Great board layout. If you are using a noctua nh-d15 your DIMMS will get the full 60ish mm of clearance because they are tucked in underneath the radiator cutout, not underneath the fan. Included 5.0 gHz profile for the 8700k is surprisingly good. More on this below.

Cons: The voltages...oh the voltages. This board has voltage issues. It does not adhere to your manually set voltages. Setting a MANUAL voltage of 1.300 I am seeing in Aida64 and Intel XTU that my voltages go as high as 1.415v idle and under load with temps to match. This is kind of a big deal as people may even fry their CPU's if they MANUALLY set 1.4v and then the board runs them up above 1.5v. Thankfully I always take it slow when overclocking and use tools like Aida64 to monitor my voltages rather than take the BIOS at its word. And yes I went through the bios and made sure to turn off every possible source of overvolting like C-states and TPU and SVID, even though all this shouldn't be necessary when setting a MANUAL VOLTAGE. None of it seemed to make any difference. This board simply doesn't respect your manually set voltage....in the bios at least. So after spending like 10 hours tinkering with this thing I discovered the only way I could get it to respect my MANUALLY set voltage is to use intel XTU to set the voltage. Then it behaved like every other board I have ever owned, ie setting a 1.3v manual with level 5 LLC gets me 1.310ish constant operating voltage. To get my 8700k to 5.0 gHz stable I ended up needing 1.36v. Just for kicks I thought I would investigate ASUS's included 5.0 gHz OC profile. Much to my surprise it works amazingly well. Idles around 1.25v and under load it hangs around 1.31ish. This is kind of crazy given how much more voltage (1.36) I needed for my own 5.0 gHz overclock. So all in all we have a pretty wacky board here. I assume these issues with manual overclocking will be sorted out in future bios updates.

Pros: I/O RGB lighting

Cons: died after a week. wouldn't boot at all. did all the testing wouldn't power on at all. power supply still works.

Overall Review: worked great for the week i had it. Just wouldn't turn on one day. lights still worked but nothing would power cycle.