ASUS Z270-A Prime Review

Feature Highlights

Barely an inch of PCB has gone un-utilised. Perhaps the most obvious thing about the Prime has to be the amount of fan headers. Anyone who has suffered motherboards with too few fan slots will appreciate having so many places to arrange things. Above the first PCIe slot is the second of the two M.2 drive connectors, with the other in the more regular spot behind the SATA ports. To the left of it you can see yet more fan headers. More regular storage options are catered for with the six SATA ports. SATA Express is not catered for here. Perhaps it has gone the same way as Firewire or Thunderbolt. Front and rear connectivity on the Z270 Prime is well catered for. At the bottom edge there are many front panel USB headers, in both USB 2.0 and 3.0 flavours, as well as the all important RGB header that enables AURA control of your lighting choices. There are only four USB 3.0 ports on the back, far too few we feel, particularly as everything is USB these days. Equally a combined PS/2 port is surely the equivalent of putting a Serial port on the back. Nobody uses PS/2 peripherals surely? Conversely the Z270 Prime has both the A-type and C-type USB 3.1 connectors, futureproofing you for a good while yet.