ASUS Z270I Strix ITX Motherboard Review

Up Close

Despite being small in size the Z270I packaging hasn’t been compromised to fit everything on. In fact if you weren’t paying close attention to that ‘I’ in the name you’d struggle to spot it was an ITX at all. Of course once it is out of the box its all clear just because of the reduced dimensions. Even here though you can see a lot of care has been taken with the design. Usually ITX motherboards rely upon very small heatsinks because of their reduced power phases, and this has a knock on effect in the aesthetics. You end up with a motherboard which looks – well let’s be honest with one another – cheap. The Strix has no such issues, with beefy heatsinks that match the bigger motherboards as well as could be expected.

We’re not too sure about the positioning of the USB 3.1 front panel header though. At the top left? As far from the front panel as it is possible to get? Strange stuff. We do like the heatspreader that forms the basis of the M.2 socket on the front side of the Strix ITX though. It helps keep the Strix looking classy and, hopefully, helps keep your M.2 drive cool even under harsh usage conditions. If one M.2 socket isn’t enough to keep you happy then there is one tucked away on the reverse of it, and when coupled to the many SATA ports and USB 3.1 ports at the rear you can be sure that there isn’t a dearth of storage options.

Lastly it wouldn’t be an ASUS product in recent times if it didn’t include the ASUS AURA technology, with LEDs down the right hand side and RGB headers on board, your system can look splendid in any colour you like.