ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi Review

ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi Review

Introduction

If you’re still here and reading through all the motherboard reviews we’ve got for you with the launch of the 11th Generation Intel Rocket Lake CPUs then we thank you. Clearly even if you’ve only read the CPU review and this one though you’ll know that the Z590 chipset is basically a Z490 but with PCI Express 4.0. We know there is more to it than that, but it’s pretty much the headline feature.

When we’ve got such a huge pile of motherboards to get through it’s easy to get used to the size of an ATX PCB and then you see an ITX and it always comes as a shock. Always. We never get used to how you can get basically everything you need to run a system on a PCB that is smaller than a monitor stand.

How does the ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming Wi-Fi stack up to the other Z590 motherboards we’ve reviewed today? Is it going to be the best of the ITX ones or challenge some of the full size ATX ones? There is, of course, only one way to find out.

Technical Specifications

If you have been checking out all of our Z590 reviews then, like us, you see the specifications of the Strix ITX and realise how much has to be cut down to fit it in the smaller form factor, and yet how it also happens to have everything you need if you want a compact gaming system. Most of us only run one GPU, and fewer of us still run more than just one PCI device, which means the Strix ticks the majority of boxes with only the lack of USB ports likely to be a problem. Heck ASUS have managed to squeeze two M.2 slots onto the PCB, which is impressive enough.

ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi Review  
ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi Review  
ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi Review  

Cooling

As you might expect with an ITX motherboard the Strix hasn’t got hundreds of fan headers able to cool a heavily overclock setup, but it still has enough for a compact system. It’s all about fitting the available elements to the expected use case.

ASUS ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi Review Â