ASUS Strix Z690-I Gaming WiFi ITX Motherboard Review

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We say it every time but it never stops being true. If you've got used to the kind of motherboard boxes that come with your ATX or even EATX motherboard, the packaging for an ITX offering, even a ROG one, is so compact you would struggle to fit a pair of trainers in there.

From the overhead view all looks fairly standard ITX stuff. Braced PCI Express slot, most of the acreage covered by heatsink, connectors squeezed to the side. It's all about perspective though, as you'll soon discover.

However, we'll tease you a tiny bit longer. The top side of the Strix Z690-I shows how good the ASUS designers have got at squeezing things on to a limited footprint. Two CPU fan headers - one for the AIO pump - and still enough room for the AURA lighting header.

At the bottom edge you find the first clues as to the new direction the ASUS designers have gone in. Type-C USB front panel header and some female Type-C headers too? What on earth could they be for?

Here is the answer. Whereas previous ASUS ROG ITX motherboards have used a vertical plate for their audio, or perhaps to squeeze an extra M.2 slot on, the Z690-I has moved all the SATA ports on to a double height stack. There are fan headers, AURA lighting header, pretty much everything you might expect to find on a full ATX motherboard, but built upwards.

It's a technological Tower of Babel.

Just because this is an ITX motherboard doesn't mean that it doesn't earn that famous ROG Strix branding, with 10+1 105A power stages tucked away beneath that sturdy VRM heatsink.

Around the back we have everything you could need. HDMI, 2.5Gb LAN, USB 3.2 ports of both Gen1 and Gen2 style, WiFi 6E, it's a veritable cornucopia of modern connectivity.