Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi review

If you're after a Mini-ITX motherboard, you'll usually have to put up with some almost inevitable compromises. There's just no way to pack a comprehensive feature set onto a 17cm x 17cm motherboard in the same way you could on an similarly priced ATX board. Or is there?   

An impressive engineering showcase that effectively eliminates some of the compromises inherent to Mini-ITX motherboards.

The Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi aims to give users more than they'd expect from a Mini-ITX motherboard. Rather than trying to cram everything onto a two dimensional PCB, Asus has gone into the third dimension. It's shifted several features onto riser cards, and there's an additional USB connected audio device that also functions as something of an external dock. The Strix X670E-I WiFi is an impressive engineering showcase that goes a long way to eliminating the compromises inherent to Mini-ITX motherboards, though the ability to install many M.2 drives is a still a step too far.

At $399 / £409 / AU$639, it's an expensive piece of kit to be sure, but it's still competitive against upper mid-range ATX options and well below the price of flagship boards. It's a board for those that want the ultimate AMD Mini-ITX system. And, it's already got a BIOS with support for next-gen Ryzen 9000-series processors.

The clunkily named Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi features a 10+2+1 phase VRM with 110a per stage. It's easily able to handle the demands of a Ryzen 9 7950X processor, and surely the high-end SKUs to launch in the future. The heatsink isn't what you'd call gigantic, but there is a small embedded fan there in case things get a bit toasty. It supports up to DDR5-8000 memory, but who knows what it might be capable of when next-gen processors make their debut.

Socket: AMD AM5
CPU compatibility: AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000-series processors
Form factor: Mini-ITX
Memory support: DDR5-8000+(OC), up to 96GB
Storage: 2x M.2, 2x SATA
USB: Up to 2x USB 4, 6x USB 10Gbps, 2x USB 5Gbps, 3x USB