ASUS Strix X370-I Gaming and Strix B350-I Ryzen Mini-ITX Gaming motherboards

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Oct 18, 2017.

  1. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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  2. Wolfskin07

    Wolfskin07 Member Guru

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    They seem exactly the same, from the pictures and the specs on ASUS site...what's the point? I wonder if they support PCI-E bifurcation like the offerings from ASRock? Any word on pricing?
     
  3. Pawel04

    Pawel04 Active Member

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    I think im looking at my next board to upgrade my Sandy Bridge rig :). Although as mentioned already, they do look the same, would like to know what the real difference is here...
     
  4. MorganX

    MorganX Member Guru

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    Dual M.2, ITX, hmmm. Tempting ...
     

  5. Loophole35

    Loophole35 Guest

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    Asus definitely knows how to make a mITX board. Though I don’t see the point of making both a b350 and x370 version. Just make one. It’s not like the x370 has more sata or USB ports.
     
  6. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    Whenever I see RGB for some reason I think of hypnotoad lol.

    Joking aside, man that's a lot in a small package...
     
  7. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    I think the dual M.2 is what really gives this board an edge; I don't think any of the competitors offer that. But, it seems one of the M.2 slots don't have a SATA connection, and, is based on PCIe 2.0 rather than 3.0, though I don't think that should result in a perceivable performance loss on modern drives.

    It also seems Asus is the only company that actually has a difference between X370 and B350 models. The stupid thing is the differences seem to have nothing to do with the chipset...
    For example, the X370 allows for ECC RAM, ESD guards for various ports/jacks, and an additional USB header on the motherboard. Each of these could be done on B350, though if the additional USB header uses a separate XHCI, then maybe the B350 wouldn't have enough PCIe lanes to handle all the slots. Still, I wish companies would stop wasting X370s on ITX boards.

    Anyway, its cool to see Asus finally jumped in on this. I don't understand why they didn't do it sooner, but, maybe it was to make sure they had something that was distinctly better than everyone else. After all, there's only so many variations you can do on ITX, and Asus generally is more expensive than they're actually worth.
     

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