Motherboard Asus B350-I ROG STRIX

[xerophinity]

I got lucky and snagged an Asus B350-I from PC-Canada. As of right now, they have only 1 more left in stock.

Just thought I'd post some component pictures here for anyone that's considering this board for their next ITX build. Please let me know if you'd like to see any particular board component(s) in more detail; I'd be happy to post pictures. I know there's been a lot of discussion around this board and its identical twin, the X370-I.

I'll be building this with the following components:

CPU: Ryzen 7 1700
Cooler: Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev.B Noctua NH-L12S -> Reason for the change
Case: Lazer3D LZ7
PSU: Corsair SF450
Boot Drive: WD Black 256GB NVMe SSD (I chose this over the Samsung 960 due to availability and cost)
Storage: 2x 4TB 2.5"x15mm Seagate HDD gutted from a Seagate Expansion External USB 3.0 drive. (cheaper to buy these right now than an internal HDD)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz (I chose 3000MHz due to the huge cost difference between 3000MHz RAM and 3200MHz) I'll see if I'm lucky and try to OC it to 3200MHz.

Enough jibber jabber. On to the pics...

 

[kulbida]

Nice. Can I see an up-close shot of the I/O shield?

 

[zhl146]

I just got mine today as well. I am pissed that the BIOS hard limits you to fan control below 75C. That means that if your CPU goes above 75C then your CPU fan will get set to max rpm. This is pretty unacceptable to me and may render the board unusable for me. If anyone has any suggestions to workaround, that would be great. I may try voltage limiting it.

 

[Thestarkiller32]

I just got mine today as well. I am pissed that the BIOS hard limits you to fan control below 75C. That means that if your CPU goes above 75C then your CPU fan will get set to max rpm. This is pretty unacceptable to me and may render the board unusable for me. If anyone has any suggestions to workaround, that would be great. I may try voltage limiting it.

The 100% thing issend that as bad on the 1700 but on the 1800X, the addet the 20 degreas offset....so if the CPU hits 55 C, it will fly away

And to the Voltage Limiter... dose the Fan realy sond that bad? Because the problem is, if you would limit the Voltage to saing 9V then the performans would suffer...

 

[xerophinity]

Nice. Can I see an up-close shot of the I/O shield?

Here it is!

 

[kulbida]

Here it is!

Awesome. Nice clean look.

 

[xerophinity]

I just got mine today as well. I am pissed that the BIOS hard limits you to fan control below 75C. That means that if your CPU goes above 75C then your CPU fan will get set to max rpm. This is pretty unacceptable to me and may render the board unusable for me. If anyone has any suggestions to workaround, that would be great. I may try voltage limiting it.

From what I saw on the Lz7 website, which is the case I'm using, their tests indicate that with the CPU cooler that I'll be using, the Big Shuriken 2, they haven't seen the temperature go above 69 Celcius for the CPU on Max load for the Ryzen 1700. That being said, personally I don't mind the CPU fan maxing out if the temperature get that high.

 

[xerophinity]

I received the WD Black NVMe SSD today and installed in on the top side slot as seen below. But notice that there's a slight bend in the SSD when the heatsink is installed. Screwing in the heat sink too tight bends the SSD like this. If you decide to get this board, do not tighten the heatsink screws too much and it will stay straight. You should eyeball the SSD as you're tightening the heat sink to ensure no bending.

 

[xerophinity]

Ok, so I have to make a small but important update to this build on account of my being a dumbass. If you are doing a Ryzen build, the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B is not compatible with the AM4 socket yet. I chose this heatsink because it was one of the 2 recommended by the folks over at Lazer3D for the LZ7 case. I wanted the Scythe cooler because according to their testing, it had marginally better temps than the Noctua low-profile cooler, but I should have paid more attention because the testing they did was on an Intel board, and not AM4.

I ordered a Noctua NH-L12S, which IS compatible with AM4 and I got it within two days (All hail Amazon Prime). After waiting forever for this Scythe cooler to come in, only to have to send it back, I now have the unique opportunity to show you all the two products side by side before sending it back.

The two boxes side by side:

Product info:

More product info:

Scythe cooler and all contents:

Noctua cooler and all contents:

Scythe Cooler:

Noctua Cooler (upside down):

Side by side:

The Noctua packaging, as you can see, is much more substantial and they package everything very well and neatly with a seperate accessory box. The Scythe packaging however is quite minimal with not all that much protection inside the box for the cooler. The heatpipes made noticeable indentations on the inside of its cardboard box, and the accessories are just seperated by a piece of cardboard. It's not all that bad, but the difference between the two brands is quite stark in terms of quality of presentation:

 

[TheHig]

The L12S is a very nice looking cooler. Totally agree on the Noctua packaging. I own several of their coolers and unboxing is like Christmas.

Thanks for the info concerning the M.2 drive flex also. Looking forward to more updates.