A few months ago, while I was at a tech show in NZ, an ASUS rep mentioned to me that they were working on Ryzen M-ITX. The first reveal as to what this would look like has appeared, courtesy of Swedish retailer Inet.se. Coming it at 1899 kr, or US$239, the ASUS ROG STRIX B350-I Gaming (from herein I will call it the ASUS B350-I, because this mouthful of a moniker is another in a long line of over-named products in the mainstream) motherboard is the first offering from ASUS for this product segment. For reference, the Gigabyte AB350N-Gaming WiFi is 1290 kr on Inet, which equates to US$159. On NewEgg at time of publishing, the Gigabyte board is selling for US$115. This would mean that the ASUS ROG STRIX B350-I would probably retail in the US for around US$172, a serious premium compared to the competitors, even including the higher end X370 chipset boards.
The ASUS B350-I features a comparatively limited amount of connectivity options, which includes two external USB 3.1 Gen2 ports as well as four USB 3.1 Gen1 ports. Internally, one USB 3.1 Generation 1 header, and a USB 2.0 header are available. Four SATA 6 Gbit/s ports, along with two (!) M.2 slots complete the storage lineup. Gigabit ethernet, WiFi, and “SupremeFX” 8-Channel High Definition Audio are also featured.
The board has yet to be officially announced, but with clear manufacturer supplied imagery, we can be pretty sure that this is a product that is nearing release.
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