ASUS ROG Strix B450-I Gaming AMD AM4 (3rd/2nd /1stGen Ryzen ITX SFF Motherboard (Intel Gigabit Ethernet, 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi, USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Aura sync RGB Lighting)

I purchased this board to go into an BNZXT Manta case, at the time of purchase there weren't any reviews which generally I shy away from, but I took the plunge based on my positive experience with Asus in the past. Setup could not have gone smoother, with everything recognizing and posting first time. Memory was correctly read at its proper speed and the small overclock I did to my cpu was effortless.The motherboard has operated flawlessly and has been an overall dream to work with. It is beautifully manufactured and laid out, from the high quality M.2 heatsink (Totally necessary? Maybe not, but expertly executed in its design) to the amazingly easy to navigate and tweak, BIOS.Another huge bonus for me was the built in wifi and antenna. It's small and unintrusive but also leaves nothing to be desired in the terms of internet speed or connectivity strength. Overall I couldn't be happier with this motherboard. Coupled with my wireless keyboard/mouse, my PC requires only a monitor out cable and a power cable going into the back of it, making it easy to move and easy on the eyes as far as cable management goes.

The mobo has been great. Overclocking was pretty easy as was installing the motherboard. There were only a few things I didn't like:The HD Audio port is all the way at the bottom left corner of the board above the GPU PCI-E port and next to the M.2 slot. This makes cabling a bit messier.The Aura backlighting does NOT turn off when your PC is off (with the PSU still on). You can turn this off in the BIOS but there is no option as far as I know that allows for the backlight to be on only when the PC is on.Like may other reviewers say, you need to update the BIOS to use some compatible RAM listed on their QVL list. I used G.Skill TridentZ meant for an Intel build but was on the list of compatible RAM. It could not run at its marketed speed (3200 MHz) until I updated the BIOS.

I was wonderful working with this motherboard. The best feature is that this motherboard comes with a cable that makes it super easy to connect the frontal connectors. The board feels really good and just emits quality. I had no issues with this board as other people have stated. Everything worked like a charm for me. There are other reviews that comment on the wifi on the board. This board used to struggle to connect to the wifi at first until i connected the supplied antenna, once I did this I was able to get a much stronger connection and was able to downloads my games at 10 to 11mb/s. This board as it is a mini-itx form factor is bit tight and condensed and can be a hassle to work with, however, compared to other mini itx boards, this board was a pleasure to work with in my opinion. I used the stock cooler that came with my ryzen 7 2700x and used corsair vengeance rgb ram and had no clearance issue plus the ram worked despite not being in the qvl list. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with this motherboard

This motherboard is definitely up there for b450 in the itx form factor. It’s flashy and provides a lot of nice extras like an extra m.2 slot and three fan headers. Overall for a sff build I can recommend it, but there are some things to consider before going all in.-if you plan on using a low profile cooler, be sure it can orient in all directions for maximum mounting potential. I used a Noctua l12s and it fits, but the board is dense with large pieces to cool the chipset and first m.2 slot and it was very tricky to make it all go together in the end due to a very slight overhang on the 24 pin power connector.-In my configuration, I use a gtx 1070 mini from Zotac with a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter to my display for a 4K 60 hertz output while keeping my VR extension cables connected. The bios will not display though this cable. This isn’t a huge deal since I can always use the VR HDMI port temporarily when I need to, but it’s an odd inconvenience I haven’t experienced on different motherboards.-the WiFi seems to go in and out at random. Again, this isn’t a dealbreaker for me because I’ll be using a wired connection primarily, but it appears to be an issue with windows drivers or stock configuration. When using various Debian based Linux distributions I did not experience this issue.Those were all of my hiccups and stumbles. This was my first sff build, and I personally think it turned out great. If I could do it again I would probably go with this motherboard still. If some of the things I listed might have swayed you away I’d recommend MSI’s offerings as very solid contenders.