The demand for AMD’s Ryzen motherboard is met by ASRock, I reviewed the AB350 model just last week and now we have the X370 model which costs a fair bit more at RM 799 and functions pretty much the same.
On the upper corner you’ll see that the EPS12V hides behind the heatsink, and around the CPU socket you’ll see Nichicon 12K Black caps, ASRock Digi Power 8-power phase design with premium power choke and Dual-N MOSFET.
On this corner you’ll see that the X370 Gaming-ITX/ac comes with 2x DIMM slots that supports up to 3466Mhz DDR4 speed. Towards the top end of the DIMM slots are the RGB header and FAN connection header. Next to them are the various connectors, including the USB 3.0 connector and SATA ports.
On the other side which is pretty much the same side, given the compact nature of the Mini-ITX board, is the PCI-E slot with steel reinforcement for added structural integrity.
Lastly we have the rear panel which consists of
– 2 x Antenna Ports
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
– 2 x HDMI Ports
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)*
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A Port (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C Port (Supports ESD Protection)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports (Supports ESD Protection)
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone (Gold Audio Jacks)
More details at the official product page.
User Experience
The X370 Gaming-ITX/ac is a splendid compact board, the interface is great as expected and you’re not left without any option to overclock your processor just as I did.
Fancy tweaking the RGB lighting? This board has the connector, though not many. 🙂
Now here’s the thing you need to know, the X370 board here is an identical twin over the AB350 model and sells at a higher price point.
The only difference between these 2 model is the Wi-Fi module of which the AB350 is capable up to 433Mbps transfer speed while the X370 is capable of speeds up to 867Mbps thanks to its 2T2R technology – 2x Transmitter, 2x Receiver for the speed boost you need.
Now this transfer speed thing is not something that I can easily emulate, after all transfer speed is depending on the network setup itself so if you do have a network that works with this then it’s great, assuming you do a lot of local file transfers.
The Verdict
The ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Gaming-ITX/ac is a board that’s compact and feature rich but unlike the AB350 model this one retails at RM 799 which is a lot more than the RM 589 of the AB350 model.
It’s a good board nonetheless, it 3-years warranty and my take is that it’s only your choice over the AB350 if you KNOW that your network supports such high speed and that your usage actually benefits from it.
