Following close on the heels of Asus' first ROG Strix Micro-ATX B365-based motherboard, the ROG Strix B365-G Gaming, Asus today unveiled its first ATX size ROG Strix B365 motherboard, the ROG Strix B365-F Gaming. The B365-F Gaming sports a similar feature set to the smaller B365-G Gaming.
The ATX size B365 board supports Intel’s 8th and 9th Generation Core, Pentium Gold and Celeron processors and is able to handle up to 64GB of DDR4-2666 RAM across four DIMM slots. The B365-F Gaming, like its Micro-ATX sibling, includes a pre-mounted I/O shield, the premium SupremeFX S1220A codec for audio and Intel I219-V LAN.
On the storage front, the B365-F Gaming has the full complement of six SATA ports (supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10). Unique to this board is how the SATA ports are laid out. Instead of the more typical piggy back (two ports on top of each other), these ports are not stacked and have six ‘single height’ SATA ports running up the right side of the board. Can’t say I have seen that before, but I do like the implementation as it can be difficult to disconnect only the bottom port when the top is populated.
In addition to the SATA ports, the B365-F Gaming includes two M.2 sockets designed for storage. The first M.2 socket supports both SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4, while the second is PCIe 3.0 x4 only. A third M.2 socket (Key E) intended for Wi-Fi adapters (not included) is below the secondary PCIe slot to the right of the SupremeFX audio chip.
USB connectivity is plentiful and includes two USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-A ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (one Type-C) and four USB 2.0 ports on the rear I/O, all being fed from the chipset. The board itself has two more USB 2.0 headers, along with a USB 3.1 header rounding out USB connectivity. Also located on the rear I/O is a legacy PS/2 port, DVI-D, DisplayPort, HDMI and Intel I-219V Gigabit LAN port, along with 5-plug audio stack, plus S/PDIF.
The ROG Strix B365-F Gaming sports dual full-length PCIe slots and supports two-way CrossFireX for using multiple AMD graphics cards. Nvidia SLI isn't supported. The primary PCIe slot, using Asus’ Safeslot shielding, is fed from the CPU, while the other full-length slot receives its bandwidth from the chipset running at x4 (max) and sharing bandwidth with the x1 slots.
Those who want some RGB lighting will get their wish with a tastefully implemented Asus ROG logo and accent line getting the RGB treatment found in the shroud covering the rear I/O and part of the VRMs. If that's not enough, note that the B365-F Gaming includes a 4-pin RGB header found on the bottom of the board.
Neither pricing nor availability was listed. But considering that it supports the lower-cost B365 chipset, its ROG Strix status, ATX size and solid feature set, we expect it to be around $120+ and available soon.
