ASUS ROG Strix X870E-H Gaming Wi-Fi Assessment – Board Layout

Board Layout

This is a busy PCB, however there are just a few options lacking in comparison with extra premium boards comparable to the total complement of overclocking and testing instruments. You get an influence button, however there is not any reset button nor LED POST code show, which is helpful if you happen to’re tweaking AMD programs. Most different issues are right here, although, together with twin tool-free M.2 heatsinks and a push-button GPU launch slightly than the controversial lift-out model PCIe Slot Q-Release Slim. There are some fancy prints on the rear of the PCB, however no extra cooling of the VRMs or by way of the backplate.

Going for X870E does not all the time end in extra M.2 ports since you need to cope with an additional chipset and bigger array of cooling. As a outcome there are 4 M.2 ports, whereas cheaper choices such because the ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming Wi-Fi have 5 due to the additional house, though there’s normally bandwidth restrictions. Here, the one bandwidth sharing is between the second M.2 slot, which might function at PCIe Gen 5 underneath the decrease heatsink. This shares bandwidth with the first PCIe slot and the latter will see its 16 PCIe Gen 5 lanes minimize to eight if that M.2 slot is used. Apart from that, all ports can be utilized together with SATA and USB4 with none compromises.

Of the eight 4-pin fan headers, three are positioned within the high proper nook of the PCB, which is well-placed for coping with massive liquid coolers and pumps. Not so good, although, are the truth that all fan headers are restricted to only 12 W/1 A, which implies quite a lot of higher-power fan setups on the market will probably be pushing near that restrict operating three or extra off a single header. Splitting throughout a number of headers is straightforward, however perhaps not one thing every thing considers. We’d a lot favor to see double this quantity at the least on the CPU fan header, however the CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT headers are at the least configured for shared management out of the field. The similar nook additionally homes a 3-pin fan header and energy button in addition to the CPU over-volt header.

The entrance panel Type-C gives USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20 Gbps assist so will deal with the assorted 2,000 MB/sec exterior USB SSDs on the market, not like slower USB 3.2 variants or USB 3.0, however sadly it does not supply the identical enhanced energy supply because the rear port of the identical design. We’d prefer to see a change right here as a result of having the ability on the rear panel is much less helpful, as you’d need it on the entrance panel to fast-charge smartphones and tablets extra simply.

ASUS appears to be transferring away from it is considerably ill-fated PCIe Slot Q-Release Slim too, which is the place you’d raise your GPU up from the PCI slot finish to routinely launch it. In the previous with out it, this could usually end in catastrophe and a caught GPU, however PCIe Slot Q-Release additionally noticed the slot scraping in opposition to the GPU and damaging the traces. With the ASUS ROG Strix X870E-H Gaming Wi-Fi, we have now a return to a standard push-button, which whereas dearer, is way extra intuitive and fewer more likely to end in harm.

The base of the PCB has a 2-pin thermistor header, which might tie a thermistor or coolant probe to fan speeds within the EFI and software program, together with two extra fan headers. The closing three fan headers are positioned additional alongside in the direction of the rear of the motherboard, which sadly means there are none close to the rear I-O panel for powering rear case followers. Along with two extra 3-pin ARGB headers, most different headers comparable to audio and USB 2.0 are positioned right here beneath the second PCIe slot, which has 4 lanes and helps up PCIe Gen 4, so cable tidying must be easy.

There’s each good and dangerous information with the M.2 cooling. Both heatsinks are tool-free together with the big decrease part, which is commonly screwed-down and this makes an enormous distinction when it comes to the velocity and ease with which you’ll set up SSDs right here. Both are massive too, with the higher heatsink being chunky sufficient to do a superb job of cooling PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, hopefully. The dangerous information is that no M.2 slot right here cools either side of SSDs so our double-sided PCIe Gen 5 SSD most likely will not fare too effectively, which is a disgrace.

The decrease heatsink sits across the two separate chipset heatsinks. At first look it appears large, however is definitely comparatively skinny and a few of it additionally sits underneath a triple slot GPU, that means you will not be capable to take away it with out the latter in addition to cooling being hampered. This cools the highest aspect of the remaining three M.2 ports, with the highest being PCIe Gen 5 and borrowing just a few lanes out of your GPU, whereas the underside two are PCIe Gen 4, once more all missing underside cooling. Still, it is blissfully straightforward to put in with no screws to cope with.

Being X870E, USB4 is assured, and we get two Type-C USB4 40 Gbps ports that double as DisplayPort outputs. A 3rd Type-C output caps out at USB 3.2 10 Gbps, however does have 30 W energy supply. We even have three Type-A ten Gbps ports, six Type-A USB 3.0 and a pair of USB 2.0 ports, bringing the overall Type-A ports to a powerful 11. The rear I/O panel additionally gives a CMOS clear button in addition to USB BIOS Flashback and third video output within the type of HDMI. We additionally get 5 Gbps Ethernet and Wi-Fi 7 with screwless fittings, alongside each commonplace audio jacks and an optical output.