M.2 PCIe Performance
We test M.2 PCIe performance using an Aorus PCIe Gen 4 2TB SSD. This SSD uses a Phison-based PCIe Gen 4 controller.
M.2 performance is as good as we’d expect, with the PCIe Gen 4 x4 slots having no problems feeding our almost-5GBps Aorus 2TB NVMe SSD.
Cooling performance from ASUS’ heatsink was perfectly good, with our logs showing a peak temperature of 63°C for the CrystalDiskMark test run. That’s a similar level to what we have seen from competing motherboards, so short, bursty SSD loading does not seem to be hampered by ASUS’ cooling plate design.
SATA 6Gbps Performance
For SATA 6Gbps testing we use a Crucial MX300 750GB SSD.
SATA performance was also right where we would expect it. Given the plentiful quantity of SATA lanes for the TRX40 platform, add-on chipsets are not used on the ASUS TRX40-E Gaming motherboard, so all SATA 6Gbps ports will run at full speed.
Audio
Rightmark Audio Analyser is a freeware benchmarking utility designed to objectively test the performance characteristics of audio solutions. We setup a line-in line-out loop and execute the record/playback test before generating the results report you see below. A sampling mode of 24-bit, 192 kHz was tested.
Rightmark Audio Analyser rates the ASUS ROG STRIX TRX40-E Gaming motherboard’s SupremeFX audio system as ‘Very Good’ overall, with most of the categories scoring ‘Excellent’.