ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha (TRX40) Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. Board Layout and Features3. UEFI4. Software5. Testing Methodology6. Tests: CPU Related7. Tests: Memory Related8. Tests: Gaming Related9. Tests: Motherboard Features Performance10. Overclocking & Power Consumption11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

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.

Using the board-mounted M.2 slot, performance from our PCIe Gen 4 SSD is right where we would expect it to be at 5GBps peak.

ASUS’ cooling solution, which is effectively an oversized slab of metal with a thermal pad, has no problem keeping our speedy M.2 SSD cooled. We stayed below 60°C throughout the CrystalDiskMark run.

SATA 6Gbps Performance

For SATA 6Gbps testing we use a Crucial MX300 750GB SSD.

SATA performance looks perfectly fine for the onboard connections.

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 audio system as ‘Very Good’, with most of the categories scoring as ‘Excellent’.

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