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AMD’s new AM5 platform has been on the market for a couple of months, so we still have a variety of feature-rich motherboards to look at. In this article, we have no less than five (!) of ASUS’ X670E product offerings ranging from the high-end ROG line-up, the TUF Gaming option, and a mainstream Prime product.
Timestamps:
The Five Motherboards Looked At:
- ASUS TUF Gaming X670E-Plus WiFi
- ASUS Prime X670E-Pro WiFi
- ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi
- ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero
- ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-I Gaming WiFi
It is important for us to highlight the differences between the new AM5 chipsets. X670 is the premium option and B650 is more mainstream.
Both X670 and B650 come in E- and non-E forms, with E boards supporting PCIe Gen 5 for storage and graphics, while non-E boards support PCIe Gen 5 via an M.2 SSD only.
There is no functional performance difference between the chipsets with regards to CPU or memory performance, as was the case with AM4. But the key difference comes in terms of the quantity of features provided.
Technically, X670 is actually a dual-chip chipset to allow it to offer more features and connectivity than single-chip B650. B650 halves the number of USB 2.0 and 10Gbps ports supported by default. There’s also just the single 20Gbps USB link compared to X670’s potential for two.
General purpose PCIe 4.0 lanes are cut from 12 to 8. You’ll notice this is the only connectivity that isn’t halved, and I’d wager this is because a PCIe Gen 4 x4 link is reserved for chiplet-to-chiplet connectivity on the X670 chipset. And the allowance for an added slice of motherboard-configurable PCIe 3.0 or SATA 6Gbps IO is sliced in half.
In essence, you don’t really lose all that much useful IO for B650 as a mainstream, non-workstation, non-storage-crazy user. The key downside is that you’re likely to miss out on front panel 20Gbps USB Type-C if motherboard vendors choose to stick the one port on the rear IO instead, or vice versa.
Let’s start off by looking at the two ASUS motherboards that occupy a very similar price point of around £350-380 in the UK market.
ASUS’ TUF Gaming X670E-Plus WiFi and Prime X670E-Pro WiFi primarily differ by their appearance. ASUS’ Prime board goes for the usual silver/white and black colour scheme alongside a touch of RGB lighting on the rear IO cover, while the TUF Gaming alternative is dark greys and blacks.
The heatsinks focus on the logical areas very well. You get chunky pieces of metal atop the main M.2 SSD slots and the VRM components. ASUS’ Prime board focuses a little more on aesthetics of the MOSFET heatsink than the TUF Gaming option with its somewhat finned cut-outs.
Both motherboards use 8-layer PCBs and operate dual 8-pin CPU power connectors. The 14+2 stage VRM solutions are built around 70A-rated Monolithic Power Systems MPS power stages and 5K-rated capacitors.
The primary PCIe 5.0 x16 slot is steel reinforced for both motherboards. One key difference, however, is that the Prime gets ASUS’ awesome Q-release button so that you can easily remove a fat graphics card from a fully built system. Additional PCIe connectivity comes from two PCIe 4.0 x4 electrical slots, one of which is full-sized for the physical connector.
Four M.2 slots are provided by both motherboards, though the TUF board does forego one of the M.2 covers that its Prime cousin offers up. Slots 1 and 3 run from CPU lanes at PCIe 5.0 x4 and PCIe 4.0 x4, respectively. Slot 4 can do PCIe 4.0 x4 from the X670 chipset. While Slot 2 supports PCIe 3.0 x4 or SATA from the chipset, but it steals its link from the SATA ports 1 and 2 when in PCIe x4 mode. ASUS’ tool-free Q-latch design is used for connecting an M.2 SSD.
Onboard connectivity is one of the few areas where both of these motherboards differ slightly. The differences are very subtle though.
The TUF gets three ARGB and one RGB headers versus the Prime’s two ARGB and one RGB. Also, the Prime gets onboard Power and Clear CMOS buttons. You get many of the main, modern connectivity that you would want: an internal 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header, old style USB 3.0 header, four SATA 6Gbps, triple USB 2.0 headers which is very good, and eight total 4-pin fan headers.
Both motherboards get ten total USB ports on the rear IO. These are one 20Gbps, four 10Gbps, and five 5Gbps. The TUF deploys all of its 5Gbps ports as Type-A whereas the Prime swaps one of them for Type-C.
Networking is handled by WiFi 6E and Realtek 2.5Gb Ethernet. Displayport 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 cover the video outputs, while audio is handled by a Realtek S1220A codec.
So, that’s the hands-on overview of these two ASUS X670E motherboards. There’s not much difference between them. Though I would argue that the extra rear USB Type-C port, onboard clear CMOS and power buttons, ASUS Q-release button, and added M.2 heatsink on the Prime are more valuable than the additional ARGB header on the TUF Gaming.
Now we move onto an ROG STRIX motherboard that is priced and positioned a little higher in ASUS’ ladder than the two boards we just looked at. This is the potentially confusingly named ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi that typically sells around the £420-or-so level.
Appearance-wise, this motherboard uses the typical ROG STRIX design. Dark blacks and greys complement a bigger, better chunk of RGB lighting on the rear IO cover.
One key area of upgrade is with the VRM heatsink. Now, we get a physically larger and better designed serving of metal on the top and left-hand sides. And both heatsinks are connected via heatpipe to share thermal load between them.
Once again we see an 8-layer PCB with dual 8-pin CPU power connectors. This time, though, the ROG STRIX X670E-F motherboard improves the VRM configuration to a 16+2 stage teamed setup using 90A components. That is a very hefty VRM indeed! And it is managed by a Digi+ VRM controller.
For the PCIe slots, the ROG STRIX board is actually a little less accommodating than its lower-priced cousins. This is because ASUS has deployed PCIe lanes elsewhere for alternative connectivity.
We still get the steel-reinforced PCIe 5.0 x16 slot with ASUS’ Q-release connector. But now, the secondary connections are a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot and a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection in the x16-sized form factor. Realistically, this setup will be fine for most users of a motherboard such as this.
M.2 connectivity gets an upgrade versus the cheaper motherboards. Now, M.2 slots 1 and 2 both support PCIe 5.0 x4 SSDs with their connection coming directly from an AM5 CPU. The remaining pair of M.2 slots support up to PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth and run from the X670 chipset.
All of these slots are well-cooled by metal heatsinks, too. And the top slot in particular gets a hugely oversized metal cooling block with front and rear thermal pads.
Onboard connectivity is generally similar to the Prime X670E-Pro WiFi. But there are some upgrades… and well as some downgrades, interestingly!
The ROG STRIX board offers up four SATA ports, an internal 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header, a reinforced 5Gbps USB 3.0 header, and dual USB 2.0 headers. I’d actually like to see the triple USB 2.0 headers like on the cheaper boards. That is useful for AIO coolers and RGB hubs and the likes.
In terms of onboard RGB headers, three are ARGB and the fourth is 4-pin RGB. It is, however, highly disappointing to see no onboard power or reset buttons whatsoever on this motherboard. At this price point, I strongly feel that at least onboard power should be included. And then in terms of 4-pin fan headers, ASUS provides eight, which is great.
The densely-packed rear IO sports twelve total USB ports. These are one 20Gbps, nine 10Gbps, and two old-style USB 2.0. That’s an excellent selection, with the 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 running in Type-C form alongside two other 10Gbps Type-C ports.
Networking is handled by Intel components in the form of an AX210 WiFi 6E adapter and 2.5GbE NIC. Once again, we see Displayport 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 covering video output duties. While the upgraded Realtek ALC4080 codec handles audio.
Alongside the rear IO BIOS Flashback button, ASUS deploys a Clear CMOS button which is incredibly useful!
So, that’s the hands-on overview of ASUS’ ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi motherboard. This feels like a sensible option for enthusiasts who want a premium motherboard before spending truly eye-watering amounts of money – not that this board’s typically-£400+ price point is easy to stomach, by any stretch of the imagination!
I like the strong focus on proper heatsinks, the PCIe and M.2 lane distribution looks to be excellent, and USB connectivity is ample. I would have liked to see onboard power and reset buttons, but I guess that’s a minor point for most people.
Next up is ASUS’ ROG Crosshair X670E Hero. This motherboard retails for over £640 currently, so let’s take a look at the premium features that ASUS uses to differentiate this option versus the cheaper alternatives.
Appearance wise, everything looks a little more premium. The RGB lighting is more noticeable and the integration between each individual heatsink is simply cleaner from an aesthetic perspective.
The VRM heatsinks are absolutely massive and are connected via heatpipe. This design makes sense given that users of a motherboard at this price point may well be pushing hefty overclocks.
ASUS deploys an 18+2 teamed power delivery solution using 110A stages. That is a truly incredible level of maximum theoretical power output and should ensure tolerable operating temperatures. There are also 10K-rated black metallic capacitors, and the Digi+ ASP2205 PWM controller is mounted on the board’s rear side.
PCIe connectivity is improved to a pair of full-length, steel-reinforced slots. These run at x16/x0 or x8/x8 using CPU-fed Gen 5 lanes. Only the top slot gets the Q-release latch though. There is a bottom PCIe 4.0 x1 slot, too.
Why so much high-bandwidth PCIe connectivity given that multi-GPU is basically dead for consumer platforms? Well, that’s for high-resolution capture cards, workstation usage, or additional SSD connectivity, I guess.
ASUS includes an ROG PCIe expansion card that can be used to house and cool a single Gen 5.0 M.2 drive. That is in addition to the four onboard M.2 slots, two of which are Gen 5 x4, with the other two being Gen 4 x4. Just look at that primary M.2 slot heatsink too – it is huge!
Onboard connectivity is very strong and gets some clear price-sensible upgrades. The 20Gbps Type-C header can provide 60W USB Power Delivery when the 6-pin PCIe connector is installed.
There are now dual 5Gbps USB headers, one of which is reinforced. Triple USB 2 headers is useful, just like the six SATA ports. There’s still the same eight 4-pin fan headers. But now we get onboard power, retry, and Flex Key buttons alongside a two-digit debug LED display, which is superb!
The Hero’s rear IO is impressive. Dual 40Gbps USB 4 via an Intel JHL8540 controller are the stars of the show. There’s another 20Gbps USB Type-C, and there’s ample 10Gbps USB connectivity too. As well as HDMI 2.1 and dual USB-C display outputs.
Networking is WiFi 6E and an Intel 2.5Gb NIC, and the SupremeFX audio solution is built around Realtek’s ALC4082 codec.
Proper, LED-lit clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons are great to see!
Clearly, this is a high-end, expensive motherboard that has some high-end, expensive features to go with it.
To productivity users, dual USB4 ports are impressive, as is the 60W-capable front panel USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×2. And for core hardware enthusiasts, an 18+2 stage power delivery solution using 110A hardware is highly appealing.
There’s even a graphics card holder if you’re worried that your new slab of Nvidia or AMD FPS horsepower is going to sag under the extreme weight of modern card coolers. Yep, that’s a pretty common thing now.
Now, we will take a look at the Mini-ITX ROG STRIX X670E-I Gaming WiFi. This will be one for all you small form factor enthusiasts out there. Around the £460-or-so price point is where this board currently sells in the UK.
It’s easy to see even at quick glance just how much connectivity ASUS has squeezed into this diminutive motherboard.
Firstly though, we can look at the power delivery solution. ASUS has deployed a 10+2 stage setup using 110A hardware per stage. While you do get a decent sized heatsink and backplate to cool the MOSFETs, there is a VRM fan that is probably a smart addition for a motherboard intended for SFF usage. PWM control is handled by the Digi+ ASP2205 controller.
Obviously, there’s just the single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot that is intended for graphics card usage, but further connectivity comes via the stacked M.2 connections.
ASUS actually provides installation capacity for two M.2 SSDs, one of which will run at PCIe 5.0 x4 from the CPU’s lanes. A small fan shifts air from the rear IO area to help cool these two stacked SSDs.
And for other connectivity, there’s an add-on card that connects via two pseudo USB Type-C connectors to offer two SATA ports, dual USB 2.0 headers, and front panel connections.
The internal USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header runs at 10Gbps and there’s also a 5Gbps USB 3.0 header. Three 4-pin fan headers along the board’s top edge seems like a reasonable number for a Mini-ITX system, as does the pair of RGB headers, one of which is Addressable.
Once again, dual 40Gbps USB4 ports from the Intel JHL8540 controller are star of the rear IO show. These are absolutely ideal for a Mini-ITX system, too, whereby high-speed external connectivity to an eGPU or fast storage could be crucial.
Another eight USB Type-A ports are featured, five of which run at 10Gbps, with the others being USB 2.0. Video comes in the form of HDMI as well as Displayport via the two USB4 connectors. Intel’s I225-V NIC is used for 2.5GbE and there’s also WiFi 6E connectivity.
Rear IO Clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons are two glaring, questionable omissions… on the face of it. As you will note, there is no audio connectivity on the rear IO, either. This is because ASUS hands over those duties to the ROG STRIX HIVE unit.
On that note, though, we should introduce the ASUS ROG STRIX HIVE.
This is a small, external box that can be connected to the system via USB. It provides BIOS Flashback via a USB 2.0 port, as well as an additional 10Gbps Type-C connector.
Also, audio connectivity is handled via this box’s Realtek ALC4050 Codec and ESS Sabre 9260Q DAC. A 3.5mm headphone/mic jack and a barrel-style optical SPDIF output provide physical connectivity.
In theory, I think the ROG STRIX HIVE is a good idea – you get more connectivity where you can probably better access it with a SFF system. With that said, the connection USB cable is way too short for my liking and I also question the logic of a dedicated PBO button beneath the volume dial. That seems like a bit of a waste of a button for most use cases, most of the time.
ASUS’s ROG STRIX X670E-I Gaming WiFi has some cool features for SFF gaming enthusiasts. It also looks to serve up competent hardware via a strong power delivery solution and well-cooled M.2 SSD mounts.
The ROG STRIX HIVE is a unique solution to a real problem. That is, squeezing all the connectivity onto a Mini-ITX board whilst still making it accessible.
We will be outlining the ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi motherboard’s performance with the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU, 32GB of 6000MHz CL30 DDR5 memory, and a Sapphire Radeon RX 6950XT Nitro+ Pure graphics card.
AM5 Motherboard Test System:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
- Memory: 32GB (2x16GB) G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo 6000MHz 30-38-38-96 DDR5
- Dedicated Graphics Card: Sapphire Nitro+ Pure Radeon RX 6950 XT
- CPU Cooler: 360mm AIO liquid cooler
- Power Supply: Seasonic Prime TX-1600
- Operating System: Windows 11 Pro
BIOS Version:
- v0805 (latest at the time of testing)
Comparison Motherboards:
Tests:
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- Cinebench R23 – All-core & single-core CPU benchmark (CPU)
- Blender 3.3.0 – All-core rendering of the Classroom benchmark (CPU)
- 7-Zip v22 – Built-in 7-Zip benchmark test (CPU & Memory)
- SiSoft Sandra – Memory bandwidth (Memory)
- AIDA64 – Memory bandwidth & memory latency (Memory)
- 3DMark – Time Spy and CPU Profile Benchmarks (Synthetic Gaming)
- Borderlands 3 – 1920 x 1080, Badass quality preset, DX11
- F1 2021 – 1920 x 1080, Ultra High quality preset with TAA and 16x AF, DX12
- Watch Dogs Legion – 1920 x 1080, Ultra quality preset, DX12 version
Taking a quick look at the UEFI on the ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi specifically, this is the same ASUS UEFI design that we have come to really appreciate.
The layout is clean and very user friendly, navigation is straightforward, and it is generally very easy to find the settings that one is logically looking for.
To be honest, it’s hard to put forward any major complaints on ASUS’ interface. If you want to mess with manual overclocking, you can. If you want to tweak ASUS’ semi-custom overclocking modes such as AI Tweaker Core Flex, you can do that too.
I would prefer if the CPU-based fan header could do proper 0 RPM mode via the written interface. But this is a relatively minor point for an otherwise superb UEFI implementation.
Stock Clocks
Out-of-the-box clocks are around 5.1GHz, which is similar to other AM5 motherboards that we have tested with our Ryzen 9 7950X sample. As is also typical, the Ryzen 9 7950X didn’t quite use its full 230W package power allocation as the 95C temperature limit was hit first.
Clocks and Tweaking
ASUS has a cool feature built into the UEFI that allows users to set a CPU temperature target level whilst also running AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive algorithm. In essence, this should allow voltage and frequency to be optimised, whilst also allowing the CPU to run cooler than the default 95C limit set by AMD.
Called PBO Enhancement, we ran this mode using the 90C temperature target setting to see how well it performed. You can read more details about the feature on ASUS' webpage HERE.
Clock speed was increased by around 25-50MHz on the Ryzen 9 7950X under all-core loading, yet the temperature levels of the chip dropped to 90C, which can have some CPU cooler fan curve benefits.
High clock speeds, but cooler running temperatures are positive; ASUS’ PBO Enhancement mode seems like a good idea, so we will put it to test to see how it does in benchmarks.
Cinebench R23
Blender Benchmark
7-Zip Benchmark
Computational performance from the ASUS X670E board is good in a variety of tests.
ASUS’ claims that the 90C Temperature Target PBO Enhancement mode can actually result in increased performance levels look accurate. We observed slight upticks in CPU-heavy scores thanks to a more optimised CPU voltage when running the 90C temperature target.
AIDA64 Engineer
Sandra Memory Bandwidth
Focussing on memory, ASUS’ bandwidth numbers look to be slightly higher than the MSI and Gigabyte AM5 competitors. The latency score, however, is very similar to the other boards.
3DMark
If you care about 3DMark’s tests, the ASUS X670E board delivers what you want to see performance-wise in the CPU Profile test. Though it is a little behind the pack for the Time Spy numbers.
Once again, the 90C Temperature Target PBO Enhancement mode improves performance slightly.
Gaming
In terms of actual gaming, the ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi does just as well as we would expect from any other AM5 motherboard.
In fact, we saw a slight performance victory in Watch Dogs Legion, though this could well be attributed to game and Windows updates beyond our control.
M.2 PCIe Performance
We test M.2 PCIe performance using a WD_Black SN850 PCIe Gen 4 SSD.
No problems with the speed rating of ASUS’ M.2 SSD slot; the cooling heatsink kept our drive below 60C for nine back-to-back write operations too. So that’s a positive outcome.
System Power Consumption
Power draw from the ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi is a little lower than the Gigabyte and MSI comparisons that we use. That’s for test system wall power consumption, I should add, as package power readings tended to be a little high on ASUS.
The 90C Temperature Target PBO Enhancement mode is impressive.
Running the chip with cooler, optimised voltages allowed the package power to be reduced by a little over 10W whilst also resulting in 25-50MHz greater clock speeds. That’s a clear positive for ASUS’ easy-to-use Enhancement mode.
System Temperatures
VRM cooling on the ASUS X670E-F Gaming WiFi is solid. Big, chunky heatsinks and a massively oversized VRM make this an unsurprising result.
I can confidently say that I would have zero worries running even the overclocked Ryzen 9 7950X flagship CPU on any of these X670E ATX motherboards thanks to their hefty electrical VRM setups and solid metal heatsinks.
Hopefully this article has been an interesting overview of a handful of ASUS’ X670E motherboard options spanning quite a diverse price range.
The ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi motherboard that we tested performed well. The VRM solution looks to be very strong, and operating temperatures were pleasing.
Performance out of the box was good, too. And this is thanks in large to ASUS’ UEFI that makes it easy for even novice users to apply EXPO and set a sensible fan curve.
I like ASUS’ PBO Enhanced Temperature Target Mode. Of course, you can use the temperature target mode on other AM5 motherboards by running through the AMD Common BIOS Settings or PBO UEFI options.
But it is undeniable that ASUS’ approach is very clean and easy to deal with. Plus, the fact that some actual CPU configuration tweaking beyond temperature targets has taken place is a positive. As this mode often delivers increased performance even whilst running our test 7950X at a relatively low – 90C – operating point.
There’s plenty of competition in the current AM5 market, and all of the boards seem to cost a hefty penny. But I did enjoy working with the roughly £420 ROG STRIX X670E-F Gaming WiFi. This is a well-designed motherboard that delivers stellar performance.
The other option that caught my eye was the ASUS PRIME X670E-Pro WiFi.
Priced somewhere in the range of £360 at some e-tailers currently. This looks to be a sensible entry point onto the X670E chipset from a motherboard with competent core hardware and some nice value-added features. So, I think that this is one product to keep an eye on.
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KitGuru says: Interested in a new X670 board – would you consider any of these options from ASUS?
