Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi overview

In the event you’re after a Mini-ITX motherboard, you may normally need to put up with some nearly inevitable compromises. There’s simply no strategy to pack a complete characteristic set onto a 17cm x 17cm motherboard in the identical approach you can on an equally priced ATX board. Or is there?   

The Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi goals to provide customers greater than they’d anticipate from a Mini-ITX motherboard. Somewhat than attempting to cram every little thing onto a two dimensional PCB, Asus has gone into the third dimension. It is shifted a number of options onto riser playing cards, and there is an extra USB linked audio gadget that additionally features as one thing of an exterior dock. The Strix X670E-I WiFi is a formidable engineering showcase that goes an extended strategy to eliminating the compromises inherent to Mini-ITX motherboards, although the flexibility to put in many M.2 drives is a nonetheless a step too far.

At $399 / £409 / AU$639, it is an costly piece of equipment to make sure, nevertheless it’s nonetheless aggressive in opposition to higher mid-range ATX choices and properly beneath the worth of flagship boards. It is a board for people who need the final word AMD Mini-ITX system. And, it is already bought a BIOS with help for next-gen Ryzen 9000-series processors.

The clunkily named Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi includes a 10+2+1 section VRM with 110a per stage. It is simply in a position to deal with the calls for of a Ryzen 9 7950X processor, and absolutely the high-end SKUs to launch sooner or later. The heatsink is not what you’d name gigantic, however there’s a small embedded fan there in case issues get a bit toasty. It helps as much as DDR5-8000 reminiscence, however who is aware of what it could be able to when next-gen processors make their debut.

The board options each a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and first M.2 slot. There is a second slot that helps a Gen 4 drive. These are stacked collectively. This part of the board is mightily spectacular. It incorporates a removable daughter board for the second slot, and there are layers of heatsinks devoted to cooling the chipset on the backside of the stack, and the 2 drives that sit atop it. There’s one other small fan that cools the entire meeting, however this may be set to solely spin up when all of it will get a bit scorching below the collar. Notice {that a} Gen5 SSD will inevitably find yourself reaching larger temperatures than you’d see in comparison with an remoted drive on an ATX board. First rate case airflow continues to be a should, which will be robust to attain in a small type issue construct.

The 2 M.2 drives are joined by two SATA ports. That is about the one weak point of the board. File hoarders is not going to be glad with help for simply 4 drives, although with USB4 on board, you can at all times add speedy exterior drives.

The 2 SATA ports are contained on a daughter board that Asus calls the FPS-II card. It connects to the board by way of a pair of USB Kind-C connectors and it incorporates the aforementioned SATA ports, the case headers, USB 2.0 headers, an overclocking mode change and clear CMOS button. It is a comparatively easy however intelligent strategy to claw again a few of that restricted Mini-ITX PCB house.

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Much more spectacular is an exterior USB linked gadget known as the ROG Hive. It is an exterior sound card that is primarily based round a Realtek ALC4050 codec, but additionally contains an ESS Sabre 9260Q DAC.  This can be a key instance of pondering actually exterior the field, as such elements and their related circuitry wouldn’t be doable to jam into the restricted house on a Mini-ITX PCB.

The Hive provides much more although. It includes a Precision Enhance Overdrive button, programmable flex button, and one other 10Gbps Kind-C port plus one other Kind-A port that enables BIOS flashbacks. It is a formidable and notably well-built little gadget.

The rear I/O places almost each different Mini-ITX board to disgrace. The spotlight is a pair of USB4 ports, each of which might drive Kind-C screens. These are joined by 5 Kind-A 10Gbps ports and three USB 2.0 ports. Ten ports on the rear of a Mini-ITX board is a uncommon factor, and with the varied headers, plus the ports on the ROG Hive, it truly is loaded on the USB entrance.

There is a HDMI port, and also you get Intel WiFi 6E and a couple of.5G LAN. It might be good to get 5G LAN and/or WiFi 7, however that is an X670 board. WiFi 7 wasn’t obtainable when it launched and 5G LAN was thought-about a flagship tier characteristic. You will have to attend for X870 boards if you need quicker networking.

System Efficiency

Gaming Efficiency

Gone are the early days of niggles and flaky DDR5 reminiscence help on the AM5 platform. The ROG Strix X670E WiFi has acquired properly over a dozen BIOS updates and through my testing displayed not one of the points that I encountered through the first wave of X670 launches. X670 and Socket AM5 will be thought-about a typically mature platform.

The board’s efficiency was constant, and it was pleased with my Samsung primarily based G.Talent DDR5-6000 take a look at equipment, which was not at all times the case on another boards I examined with pre-Ryzen 7000-series launch BIOS.

I got here away significantly impressed by the Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi. It in some way manages to cram a high-end characteristic set right into a Mini-ITX type issue with few compromises. I like the inclusion of twin USB 4 ports particularly, and the flexibility to run a PCIe 5.0 SSD and a next-gen PCIe 5.0 GPU is welcome too.

The ROG Hive can also be a spotlight. It is a fantastic concept to shift space-hogging audio circuitry away from the PCB and into an exterior gadget. However slightly than simply designate it as an exterior sound card, Asus went properly past this and included some helpful options with much more USB ports, and even an AMD PBO button.

And talking of USB ports, Asus offers you one other eight ports on prime of the USB4 ports on the rear panel. The Hive provides extra, and with the case USB headers, The X670E-I provides a extremely complete set of USB ports for all method of gadgets and peripherals.

The one obtrusive weak point of the board is its storage complement. Asus might have included a 3rd M.2 slot on the rear of the board, or made the FPS-II card a little bit greater with an additional two SATA ports. The latter might need been an excessive amount of of an ask from its USB-C connection although. 

At $399 / £409 / AU$639, the Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi is an costly proposition, however not overly so given what it manages to cram into its diminutive measurement. There are many ATX boards round that worth. Given its distinctive traits, and the inclusion of the ROG Hive and the daughter boards, there would have been a whole lot of R&D effort concerned, so it is comprehensible for Asus to cost a premium primarily based on that alone.

With AMD stating it intends to help AM5 for years to come back, it is a good funding too. After BIOS updates, you can pop in a excessive core rely Ryzen 9 9950X, future X3D fashions, and absolutely Zen 6 CPUs as properly. 

The Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi stands out as a premium Mini-ITX motherboard for customers seeking to construct a high-end AMD system. We’ve no downside recommending this little ROG board. It is in a category of its personal.