ASUS ROG Strix X870-A Gaming WIFI Motherboard Review

The STRIX series of motherboards from ASUS is typically all enthusiast gaming hardware, but it’s still quite a broad series offering a range of performance and prices. The new ROG Strix X870-A is on the lower end, or at least going to be considerably more affordable than the flagship Strix motherboards. However, without trying to confuse you, this is the lower end of a high-end motherboard. That being said, it’s not exactly lacking in features, offering support for the full range of AMD Ryzen 7000, 8000 and 9000 series processors, a powerful 16+2 90A twin power stage VRM, massive heatsinks, and a plethora of armour that should ensure it looks and performs every bit the enthusiast gaming motherboard you would hope.

ROG Strix X870-A Gaming WIFI

It ticks all the essentials for a 2024 gaming PC too, with the latest PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, which comes heavily reinforced thanks to their SafeSlot technology, and there’s an additional PCIe 4.0 x16 (x4) slot too, perfect for a capture card, sound card or something similar. You also get a pair of PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slots, and another two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, giving you plenty of room for ultra-fast storage solutions. Actually, looking at the number of USB ports, Type-C, fast networking and WiFi 7, it’s hard to imagine that you’ll need much more from your motherboard these days!

Key Features

• AI Overclocking, AI Cooling, and AI Networking
• Supports AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors
• DDR5 memory support
• PCIe 5.0
• WiFi 7
• 2.5 Gb Ethernet
• SupremeFX audio

For more information, please visit the official product page here.

Memory Support

Memory support is impressive, offering up incredible speeds for these new CPUs, however, which generation of CPU you use will have some impact on the memory capabilities as you might expect, but typically they’re all over 8000 MHz.

What ASUS Had to Say

Elevate your build with the ROG Strix X870-A Gaming WiFi. Featuring a sleek white PCB and support for AMD Ryzen™ 9000 Series processors, this motherboard delivers the power and connectivity needed for advanced AI applications. With DDR5 support, full PCIe 5.0 capabilities, dual USB4^® ports, and WiFi 7, it’s the ultimate blend of style and performance.

AMD 800 Series Chipset

While this review cycle we’ll be focusing on the X870E series of motherboards, of course, there’s going to be more to this series, with the X870E being the flagship models, the X870 below that, and then the B850 and the B840 being the more affordable models below those, but with some obvious compromises on the features, giving us a range of options for normal PC users, gamers, overclockers and enthusiasts.

Ryzen 9 9950X

For these reviews, we’ll be using the latest AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPU, and while we haven’t actually reviewed this CPU on its own, of course, we’ll be exploring the Ryzen 9 9950X performance through these motherboard reviews. We did a feature testing Windows 32H2 Vs 24H2 on YouTube recently, which you can check out here.

• 16 cores and 32 threads
• Up to 5.7 GHz max boost clock
• 64 MB of L3 cache
• Supports DDR5 memory up to 2x1R DDR5-5600 or 4x1R DDR5-3600
• Requires AM5 socket motherboard
• Includes Precision Boost Overdrive and Curve Optimizer Voltage Offsets technology
• Unlocked for overclocking
• Supports PCIe 5.0