ASUS ROG Strix X870-A Gaming WIFI Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

While this isn’t the most extreme motherboard in the ASUS range, you would be hard-pushed to say it wasn’t. It has a very stylish design, but while the armour and heatsinks have obvious aesthetic qualities, they’re all built for a purpose too.

The large VRM configuration is going to help you push CPU performance, with a 16+2+2 Power Stage rated for up to 90A per stage. This is then cooled by the two huge heatsinks on the top and left side of the CPU. As well as 5K Black metallic capacitors throughout the board’s design.

Below that, there’s a thick heatsink for the primary M.2 Gen5 slot, as those flagship drives can get pretty toasty, so this should be more than enough to ensure the best performance.

however, the entire lower section of the motherboard is also armoured with huge heatsinks, ensuring that all additional M.2 mounts also get the best cooling performance.

• 1 x M.2 22110 (PCIe 5.0 x4)
• 1 x M.2 2280 (PCIe 5.0 x4)
• 2 x M.2 2280 (PCIe 4.0 x4)

The top PCIe slot is reinforced, so that’ll easily deal with chunky graphics cards. The bottom one is reinforced, but not armoured, but it is finished in white to match the motherboard’s design.

There’s also powerful onboard audio with the ROG SupremeFX 7.1 Surround Sound High Definition Audio CODEC ALC4080.

• Impedance sense for front and rear headphone outputs
• Supports: Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel MIC Jack-retasking
• High-quality 120 dB SNR stereo playback output and 110 dB SNR recording input
• Supports up to 32-Bit/384 kHz playback on front panel

Audio Features

• SupremeFX Shielding Technology
• Savitech SV3H712 AMP  
• Rear optical S/PDIF outport
• Premium audio capacitors

Plus, there’s a comprehensive rear I/O, offering up USB4 Type-C, WiFi 7, 2.5 Gbps LAN, and much more.

Rear USB (Total 12 ports)

• 2 x USB4 (40Gbps) ports(2 x USB Type-C with DP Alt mode)
• 6 x USB 10Gbps ports (5 x Type-A + 1 x USB Type-C with up to 30W PD Fast-charge)
• 4 x USB 5Gbps ports (4 x Type-A)

Front USB (Total 9 ports)

• 1 x USB 20Gbps connector (supports USB Type-C)
• 2 x USB 5Gbps headers support 4 additional USB 5Gbps ports
• 2 x USB 2.0 headers support 4 additional USB 2.0 ports
• USB Type-C power delivery output: max. 5V/3A
• USB Type-C power delivery output: 5V/9V max. 3A, 12V max 2.5A, 15V max. 2.0A