ASUS ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi II Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

Without a doubt, this is a great-looking motherboard, with a largely black and grey design it’s going to be pretty stealthy once integrated into your build. That is until you turn it on and the chipset heatsink and I/O cover light up with a plethora of RGB technologies, but you could always turn those off if you wanted to.

The motherboard is littered with premium-quality black capacitors, and there are some hefty-looking heatsinks surrounding the processor too, ensuring that the large VRM configuration can perform its best.

There are multiple heatsinks making up the bottom of the motherboard too, with the largest on the Gen 5 M.2 mount at the top, it’s the one that says “Game/On” on it, which is a bit cheesy, but hey, it’s kinda cool too. Below that there’s a panel that says “Start, Option and Quit” which is an extension of the chipset heatsink, the the four others all cover their own PCIe 4 M.2 mounts.

The motherboard features ASUS’s ProCool II connectors for the CPU, which are reinforced with more durable pins and outer shielding.

There are four DIMM slots supporting the latest DDR5 technologies, and at the side of that, a BIOS debug LED and on-board power controls.

There are four SATA ports here, fewer than previous generations, but with five M.2 mounts, you’re not short on storage options here. There’s also a Q-release button here, which releases the graphics card without having to jam your fingers behind it.

The audio hardware looks great, albeit, this is pretty common to see on all decent motherboards these days, but ASUS has used a better chipset and amp than most, which is always great to see… uhm, hear!?

The rear I/O is crammed with goodies, offering up USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and both Type-A and Type-C options. If you have a lot of peripherals, storage devices and hubs to connect, this is going to be a great motherboard for you. While some models offer WiFi 7 and faster LAN ports, I suspect that WiFi 6E and 2.5 GbE LAN will be more than enough for most people with Gigabit networking and internet in their home or office.

Stripping the motherboard back way quite a job, as there are a lot of heatsinks on there!

The VRM configuration uses an 18+1 power solution rated for 90A per stage with premium chokes and capacitors, getting the best out of the latest high-end CPUs should be pretty effortless for this board.

Plus, the heatsink is fantastic, with four points of contact all with premium thermal pads ensuring even coverage, and a heatpipe turns the two heatsinks into one single and more powerful unit.