Asrock X670E PRO RS, AMD X670, AM5, ATX, 4 DDR5, HDMI, DP, Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5G LAN, PCIe5, RGB, 5x M.2

Product Information

Moving to the bottom half of the board, we’ll start on the left side that houses the audio section. Hidden under a shroud is a premium Realtek ALC4082 codec along with an ESS SABRE9218 DAC designated for front panel duty. Poking out from under the shrouds and heatsink are a few red WIMA audio caps, while several other dedicated audio caps are hidden. The ALC4082 codec is one of the best integrated options available. It's an extreme motherboard as well, the 16 teamed 110A powerstage vcore VRM is no joke, there's two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, USB4 support, loads of USB ports, onboard buttons, debug LED codes, 2.5 Gbit LAN and WiFi 6, it's an impressive but also ultra expensive mATX motherboard.

Focusing on the top of the board, we get a good look at the oversize VRM heatsinks, reinforced DRAM slots, and more. Starting in the upper-left corner, we spy a vented shroud that reaches over the VRM heatsink to allow cool air to pass through the fan hidden below and onto the heatpipe-connected heatsinks. The fan is barely audible at load and blends in with other fan noise coming from the case, so no worries there. Above the VRM heatsinks are two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) to power the CPU. Compares to conventional DIP style PCIe slot, the SMT type PCIe slot improves signal flow and maximize stability under high speed, a key breakthrough to fully support the lighting speed of the latest PCIe 5.0 standard. The latest PCI Express 5.0 is capable to perform a breathtaking bandwidth of 128GBps, ready to unleash the full potential of future high end graphic cards. Across the bottom of the board are several exposed headers. You’ll find the usual, including additional USB ports, RGB headers, and more. Below is a complete list from left to right. You also get USB4 support, 10 USB ports on the I/O panel, high quality external audio, two M.2 ports, 2.5 Gbit LAN and WiFi 6E, so it's a super well equipped ITX motherboard, but of course it's not exactly cheap. For the stress test, we're using Cinebench R23 looped for an hour, at which point we're reporting the maximum PCB temperature recorded using the k-type thermocouples.Usually we'd go over each motherboard, talk about the key features, the heatsinks, and the VRM components, but we've got 22 boards, so spending a few minutes on each one isn't all that interesting for this roundup. Instead we'll jump straight into VRM thermal testing, then brush over a spec comparison table, before making some actual board recommendations, so let's get into it. Test System and Notes The extra large aluminum alloy M.2 heatsink effectively improves heat dissipation to keep those high speed M.2 SSDs as cool as possible, it is able to give better stability while maintaining top performance. Whether you are using headphones, a headset, external or internal speakers, via USB, Wi-Fi, analog output or even HDMI, Nahimic Audio offers you the most engaging listening experience, vibrant and rich with details. The best high-end X670E motherboard is simply the MSI MEG X670E ACE. The stupid expensive Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme and MSI MEG X670E Godlike are excellent motherboards, but we can't justify the asking prices, especially in the case of the Godlike. The onboard sound is not good. I get bad distortions in sound as if something is interfering with the sound circuits or controller.

What it does do is deliver the core X670E feature set with no fuss. You get PCIe 5.0 graphics card and SSD support, Wi-Fi 6E, a capable VRM and presumably you'll be able to drop a future Ryzen 8000 or 9000 CPU in with just a BIOS update. The ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming is an impressive ITX board, using ten 110A power stages for the vcore it ran very cool and although it features active cooling it was always silent in our testing. Admittedly, we tested it under the same conditions as all the other boards, so in a cramped ITX case it will likely run a bit hotter, but we're confident it's up to the task. A few things to note. Any temperature below 80c is to be considered very cool, VRM temps only start to become a concern when they exceed 90c, and even then there's still 10-20c worth of headroom before most boards will thermal throttle. Below 80c is very safe and will never present an issue, so all X670 boards are well within safe limits. The USB complement is good, with a total of ten rear ports. There are two 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one of which is Type-C) plus four 3.2 Gen 1 and four 2.0 ports. Internal headers can provide another eight ports plus the all-important USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 type-C.i do agree though that covering the m.2 slot with a gpu, does take away using the heatsinks and such that can be needed or are just pretty to look at. i'm not sure where you could move it though to keep it close to the cpu, yet not under the gpu. lowering the pcie slot to put it above the gpu, though not very far, would add to the latency of the gpu and people would lose their freaking minds if some reviewer showed .2 fps less or some other trivial number due to moving it the couple inches. Wi-Fi 6E (6GHz band) will be supported by Microsoft Windows 11. The availability will depend on the different regulation status of each country and region. It will be activated (for supported countries) through Windows Update and software updates once available.