ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi Motherboard Review

When it comes to high-end motherboards, ASUS are top of their game, having delivered incredible performance, build quality and designs year after year for as long as I can remember now. Their STRIX series has long been a smash hit with high-end PC gamers wanting excellent performance, and while the motherboards can often be a little more expensive than some rival products, the amount of extra features and the build quality has often justified the extra investment. Of course, with the release of the ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi, all of that seems to hold true yet again, as STRIX hits the AM5 platform. ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi The motherboard is very much on the high end of the scale, offering up support for the latest AMD AM5 socket 7000 series CPUs, with a powerful 18+2 Teamed Power Stages VRM configuration, as well as massive heatsinks that surround the CPU, but also cover all major hardware on the motherboard for added durability and performance stability, especially for those who love to push their hardware to the extreme and overclock. Of course, that's backed up by some very robust connectivity too, including 2 x x16 PCIe 5.0 slots, and even PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots! However, that's hardly surprising given that this motherboard is a long way away from being considered affordable. Features AMD Socket AM5 for AMD Ryzen 7000 Series Desktop ProcessorsRobust Power Solution: 18 + 2 teamed power stages with 8+8 pin ProCool II power connectors, high-quality alloy chokes and durable capacitors to support multi-core processorsOptimized Thermal Design: Massive VRM heatsinks plus integrated aluminium I/O cover, high-conductivity thermal pad, L-shaped heatpipe, M.2 Combo-sink and M.2 backplate for the PCIe 5.0 M.2_1 slot, three onboard M.2 heatsinks, plus a massive M.2 heatsink as an accessoryOverclocking technologies: Dynamic OC Switcher, Core Flex, Asynchronous Clock and PBO EnhancementHigh-Performance Networking: Onboard WiFi 6E, Intel 2.5 Gb Ethernet and ASUS LANGuard What ASUS Had To Say "The ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi is perched at the top of the series, packing robust power delivery and exclusive ROG overclocking tools to max out the stats of AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series processors. PCIe 5.0 support extends to the furthest reaches of chipset capabilities, and an additional beefy heatsink is prepped to keep even the fastest M.2 drives chilled. With leading performance, the latest connectivity, and DIY-friendly features that span from hardware installation to system setup, this Strix beast grips AM5 and effortlessly soars to victory." A Closer Look It's said that first impressions are important, and well, the ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi makes an extremely strong and positive first impression, there's no doubt about that. This motherboard looks absolutely immense, with huge heatsinks around the CPU, and a lot more heatsinks and armour on the lower half too. This motherboard is NOT cheap, but it's clear a good chunk of that investment is going on a lot of precision-engineered aluminium components. Everything looks more robust than usual, such as the 8-pin CPU power connectors, of which there are two, and both are solid-pin design, with more robust soldering, and metal jackets. The CPU configuration is on the extreme end of the spectrum, 18+2 power stages are paired with high-quality alloy chokes and durable capacitors, and a Digi+ VRM to allow it to handle the shifting power and temperature requirements that come with more high-end processors and overclocking. This motherboard is DDR5, so you will need the latest memory kits, but with both AMD EXPO and ASUS Enhanced Memory Profile (AEMP), you can plug and play and still get the best high-performance settings from compatible memory kits, which is just fantastic! There's also a reinforced central pin, adding to the durability. The bottom half of this motherboard is very busy, with lots of amazing features crammed in. There's the M.2 Combo heatsink on the top M.2, which has a massive heatpipe jammed into it too. There's a significant heatsink in the middle just for the chipset alone, yet, the whole width of the motherboard!!! Then there's an M.2 heatsink on the bottom right of the large chipset heatsink, then a wide heatsink that spans two more M.2 mounts. With all that metal removed, you can see the chipset is split into two chipsets, one on the left and one on the right, which goes some way to explain the size of its heatsink. Why two chipsets? Well, it likely has something to do with the expanded connectivity, as this motherboard offers up not one but two PCIE x16 Gen 5.0 slots! It's also one of the first motherboards to offer up three PCIE 5.0 M.2 slots and one PCIE 4.0 M.2 slot. NVMe and SATA RAID configurations (0/1/10) are available through AMD RAID Xpert2. There's a separate trace on the motherboard for the audio chipset too, which you can see on the bottom right of the picture below (yellow line). It's the ROG SupremeFX design, which features the newer ALC4080 codec, and the front outputs benefit from the Savitech amplifier, so lovers of high-fidelity speakers and headphones will find a lot to love here. Mother of god, look at this back panel. USB 2.0? Not a single one is to be found. However, the internal headers allow for 3 x USB 2.0 headers (up to six ports). There are 12 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Ports, 10 of them are Type-A and 2 are Type-C. I have literally no bloody idea what the hell you could do with all those super fast ports, literally none. There are 3 x Type-C in total, the two 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) and then there's also a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Port for 20Gbps. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Motherboard Test Systems Test System (AM5) Motherboard Changes Per Review Review Buy Now Processor AMD Ryzen 9 7900X GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (AM4) Motherboard Changes Per Review Buy Now Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5950X GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (Z690) Motherboard Changes Per Review Review Buy Now Processor Intel Core i9 12900K GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (Z590) Motherboard Changes Per Review Review Buy Now Processor Intel Core i9 11900K GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Additional Hardware ElmorLabs PMD-USB Power Measurement Device With USB (link) Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Software Used 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy (download)AIDA64 (download)CapFrameX 1.6.9 (download)Cinebench R23 (download)CPU-Z (download)HWMonitor (download)PCMark 10 Express (download)Super PI 2.1 WP (download) Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it's not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. Cyberpunk 2077Horizon Zero DawnMarvel's Spider-Man RemasteredMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2020 Resolutions 1080p (Full HD) Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content on simply reading total system power draw at both idle, we now have the ability thanks to the ElmorLabs PMD-USB device that allows us to measure power draw directly through the EPS power connectors. We test at idle, during gaming load, of which we measure drawing a run of Cyberpunk 2077 and during Cinebench R23 at load too. We also use a GW-Instek GPM-8212 power meter to measure the complete system power at the wall to get an idea of how each motherboard compares to one another. VRM Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered during the same runs as when we measure power consumption, being during our Cyberpunk 2033 run, and during Cinebench R23 at load too. 3DMark Timespy Extreme Time Spy Extreme is a new 4K DirectX 12 benchmark test, available in 3DMark Advanced and Professional Editions. You don’t need a 4K monitor to run it, but you will need a GPU with at least 4 GB of dedicated memory. With its 4K Ultra HD rendering resolution, Time Spy Extreme is an ideal benchmark test for the latest high-end graphics cards. The CPU test has been redesigned to let processors with 8 or more cores perform to their full potential 3DMark is available on Steam here. Scoring 17714 in TimeSpy, the ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E Gaming is certainly no slouch, keeping up with the competition easily enough, and it's clear that those PCIE 5.0 GPU slots are causing any unwanted bottlenecks... obviously! PCMark 10 Express PCMark 10 features a comprehensive set of tests that cover the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. With a range of performance tests, custom run options, Battery Life Profile, and new Storage benchmarks, PCMark 10 is the complete PC benchmark for the modern office. Available now on Steam. A tiny bit lower here, with "just" 7129 points, but again, this is more a test that everything is running as it should, rather than a fight for first place, but as you can see, no problems here. Super PI 2.1 WP Super PI is a single-threaded benchmark that calculates pi to a specific number of digits. It uses the Gauss-Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of a program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 232 digits Available now on Super PI. This is where we get into the races, with a score of just 5.16 seconds, the ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E Gaming is one of the fastest out there, with a time that is neck and neck with the X670E Aorus Master. Cinebench R23 Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 23 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D’s ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user. Best of all: It’s free. Available now on Maxon. All that money is clearly not wasted, as the ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E Gaming scored 28804, and don't let second place fool you, as it's the same score as first place, which is this motherboards smaller brother, the ASUS ROG STRIX X670-I Gaming! AIDA64 AIDA64 is a system information, diagnostics, and auditing application developed by FinalWire Ltd that runs on Windows, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Tizen, Chrome OS and Sailfish OS operating systems. It displays detailed information on the components of a computer. Available now on AIDA64. Again, absolutely on point with its performance, and really consistent memory performance. I'm sure this motherboard can out pace most if not all of its rivals if we used some of their built-in memory tuning features, but we're keeping the settings to stock for a fair test here. And again, top marks, with the latency right on par with that of the X670E Aorus, no surprise both those boards are so closely matched, they're both pretty exceptional pieces of hardware and quite similar, clearly. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? Available now on Steam. Not particularly the fastest, but as you can see, all the motherboards on this chart are basically very high-end gaming and enthusiast products, so it's no shock to see them all perform largely the same. Horizon Zero Dawn Experience Aloy’s entire legendary quest to unravel the mysteries of a world ruled by deadly Machines. An outcast from her tribe, the young hunter fights to uncover her past, discover her destiny… and stop a catastrophic threat to the future. Unleash devastating, tactical attacks against unique Machines and rival tribes as you explore an open world teeming with wildlife and danger. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action role-playing game – and this Complete Edition for PC includes the huge expansion The Frozen Wilds, featuring new lands, skills, weapons and Machines. Available now on Steam. Again very good results, with a strong 1% lows of 184.9 and an average of 267.9 FPS. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered Developed by Insomniac Games in collaboration with Marvel, and optimized for PC by Nixxes Software, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC introduces an experienced Peter Parker who’s fighting big crime and iconic villains in Marvel’s New York. At the same time, he’s struggling to balance his chaotic personal life and career while the fate of Marvel’s New York rests upon his shoulders. Available now on Steam. The ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E Gaming continues to deliver reliable and repeatable results here too, with 164.2 FPS, not the fastest, but again, they're all mostly very closely matched. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 The Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition celebrates all the positive feedback, reviews and awards garnered, but it is also a “Thank You” to our fans – new and old – that have made Microsoft Flight Simulator such a phenomenon. Best of all, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year Edition will be available as a free update for existing players on PC. Available now on Steam. This one usually trips up a lot of motherboards due to the high memory and storage throughput, but as you can see, the ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E Gaming doesn't break a sweat and scores an impressive 101 FPS. Boot Time So as I mentioned, benchmarks are for the most part pretty useless, especially when all boards on the same platform, using the same CPU, GPU and memory, perform within a range of each other with the only benchmark that we did that actually shows something being the boot time as this really is board specific, especially with the way they work with DDR5 through the memory training they have to do. The ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E Gaming has a lot of hardware, which would usually result in a much higher boot time, as we see on the Crosshair and AORUS Xtreme, but honestly, 37.5 is seriously fast, and I really expected this one to be one of the slowest booting boards we've tested. The other key areas that are worth focussing on though comes down to VRM temperatures, which can differ wildly depending on the amount, the capacity of the current that can pass through them, and of course how the various heatsinks handle that power, which in turn, creates heat. VRM Temperatures While the VRM is not the coolest we've tested, 50c is seriously impressive. It certainly has some of the largest heatsinks we've seen on one of these motherboards. However, it also has more power stages and a larger VRM configuration in general, so there's a lot more hardware to cool, so it strikes an impressive balance here. Power Consumption Power consumption is measured at idle, during a Cinebench R23 run and during a gaming benchmark run of Cyberpunk 2077, which is a very CPU-intensive game. By getting 3 performance metrics, it allows us to see a better picture of the average user and what they are typically going to see in terms of power draw for just the processor itself. Wait, what!? How the heck is this absolute unit of a motherboard using the least power, but delivering some of the fastest performance? We see the same with the AORUS Extreme too, truly it shows that as expensive as these boards are, their pretty impressive bits of hardware in terms of power usage and performance. Operating Costs With the cost of living increases across the world, especially when it comes to the cost of electricity, it's worth looking at the cost of running a processor and how it compares to similar products on the market. By taking the average cost per kWh, we can calculate a rough running cost at idle, during a simulated workload test (Cinebench R23), to give us worst-case scenario costs, as well as gaming costs during a run of Cinebench R23. US Dollars (USD) British Pound (GBP) The actual operating costs are really reasonable at load, albeit, the increased hardware does lead to a higher idle operating cost, but it's not overly significant. How Much Does It Cost? Do you dive into your Scrooge McDuck vault and swim around in gold coins each morning? If yes, that may be to your advantage, as you need pretty deep pockets to get the ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi Motherboard. It's £569.99, so clearly, it's not going to appeal to the majority of gaming PC builders' budgets. However, as you can see in many of our benchmarks, you do not need this motherboard for gaming, as much more affordable models from ASUS and other brands get very closer for a fraction of the price. Overview If other motherboards get close to the performance for a fraction of the price, why on earth would you buy this motherboard? Well, FPS isn't everything, and it's how this motherboard can maintain the performance that really sets it apart. A much cheaper motherboard will hit the boost clocks on the fastest CPUs likely without issue while you render a short video or play a game. However, if you're doing huge amounts of rendering, compiling, extreme gaming and pushing that CPU harder for longer, that's where the cracks start to show. With its much expanded VRM configuration, huge heatsinks, and greatly improved power management components, all combine to maintain that high-end performance for significantly longer and with greatly improved system stability and longevity. The big elephant in the room is still the price though, even though you're paying for more complex and comprehensive performance technology that still only accounts for about half the price of this motherboard. Connectivity is king here, and it's packed full of features that firstly, do not come cheap, and secondly, you likely do not need. That's right, I'm telling you, yes you, that you probably do not want to buy this motherboard. Unless you see much need for a pair of PCIE 5.0 x16 lanes, when likely one is enough. Unless you need three USB Type-C and 12 USB-Type-A high-speed USB slots, and four M.2 slots is one thing, but do you really need three of them to be PCIe 5.0? That's some pretty insanely high-end future proofing, that's for sure. Should I Buy One? This is an exceptional motherboard, truly it's one of the best we've ever tested and one of the most powerful, and most comprehensively expandable too. It's astonishing to see it deliver both extremely fast performance and lower power usage at the same time, while still maintaining excellent VRM temperatures. If you're just gaming, you can get close to the same performance for half the price. However, if you're a developer or content creator that needs vast amounts of high-speed USB and storage devices, as well as a pair of flagship workstation GPUs, the connectivity on this motherboard is truly awesome, but for everyone else, it's complete overkill. ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi Motherboard Review