With Asus going somewhat over the top with hulking products for its ROG 20th anniversary, it might have slipped under your radar that Gigabyte is also throwing a party. To celebrate 40 years of making all things PC-related, it's releasing a host of special edition goodies at this year's Computex event, and top of the tree for me is a very spiffy-looking motherboard.

To make the X870E Aorus Infinity Next stand out from the crowd, Gigabyte has gone decidedly over the top, with "flagship engineering" that "combines space-tech and data center-grade design through rocket thruster-grade thermal materials and advanced 3D metal printing technology". No, I didn't make that up.

The 'space' and 'data center' stuff relates to the satellite grade metals being used in the frame around the board, and the VRMs (voltage regulation modules) on the motherboard, in that they're Infineon OptiMOS components. These aren't normally found on consumer-grade boards, and I suspect the use of them will add a pretty penny to the Infinity Next's price tag. That and the fact that there are 64 power phases.

Yes, you read that right: sixty four, for a total current supply of 5,120 A. That is, to use a scientific term, utterly bonkers and arguably utterly pointless, because even a heavily overclocked Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition isn't going to draw anywhere near that amount of current. At the very least, you'll know that whatever Ryzen you throw in there, the VRMs aren't going to be stressed.

That's probably true of the primary M.2 slot's heatsink, as that's the 'rocket thruster' stuff. "The innovative AI Gyroid M.2 heatsink structure, only achievable through 3D metal printing, delivers up to 44% greater cooling surface area. Combined with a 3D-printed vapor chamber and honeycomb-structured metal backplate, it pushes flagship motherboard thermal engineering beyond traditional limits," says Gigabyte.

When we tested the heatsink performance of the X870 Aorus Elite Ice, using a PCIe 5.0 Corsair MP700, the SSD only hit 66 °C at most, and that's just a fairly standard Gigabyte heatsink design. The one in the Infinity Next is likely to be significantly better, but just as with the VRMs, complete overkill.

Alongside the very pretty-looking Infinity Next, Gigabyte also has the X870 Aorus Infinity. Which doesn't look as good to my eyes, but if you peer closely at the sole picture we have of the board, you'll notice that the CPU socket and DIMM slots have been twisted around.

That's because this motherboard is "engineered to redefine memory responsiveness on the AMD X870 platform. By pushing CL24 timing, twice as tight as standard timings, the motherboard delivers an impressive 20% speed advantage and achieves the lowest memory latency ever on the AMD X870 platform for a faster, more responsive gaming and computing experience."

Getting hold of DDR5 memory that can handle that CAS timing is perhaps going to be a problem, as CL26 is the snappiest stuff I can find on Newegg and Amazon at the moment. But hey, that's the very nature of such special edition products. I mean, if you are going to celebrate 40 years of making motherboards, you're pretty much expected to churn out something that is absurdly over-specified.

The full details of the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Infinity Next and X870 Aorus Infinity haven't been released yet, including prices and availability, so you might want to wait until you know exactly what you're getting before rushing out and buying one.

Even though Asus is doing its very best to let us all know that this year marks the 20th anniversary of its Republic of Gamers (ROG) branding, you may well not have picked up on the fact that it's releasing all kinds of one-off goodies to celebrate two decades of high-end gaming gear. But whatever else Asus has got planned, it's not going to top this pure blast of nostalgia for me.

Fellow PC enthusiasts, I give you the Asus ROG Crosshair 2006. Yes, I know it's just a motherboard, and if you're a recent starter in one of the best hobbies around, you might not think much about it. But if you were a hardware enthusiast around the start of the millennium, then you'll know exactly why this is ticking every box for me.

Back then, every PC component aimed at the hardcore crowd was plastered with copper heatsinks, often in some ludicrously over-the-top form that was unnecessary, since power levels back then weren't anything like as high as they are now.

To that end, Asus took its very first ROG motherboard, its latest ROG X870E Dark Hero model, and blended the two in what can only be described as a total smorgasbord of copper. Alas, it's not real copper. For example, the VRM heatsinks are "lightweight aluminum" that have been given "an eye-catching copper hue."

That's pretty disappointing, truth be told, but not entirely unexpected. After all, copper is horribly expensive these days, and that amount of the metal would make the motherboard very heavy and absurdly pricey.

And while copper has one of the highest thermal conductivities of any pure metal (second only to silver) and roughly double that of aluminum, the latter is more than good enough for use in today's cooling contraptions.

I don't really care, though. To me, the Crosshair 2006 is all about remembering the grand old times of PC modding, tweaking, and messing about. I'm not suggesting that it was better or easier to do back then; it's just that there were bigger gains to be found from overclocking stuff compared to what you can typically get with today's hardware.

This motherboard isn't a return to those days, just a visual reminder of my glory days of PC hardware schenanigans, and there's nothing wrong with that.

A new report suggests motherboard manufacturers are in a bad state right now, with the memory crisis and the Iran war affecting all kinds of PC hardware. As PC builders are disincentivised from, well, building PCs, the motherboards needed for them also get left behind.

The report, from Digitimes, notes a "collapse" for many motherboard manufacturers, claiming it is worse than previous financial crises and the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. It notes that MSI, Gigabyte and ASRock are all expected to see declines in 2026, in regard to motherboard sales. As of the time of writing, motherboard sales figures for 2026 are not yet public.

The first element of this collapse is the memory crisis. As AI is intent on sucking all that memory for it to run, those looking to buy new DRAM kits are now paying a steep premium. Some simply won't and will hang on for it to go down. This memory crisis also hits other elements of a PC, like graphics cards, making them harder to buy at MSRP.

Jese Martinez from custom PC company PowerGPU recently affirmed the same to me, arguing, "it's memory, it's storage, it's multiple things that are happening. And it's not just a few 100 bucks. Stuff is going up twice the price or three times the price."

Naturally, if the price of components is stopping people from being able to upgrade, there's no point in buying a motherboard for the day it eventually goes back down. If the crisis lasts beyond 2027, one might assume they'd prefer to wait for the latest thing anyway.

However, that's not the only factor in this crisis. Digitimes notes that interest in Nvidia's RTX 50 series line of graphics cards is lower, too, due to a lack of updates and upgrades since the start of the year. We haven't seen the rumoured RTX 50 Super series yet, and it's unclear if we will, either. The report argues, "The mid-to-high-end gaming PC market lacks technical specifications that stimulate upgrades."

Digitimes claims that Asus, the industry leader in motherboards, sold 15 million units in 2025, but shipped just 5 million in the first half of 2026, indicating a steep drop for this year. It goes on to suggest that Asus is aiming for 10 million in total for 2026, which is apparently the lowest number of shipments in over a decade.

This doesn't necessarily mean the companies are in trouble, though. Asus' March earnings call argues its high-end brand value and shift to AI would help it weather the memory crisis. Gigabyte and ASRock, similarly, are looking to make money from AI. Though AI is arguably the biggest factor in the downturn of the motherboard market, it is also a money-making machine, responsible for Nvidia being worth $5 trillion. The main group that will be affected by this are the buyers, but AI doesn't seem to really care about them.

When it comes to motherboards, it's quite rare to see manufacturers try something unusual, and if you browse the market, you'll be swamped by a sea of very familiar layouts and configurations. But for its newest Intel Z890 offering, Gigabyte has chosen to do things rather differently, and you can thank the serious overclocking crowd for that.

At first glance, the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Tachyon Duo X Ice might just come across as a normal, white-coloured Intel motherboard. But then you'll notice that the DRAM slots are in the 'wrong' position, as are the primary M.2 SSD connectors. The CPU power sockets are in an odd place, too, and the rear IO panel looks incredibly sparse for a modern motherboard.

However, the Aorus Tachyon Duo X Ice (I am not writing all that out again) isn't a 'normal' mobo, and the reason for the funky DIMM position is that it sports Gigabyte's D5 Duo X technology, which "revolutionizes memory performance through four breakthrough technologies, delivering traditional 4-slot maximum capacity using only 2 DIMM slots while unleashing extreme overclocking potential."

Translation? The motherboard supports up to DDR5-10400, or you can install a set of CQDIMMs, rated to DDR5-8000. If you're wondering what they are, CQDIMMs are CUDIMMs with quad-rank memory modules, allowing for a total of 256 GB of memory to be stuffed into your rig, without having to wave goodbye to performance.

If you're wondering just how much money a 256 GB CQDIMM kit will set you back, I'm afraid I can't answer that question, as there doesn't seem to be any on the market right now. However, a 48 GB DDR5-8800 CUDIMM kit will set you back $900 at Newegg, so even if you do stumble across a set, the price tag will be absolutely astronomical.

Gigabyte's new motherboard might be all cleverly laid out to maximise memory performance, but it's sadly lacking in areas that make it ideal as an everyday board for a gaming PC. While you get a reasonable number of M.2 slots for storage (four in total), the rear IO panel is rather bare: just one USB 3.2 Type-C (20 Gbps) and five USB 3.2 Type-A (10 Gbps) ports.

They're speedy enough, of course, but a grand total of six ports wouldn't support half the devices I need to use on my own main PC.

I'm also rather puzzled by the big heatsink covering the IO panel and CPU VRMs, because it seems to clash hard against the primary PCIe slot. It's so close that I can't see how you're meant to fit a beefy graphics card in there, unless it has a very slim backplate.

Perhaps it's just how it all looks in the images, though, as I can't imagine Gigabyte would design a motherboard that it says is great for gaming, but then make it actually awkward to use with a gaming graphics card.

One person's ick is another person's ice cream, so while the Tachyon isn't going to appear anywhere on my wishlist of motherboards, I'm sure that there will be a few hardcore overclockers who are genuinely interested. Alas, there is no indication of its price tag just yet, but coupled with the fact that super-fast and high-capacity DRAM is ridiculously overpriced at the moment, I suspect that Gigabyte will be counting off the number of sales on one hand.

Many businesses around the world use old PCs to run machinery or handle inventory, simply because you don't need a latest-generation processor to churn out a bit of code. Eventually, though, they will fail, but what happens when new prices for parts are sky-high because of the global memory crisis? According to one source, it means at least one motherboard maker will be turning back the clock to 2013 and releasing a fresh DDR3-powered board.

That's according to Videocardz, which has reported that there's a dire shortage of DDR3 motherboards on the market at the moment, but Chinese mobo and graphics card manufacturer, Colorful, is planning to plug that gap a bit.

Ordinarily, none of this would be a problem, because businesses would just get something a little newer, a CPU and motherboard combination that uses DDR4 or DDR5 DRAM, for example. However, as the price of that stuff has gone into the realms of ridiculousness, it makes sense to keep an older rig going as long as possible, until the RAMpocalypse finally ends.

Right now, you can get 16 GB of DDR3 for just $42 at Amazon (I know, I know…'just'), whereas you'd need to spend $114 for the same amount of DDR4, and a frankly absurd $220 for DDR5. Sticking with DDR3 is a no-brainer, right?

Anyway, before you get carried away with the idea of putting together an entry-level gaming rig with a set of ultra-cheap DDR3, you might want to consider the fact that it's been a long time since any AMD or Intel CPU used that kind of DRAM. In the case of the former, you're looking at an FX-8370 as the best Team Red DDR3 CPU, but it wasn't exactly the best you could buy when it was released in 2014.

Over in the Intel corner, you'd want either a Core i7 4790K, or if you could actually find one, a Core i7 5775C. Both were epic processors in their time, and for many years afterwards, but even a budget AMD AM4 chip will surpass them in games these days. Of course, gaming isn't the scenario in this particular story, hence why Colorful is planning to issue DDR3 motherboards with Intel's H81 chipset.

That was, and still is, very much intended for the commercial and embedded markets. For gaming, you want a motherboard with the Z97 chipset, as it supports more PCIe lanes, USB ports, and DIMMs per memory channel.

Still, all of this just goes to show just how bananas the memory market is right now, with companies crying out for stuff that's around 13 years old, because DRAM makers are favouring the billions of dollars AI can throw at them over…well…everything else.

Intel's Bartlett Lake CPU is a bit of a niche offering, mainly aimed at edge, embedded, and networking applications rather than consumer PCs. But what with its pure P-core engineering, it's kinda intriguing. And yet not compatible with desktop motherboards. Until now, that is.

An enterprising modder has managed to get a 12-core Bartlett Lake chip up and running on an Asus Z790-AYW OC. But arguably, the really interesting bit is how it was done with the help of Claude AI (via Tom's Hardware).

We're not entirely clear on all the details, but on the Overlock.net forums, user Kryptonfly reports that a Bartlett Lake Intel Core 9 273PQE chip with 12 Performance cores is "recognized" by the Z790 board and that "Claude edited 100% of the bios, no module replacement at all."

Exactly what prompts Kryptonfly used with Claude aren't known, but the process did involve uploading BIOS files. Apparently, the fact that the Asus Z790-AYW OC's BIOS file size is only 16 MB meant that Kryptonfly could do the whole thing using the free version of Claude, which is pretty remarkable.

This isn't a flawless implementation of Bartlett Lake on a consumer motherboard, though. There are still issues, such as the Bartlett Lake CPU's inability to boot into the BIOS, forcing a CPU swap to make BIOS settings changes.

The modded BIOS also now doesn't seem to work with some desktop CPUs for which the motherboard was originally designed. But the main point is that the Claude-coded BIOS does allow the Bartlett Lake Intel Core 9 273PQE to boot into Windows on a consumer Z790 motherboard. And that is pretty wild.

For the record, the Intel Core 9 273PQE chip has 12 Raptor Cove Performance cores and thus more P-cores than you can get on any desktop Intel CPU, which top out at eight. Oh, and no Efficient cores at all.

It uses the same LGA 1700 socket as Alder Lake and Raptor Lake chips up until 14th Gen CPUs like the Intel Core i9 14900K, which is why it's at least physically compatible with a Z790 motherboard right out of the box.

It's also an interesting achievement in the context of the broader negativity around AI slop. For instance, AMD's AI boss recently said, "Claude cannot be trusted to perform complex engineering tasks," which is rather damning.

According to that story, the quality of Claude Code's output is actually deteriorating, and the cause is suspected, at least in some quarters, to be related to Anthropic capping token usage. In other words, the model isn't necessarily broken or degrading, but it's getting increasingly expensive to run, and Anthropic may be limiting GPU access to save money.

Whatever, plenty of old adages around tools, tool makers and tool usage probably apply here. And at least for now, AI is certainly but a tool, not an omnipotent silicon-based deity. But it seems it can at least help you drop in a CPU that was never intended for your motherboard.

Wood-pannelled PC cases? Yeah, yeah, seen 'em. Wood-trimmed motherboards? Novel, but not quite unique. But dark wood-trimmed motherboards? Now you're talkin'.

Gigabyte has updated its existing X870E Aero X3D Wood with revised and darker wood lashings. We give you the Gigabyte X870E Aero X3D Dark Wood, though without the manufacturer's all-caps verily enabled.

The Taiwanese company says, "The authentic dark wood texture finish brings natural warmth and character into high-performance computing; the supple leather pull tab adds tactile intimacy; and the understated dark metal tones offer calm and breathing room — a deliberate counterpoint to the noise of modern life."

Meanwhile our own Nick Evanson reckons, "wood mobos are just so pointless." How so? Nick doesn't like the fact that the physical characteristics of wood mean it is very restricted in where it can be used, in this case down the left hand side of the board, including on top of the I/O panel.

Personally, I'm a little more upbeat about the notion. You'd certainly need to be careful about your choice of case and side window to ensure maximum visibility. But still, if you like the natural texture, it could be worth it even if only glimpsed when digging inside the case for tweaks and upgrades.

As with the OG Wood board, this Dark variant is based on the AMD X870E chipset with the AM5 socket. You get a 16+2+2 Twin Digital VRM Design, four M.2 slots, and some nice tool-free touches.

At this point, my main concern would be matching the wood grain and colour with a similarly-suited case. The Asus ProArt Case PA401 looks a bit too dark, while the Corsair One i600 is probably too light. Could the Fractal Design North with the Walnut option be just right? There's only one way to find out.

If you thought the ASUS Crosshair Hero motherboards were as extreme as it gets, the latest ultra high-end motherboard from ASUS takes things to another level. The ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial has a mind-blowing feature set and would keep any PC enthusiast busy with weeks of fun tinkering, but just as importantly, this is the first time this model has appeared on an AMD platform, highlighting just how dominant the company's CPUs are on desktop right now.

This flagship Socket AM5 motherboard won't disappoint either. Its massive EATX form factor barely has any free space, whether it's thanks to a lavish five-inch display, enormous heatsinks or extensive shrouds or unique DIMM.2 SSD expansion slots. You don't need a watercooling system to get the most out of it either as this model's VRMs are air-cooled. Obviously it's limited to a select few that can afford it, but it's always fun to dream. Let's take a look.

As its name suggests, there's only a white version of the ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial, but any white hardware fans will undoubtedly love it. Much of the PCB is covered in removable heatsinks or shrouds, hiding unsightly ports, but they can be removed to aid cable tidying with most being held in place using magnets. This includes the large cover sporting the ROG logo, which you'll likely want to remove as it covers the primary PCIe slot.

It doesn't just go back in the box, though, as it can attach magnetically to your case. The enormous M.2 heatsink above it features a heatpipe to aid cooling while an even larger one sits underneath the ROG-themed shroud below and cools two further M.2 ports. The eagled-eyed might have noticed the specifications indicate the presence of seven M.2 ports and just three of those are on the PCB, including two that are PCIe 5.0-capable.

The other four are located in pairs on both a DIMM.2 module next to memory slots and on a PCIe expansion card. The former houses a pair of PCIe 4.0 M.2 ports while the latter has two PCIe 5.0 M.2 ports that are cooled by a single massive heatsink. Sadly, you'll need to drop your GPU's PCIe lane count to eight if you want to use the expansion card and of the two PCIe 4.0 M.2 ports on the additional DIMM.2 card, one only has two lanes.

The five inch screen is configurable in the board's software, both with preset displays offering animated graphics and system sensor data or with your own designs. It can also slide forwards to make room for rear case fans. It's one of the largest displays we've seen on a motherboard and looks absolutely stunning too. On the other side of the board is a small removable fascia that hides a magnetic mount for a memory cooling fan. It's cable-free and uses contact pins for speed and power while being tuneable in the software or EFI as normal.

Other perks of the monstrous price tag are 60 W power delivery over the front panel Type-C header, an ESS audio DAC and a pogo pin connector for compatible ASUS wireless AIO liquid coolers. The Rear I/O panel has even more eye-popping features such as six USB Type-C ports including a pair of USB4 ports and a pair of 10 Gbps Ethernet ports for what is possibly a first on a consumer-focussed motherboard.

This is all in addition to practically every tweaking and overclocking feature you can imagine such as power and reset buttons, dual BIOS switch, 2-pin thermistor header, LED POST code display eight fan headers, two of which capable of dishing out a massive 36W.

Overclocking and fine-tuning your fans is easy thanks to an excellent EFI, but it's one that's appealing to both newcomers and hardcore overclockers too so whatever angle you're coming from, it won't disappoint. The software is a little bloated and requires you to install multiple apps just to get at the more popular fan control and RGB lighting areas, but they make it simple to control your fans, lighting and the LCD screen from within Windows.

The VRM temperature peaked at 56 °C on our open air test bench leaving lots of room for overclocking with more cores than our Ryzen 9 9900X CPU. The individual chipset heatsinks saw some impressively low temperatures too with the peak across the dual X870 chipsets being 41 °C, which is one of the lowest AMD results we've seen.

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Gaming performance

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced)Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra)CPU metrics during Baldur's Gate 3

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

114

82

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

111

72

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

113

84

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

109

72

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

111

78

NZXT N9 X870E

116

76

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced) Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	114 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	111 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	113 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	109 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	111 Avg FPS, 78 1% Low FPS
NZXT N9 X870E	116 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

117

74

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

105

61

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

120

80

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

105

65

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

96

66

NZXT N9 X870E

119

63

037.575112.5150

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	117 Avg FPS, 74 1% Low FPS
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	105 Avg FPS, 61 1% Low FPS
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	120 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	105 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	96 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS
NZXT N9 X870E	119 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS

Avg CPU Temp (°C)

Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

71

117

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

70

104

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

61

120

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

69

111

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

63

112

NZXT N9 X870E

60

130

037.575112.5150

CPU metrics during Baldur's Gate 3 Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	71 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 117 Avg CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	70 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 104 Avg CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	61 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 120 Avg CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	69 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 111 Avg CPU Package Power (W)
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	63 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 112 Avg CPU Package Power (W)
NZXT N9 X870E	60 Avg CPU Temp (°C), 130 Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Processing performance

Cinebench 2024Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop)7zip 24.07

Single

Multi

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

138

1822

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

136

1759

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

136

1792

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

133

1786

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

137

1809

NZXT N9 X870E

132

1748

05001,0001,5002,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	138 Single, 1822 Multi
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	136 Single, 1759 Multi
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	136 Single, 1792 Multi
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	133 Single, 1786 Multi
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	137 Single, 1809 Multi
NZXT N9 X870E	132 Single, 1748 Multi

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

147

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

149

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

149

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

147

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

148

NZXT N9 X870E

148

037.575112.5150

Samples per minute

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop) Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	147
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	149
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	149
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	147
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	148
NZXT N9 X870E	148

Compressing

Decompressing

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

169

200

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

175

201

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

172

208

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

171

194

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

173

205

NZXT N9 X870E

176

195

075150225300

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	169 Compressing, 200 Decompressing
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	175 Compressing, 201 Decompressing
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	172 Compressing, 208 Decompressing
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	171 Compressing, 194 Decompressing
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	173 Compressing, 205 Decompressing
NZXT N9 X870E	176 Compressing, 195 Decompressing

System performance

CPU metrics during system benchmarksChipset temperatureVRM temperatureSSD temperature

Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Peak CPU Package Power (W)

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

162

170

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

156

168

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

160

162

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

161

162

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

158

162

NZXT N9 X870E

162

160

050100150200

CPU metrics during system benchmarks Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	162 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 170 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	156 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 168 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	161 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
NZXT N9 X870E	162 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 160 Peak CPU Package Power (W)

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

41

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

55

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

61

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

4857

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

50

NZXT N9 X870E

69

01,5003,0004,5006,000

Peak temp (°C)

Chipset temperature Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	41
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	55
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	61
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	4857
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	50
NZXT N9 X870E	69

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

56

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

66

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

60

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

46

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

47

NZXT N9 X870E

38

020406080

Peak temp (°C)

VRM temperature Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	56
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	66
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	60
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	46
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	47
NZXT N9 X870E	38

Peak temp (°C)

Avg temp (°C)

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial

61

53

MSI MEG X870E Godlike X

76

70

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

70

68

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

66

58

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

78

70

NZXT N9 X870E

67

60

020406080

SSD temperature Data

Product	Value
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial	61 Peak temp (°C), 53 Avg temp (°C)
MSI MEG X870E Godlike X	76 Peak temp (°C), 70 Avg temp (°C)
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	70 Peak temp (°C), 68 Avg temp (°C)
Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro	66 Peak temp (°C), 58 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	78 Peak temp (°C), 70 Avg temp (°C)
NZXT N9 X870E	67 Peak temp (°C), 60 Avg temp (°C)

The average CPU package power in games of 117 W and peak power in heavy processing of 170 W was a little higher than the average, but with so many extra components such as dual 10 Gbps Ethernet ports, DIMM.2 module, expansion card and memory fan, this was going to be a possibility. The best SSD temperature was using the PCIe expansion card where we recorded a peak of 61 °C. However, the onboard heatsinks were 10 °C and 16 °C warmer so the card is potentially worth using if you want the best temperatures, especially for multiple SSDs.

There's little doubt the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial is probably the most crazy and ultra high-end motherboard we've ever seen. While its price tag means it's firmly out of reach for all but a select few, it's a rare case of being more than just willy waving. It's beautiful, dripping with cutting edge features, has fantastic cooling and doesn't fall short in any single area, except if you were expecting an integrated waterblock like previous models have often had.

Plenty of similar boards have failed to make us consider taking out a bank loan, but ASUS has definitely managed it here. The ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial can keep your hardware cool, house up to seven SSDs, has dual 10 Gbps Ethernet ports, 60 W front panel Type-C power delivery and dials visual prowess and unique features up to 11.

Even opening its accessory box feel like a premium experience. Ultimately, we're highly envious of anyone that gets to experience building a PC using this motherboard. In the same way a Bugatti Chiron is something nearly all of us will never get close to owning, most have been glued to reviews and drag races featuring it, and seeing one in person would be a special experience. In the same way, we can all aspire to owning the ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial and appreciate the fact it exists, even if we'll never own it.

Intel has recently spotted a whole host of security vulnerabilities in the UEFI for many of its products, which could allow the escalation of privileges to bad actors. It's a problem worth updating your device over when updates are available, but for now, just stay vigilant of who is near your rig.

The highest severity problems on the list register a CVSS score of 8.7 (1.3 off the highest), and these both involve improper input validation, which can enable local code execution. Though local access to your rig is needed, neither 8.7 severity vulnerability involves "special internal knowledge and requires no user interaction".

Moving down to a measly 7.1 severity, one vulnerability has been spotted where the system management verifies a resource, then swaps out that resource to something else before the action can actually happen.

An example of this is checking privileges on a folder, seeing that it is accessible, then swapping that folder for another one, therefore getting into a locked folder without a password or privileged user access. In this case, it uses that access to escalate privilege. Like the rest of the exploits, this requires local access to use.

Intel clarifies it is "releasing" updates to mitigate these vulnerabilities, so we can expect them to roll out to motherboard manufacturers going forward. I've checked through many Intel motherboard manufacturers for updates, and though I've seen some updates after the publishing of Intel's findings (like this MSI Mag Z890M Gaming Plus driver), they don't note UEFI vulnerability fixes. This is to say the rollout doesn't appear to have fully happened yet.

Nonetheless, requiring local access does mean you aren't necessarily in trouble without the update for now. It's always good to stay up-to-date, in case you've found yourself unlucky enough to be found by a bad actor, but for most, it's not a huge deal.

The severity of reported problems isn't purely about ease of use. That 8.7 on the high end is a combination of complexity to use, plus how much it impacts confidentiality, integrity and availability, plus a whole pile of other factors. Severity is a good sign of how serious a problem is, but many problems will be hypothetical in nature.

As pointed out by Intel, "Intel, and nearly the entire technology industry, follows a disclosure practice called coordinated disclosure, under which a cybersecurity vulnerability is generally publicly disclosed only after mitigations are available."

Generally, by the time you hear about a problem from the manufacturer, chances are that fixes are already out there, or in the works. Just don't leave it too long before updating your system. A healthy rig is an updated rig.

MSI has had a sizeable gap in its high-end X870E product stack, with its Carbon Wi-Fi option sitting well below the likes of the ultra high-end Godlike models, which now have several variations. The older X670E chipset benefitted from an additional model, the MEG Ace, and it’s this model that finally makes the transition to AMD’s latest high-end chipset in the form of the MEG X870E Ace Max.

Offering more features and added aesthetic tweaks than the Carbon Wi-Fi, but with a substantially lower price tag than the cheapest Godlike models, the MEG X870E Ace Max is an imposing beast bristling with high-end features. These include 10 Gbps Ethernet, dual PCIe 5.0 SSD support and loads of overclocking and tweaking features that will keep you busy for days.

As well as offering the new features of all of MSI’s new Max range of AMD motherboards such as a 64 MB BIOS for new feature and CPU support and independent base clock frequency adjustment with jumpers for on-the-fly tweaking, you get all the other benefits of the flagship X870E chipset and then some.

There are a pair of USB4 Type-C ports and the added bandwidth of this chipset means that the slowest USB ports on the rear I/O panel are USB 3.1 10 Gbps. It has nine of the latter by way of Type-A ports and a further two Type-C offering the same speed too. The front panel Type-C port that hooks up to your case is USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps and even offers 60 W power delivery for fast charging laptops or power banks courtesy of an extra PCIe power connector.

The headline feature list is a long one. You get 10 Gbps Ethernet as well as 5 Gbps port, and dual PCIe 5.0 M.2 support, although to run PCIe Gen 5 SSDs the second slot requires the USB 4 Type-C ports to be disabled, while the first slot requires the third PCIe slot to remain empty. However, all M.2 ports are cooled on both sides by heatsinks so SSD temperatures should not be an issue. The onboard audio includes Realtek’s ALC4082 codec as well as an ESS DAC.

The massive VRM heatsinks, which cool an impressive 18+2+1 power delivery, are topped with a large illuminated holographic display and the top M.2 heatsink is equipped with an illuminated Ace logo. Powered up the MEG X870E Ace Max is sure to turn heads. MSI has included all of its DIY features too, such as a GPU release button, tool-free M.2 SSD and heatsink installation and quick-connect aerials for the Wi-Fi 7 module.

Including MSI’s EZ Conn-Cable (V2) which splits a header on the PCB into 3-pin and 4-pin RGB connectors plus a 4-pin fan header, there are nine fan headers in total. The PCB also includes two thermal sensor headers, three more 3-pin ARGB headers, a water cooling system water flow header and voltage measuring points plus power and reset buttons.

There are more buttons on the rear I/O panel too, including a CMOS clear button, one for USB BIOS Flashback and another called a smart button, which defaults to reset but can be configured to other tasks in the EFI. The EFI itself is generally excellent with an appealing color scheme and layout plus superb fan control.

The software is a little clunky and slow, but you are able to tweak your fans and lighting easily within Windows, albeit often with less granular control than the EFI when it comes to fan speed.

Motherboard benchmarks - AM5

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop)CPU metrics during system benchmarksChipset temperatureCinebench 2024Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced)SSD temperatureVRM temperature7zip 24.07

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

149

NZXT N9 X870E

148

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

150

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

148

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

147

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

149

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

147

037.575112.5150

Samples per minute

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	149
NZXT N9 X870E	148
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	150
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	148
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	147
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	149
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	147

Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

160

162

NZXT N9 X870E

162

160

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

160

161

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

158

162

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

159

162

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

158

162

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

160

162

050100150200

CPU metrics during system benchmarks Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
NZXT N9 X870E	162 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 160 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 161 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	159 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

61

NZXT N9 X870E

69

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

36

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

50

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

68

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

57

020406080

Peak temp (°C)

Chipset temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	61
NZXT N9 X870E	69
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	36
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	50
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	68
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	57

Single

Multi

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

136

1792

NZXT N9 X870E

132

1748

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

135

1836

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

137

1809

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

137

1817

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

138

1803

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

137

1763

05001,0001,5002,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	136 Single, 1792 Multi
NZXT N9 X870E	132 Single, 1748 Multi
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	135 Single, 1836 Multi
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	137 Single, 1809 Multi
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	137 Single, 1817 Multi
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	138 Single, 1803 Multi
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	137 Single, 1763 Multi

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

113

84

NZXT N9 X870E

116

76

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

111

77

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

109

72

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

116

81

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

118

80

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

112

79

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	113 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
NZXT N9 X870E	116 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	111 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	109 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	116 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	118 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	112 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS

Peak temp (°C)

Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

70

68

NZXT N9 X870E

67

60

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

66

61

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

78

70

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

82

74

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

71

64

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

82

79

0255075100

SSD temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	70 Peak temp (°C), 68 Avg temp (°C)
NZXT N9 X870E	67 Peak temp (°C), 60 Avg temp (°C)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	66 Peak temp (°C), 61 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	78 Peak temp (°C), 70 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	82 Peak temp (°C), 74 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	71 Peak temp (°C), 64 Avg temp (°C)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	82 Peak temp (°C), 79 Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

60

NZXT N9 X870E

38

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

44

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

47

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

58

015304560

Peak temp (°C)

VRM temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	60
NZXT N9 X870E	38
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	44
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	47
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	N/A
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	58

Compressing

Decompressing

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

172

208

NZXT N9 X870E

176

195

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

179

192

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

173

205

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

171

202

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

177

197

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

167

198

075150225300

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	172 Compressing, 208 Decompressing
NZXT N9 X870E	176 Compressing, 195 Decompressing
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	179 Compressing, 192 Decompressing
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	173 Compressing, 205 Decompressing
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	171 Compressing, 202 Decompressing
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	177 Compressing, 197 Decompressing
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	167 Compressing, 198 Decompressing

PC Gamer test bench
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

The VRM temperature only just topped 60 °C with our open air test bench and minimal airflow so in a well-cooled case there should be even lower results and plenty of room for overclocking, even with AMD’s flagship 16-core CPUs. Both chipsets on the PCB are cooled by a single large heatsink and the peak temperature sat at 61 °C, which is reasonable given the heatsink is comparatively small for X870E.

The CPU package power was 10 W lower in games than the MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi and NZXT N9 X870E at 120 W but we have seen lower, such as the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X, which draw only 104 W in the same tests. Things were near identical under heavy loads though. As usual, the extra premium didn’t result in much extra performance at our stock speed settings, but the average PCIe Gen 5 SSD temperature of 68 °C was one of the lowest we’ve seen and kept our super-fast SSD well away from throttling.

This is a monster motherboard that doesn’t just tick all the boxes when it comes to premium features, but includes plenty of future proofing too with 10 Gbps Ethernet, 64 MB BIOS, Wi-Fi 7 plus PCIe 5.0 SSD and GPU support. As usual with AMD’s flagship chipset, there’s enough bandwidth to offer loads of USB ports and PCIe slots, including USB4, although there are some situations that result in shared bandwidth.

Still, it does pip mighty competition in the like of the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero in a few areas, costing $100 more mind you, but does look set to cost less than its own refreshed replacement, the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero and about the same as Gigabyte’s X870E Aorus Master X3D Ice. Ultimately, at this price, most boards have similar features so it usually comes to aesthetics and perhaps a dose of brand loyalty. Thankfully, MSI has certainly created a droolworthy motherboard that’s significantly cheaper than its Godlike range, but still packs an enormous punch.

We’re in the middle of AMD’s 800-series chipset lifecycle and several manufacturers including MSI have seen fit for a motherboard refresh. This often includes tweaks to designs to improve performance, include modern features or even add support for new CPUs. The MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi will retail for around $260, so what do you get for your money?

Its headline features aren’t huge, but could be useful for those that want to maximise their future proofing or have an additional easy way to overclock their system.

Firstly, the BIOS size has increased from 32 MB to 64 MB, which opens the door to housing drivers such as Wi-Fi controllers directly in this storage space, allowing Windows to access your Wi-Fi network during installation. Future features and CPU support are also reasons for a larger BIOS according to MSI.

A base clock generator chip allows for separate adjustment to this frequency so it’s not tied to the rest of the system, providing an additional way to overclock and gain free performance. You can even adjust this on the fly outside of the EFI using two jumpers on the PCB.

MSI has gone all out here with the white theme on this $260 B850 chipset motherboard, even including the PCIe and DIMM slots as well as the CPU cooler mounting brackets and GPU release button mechanism, so if you have a white PC case, it’s already a contender. It’s attractive, uncluttered, but does lack its own RGB lighting, if that’s your thing.

Aside from its minor feature updates that include the 64 MB BIOS as well as separate base clock adjustment and physical jumper buttons to tweak that on the fly, the usual bits are here such as PCIe 5.0 GPU and M.2 SSD support, although cooling for the latter may be an issue due to the tiny heatsink included here, which is also devoid of underside cooling too.

Still, the heatsink and SSD installation across the board in its three M.2 slots are all tool-free so there are no tiny screws to deal with. The first M.2 slot is PCIe 5.0 compatible, the second PCIe 4.0 with four lanes, but the third is PCIe 4.0 with only two lanes, so you’ll likely want to avoid that one unless your SSD specifically meets that slower speed.

The MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi also has an impressive four PCIe slots, which are made up of the primary PCIe 5.0 slot, a PCIe 4.0 slot with four lanes and two PCIe 3.0 slots with just a single lane each, so there’s no much flexibility here. The slower slots here also share bandwidth with the PCIe 4.0 slot, which gives up two lanes if either of the former are used. Due to the number of slots, the board also has an additional 8-pin PCIe power connector.

Fans and RGB lighting headers are plentiful with seven 4-pin headers for fans, including one using MSIs EZ Conn-header connector and it’s included splitter cable. In total there’s also one 4-pin and four 3-pin and RGB headers. There does seem to be an unusual number of headers on the board in general, but this is partly thanks to a pair of 2-pin headers being added to provide on-the-fly base clock adjustment.

If you like plenty of fast USB ports, unfortunately this is one area that’s left wanting. The Type-C front panel port only offers USB 3.0 speed rather than sprightlier USB 3.2 Gen 2x2’s 20 Gbps. The rear I/O panel has a very mediocre six Type-A ports and four of those are only USB 2.0. This is no worse than this board’s predecessor, but then it currently costs considerably less.

We do get a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps Type-C ports, but it also cuts corners with audio too, only mustering Realtek’s low-end ALC897 codec rather than ALC4080 or ALC1220. The rear I/O panel does at least have buttons for clearing the CMOS and using USB BIOS Flashback and there’s also 5 Gbps Ethernet.

Motherboard benchmarks - AM5

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop)CPU metrics during system benchmarksChipset temperatureCinebench 2024Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced)SSD temperatureVRM temperature7zip 24.07

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

149

NZXT N9 X870E

148

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

150

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

148

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

147

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

149

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

147

037.575112.5150

Samples per minute

Blender 4.2.0 (junkshop) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	149
NZXT N9 X870E	148
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	150
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	148
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	147
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	149
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	147

Avg CPU Package Power (W)

Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

160

162

NZXT N9 X870E

162

160

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

160

161

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

158

162

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

159

162

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

158

162

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

160

162

050100150200

CPU metrics during system benchmarks Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
NZXT N9 X870E	162 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 160 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 161 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	159 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	158 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	160 Avg CPU Package Power (W), 162 Peak CPU Package Power (W)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

61

NZXT N9 X870E

69

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

36

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

50

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

68

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

57

020406080

Peak temp (°C)

Chipset temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	61
NZXT N9 X870E	69
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	36
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	50
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	68
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	57

Single

Multi

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

136

1792

NZXT N9 X870E

132

1748

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

135

1836

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

137

1809

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

137

1817

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

138

1803

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

137

1763

05001,0001,5002,000

Cinebench 2024 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	136 Single, 1792 Multi
NZXT N9 X870E	132 Single, 1748 Multi
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	135 Single, 1836 Multi
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	137 Single, 1809 Multi
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	137 Single, 1817 Multi
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	138 Single, 1803 Multi
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	137 Single, 1763 Multi

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

113

84

NZXT N9 X870E

116

76

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

111

77

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

109

72

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

116

81

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

118

80

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

112

79

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra + DLSS Balanced) Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	113 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
NZXT N9 X870E	116 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	111 Avg FPS, 77 1% Low FPS
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	109 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	116 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	118 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	112 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS

Peak temp (°C)

Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

70

68

NZXT N9 X870E

67

60

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

66

61

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

78

70

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

82

74

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

71

64

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

82

79

0255075100

SSD temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	70 Peak temp (°C), 68 Avg temp (°C)
NZXT N9 X870E	67 Peak temp (°C), 60 Avg temp (°C)
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	66 Peak temp (°C), 61 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	78 Peak temp (°C), 70 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	82 Peak temp (°C), 74 Avg temp (°C)
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	71 Peak temp (°C), 64 Avg temp (°C)
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	82 Peak temp (°C), 79 Avg temp (°C)

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

60

NZXT N9 X870E

38

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

44

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

47

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

58

015304560

Peak temp (°C)

VRM temperature Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	60
NZXT N9 X870E	38
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	44
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	47
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	N/A
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	N/A
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	58

Compressing

Decompressing

MSI MEG X870E Ace Max

172

208

NZXT N9 X870E

176

195

Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice

179

192

ASRock X870 Nova WiFi

173

205

ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi

171

202

ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi

177

197

MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi

167

198

075150225300

7zip 24.07 Data

Product	Value
MSI MEG X870E Ace Max	172 Compressing, 208 Decompressing
NZXT N9 X870E	176 Compressing, 195 Decompressing
Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice	179 Compressing, 192 Decompressing
ASRock X870 Nova WiFi	173 Compressing, 205 Decompressing
ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi	171 Compressing, 202 Decompressing
ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi	177 Compressing, 197 Decompressing
MSI MAG B850 Gaming Plus Max WiFi	167 Compressing, 198 Decompressing

PC Gamer test bench
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

The VRM and chipset temperatures both remained under 60 °C, which isn’t bad considering they were dealing with some extended high-load tests with hardware such as AMD’s Ryzen 9 9900X and a high-end SSD. There’s certainly scope for pushing the CPU a little further with Precision Boost Overdrive or manual overclocking.

The benchmark scores were on par with more expensive boards too, with the 147 scored in Blender and 1,763 in Cinebench’s multi-thread score closely matching those of the mighty and hideously expensive MEG X870E Godlike X, with the same being true in our game tests. One area it was a little below par was the CPU power, which was on average around 30 W higher in our game tests. This is likely down to the more basic discrete P-PACK power phases used.

The benefits of a 64 MB BIOS are still unclear and likely won’t have an impact immediately. AMD’s next generation of CPUs is already slated to work on 800-series chipset motherboards so these benefits will likely be revealed a little further into the future. The independent base clock overclocking is certainly useful, but most only venture as far as Precision Boost Overdrive features so may have limited appeal. Still, MSI should be applauded for going the extra mile.

The biggest issue, though, is that while it has solid performance and somewhat cool VRMs, it’s just too expensive compared to equivalent options. Even MSI’s own MAG B850 Tomahawk costs less and is better in nearly every way. Unless you must have its new features, then we’d suggest either it or white alternatives such as the Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice are much better buys.

Come February 19, Epic Games says Fortnite will require additional hardware features to help prevent cheating in tournaments. Two of these you probably already know about, these being Secure Boot and TPM, but the third you might not be so familiar with.

This latter feature is IOMMU, which is part of a motherboard and helps ensure there are no untrusted devices attached to your system. Most modern motherboards have it—Epic says "If your PC is Windows 11-compatible (~95% of Fortnite players on PC), you likely already meet these requirements", including IOMMU—but you might need to enable them in your BIOS.

The IOMMU (input–output memory management unit) is a go-between the system memory and devices such as PCIe ones, mapping virtual addresses to physical ones. It's also supposed to act as a preventative measure or check against devices accessing your system before your operating system loads.

There's been a fair amount of talk about it recently because of the possibility of it allowing memory to be hijacked via a PCIe device before the operating system loads, because there was previously a small window during which its direct memory access (DMA) protection mechanisms weren't activated. Which is why Asus released an important BIOS update for its motherboards a couple of months ago, to patch it.

This BIOS update, along with similar ones from Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock, was then made a requirement to play Valorant. That's because, as Riot explained in a blog post, the game relies on IOMMU to check your memory and only allow approved devices to communicate with the game. If there's a chance this protection process could have been hijacked or interfered with during boot-up, that might not spell good news for its anti-cheat. The BIOS updates patched this potential hijack window.

While Valorant previously required IOMMU and then, after this vulnerability was discovered, required BIOSes to be updated to ensure the feature is airtight, Fortnite didn't previously require IOMMU at all. That's what's changing: the game will soon require this feature. Alongside TPM and Secure Boot, which Valorant also already required.

It's probably best to keep your BIOS up-to-date to be safe, but Epic tells PC Gamer that it doesn't require a specific BIOS version for Fortnite—as long as the version you have supports the features in question, you're good to go.

Epic Games explains: "On February 19, we’re expanding Fortnite’s Anti-Cheat system requirements for PC players to all tournaments, requiring three security features to be enabled: Secure Boot, TPM, and IOMMU.

"IOMMU is a security feature that helps the operating system control how hardware devices access system memory. This technology allows us to better protect our game memory from being accessed by cheat hardware."

TPM and Secure Boot are also required, of course, and we've seen these requirements in big games such as Battlefield 6, Black Ops 7, and more recently, Highguard. Windows 11 itself requires a Secure Boot-capable motherboard with a TPM (trusted platform module), which most Windows gamers know about by now.

It's not really a surprise that Fortnite is adding more anti-cheat requirements. It's one of the slowly growing number of games that have super strict requirements thanks to its kernel-level anti-cheat, a fact that I'm all too aware of since trying out Linux. It's on the mental list that I lug around of games I can't go near when using that OS, alongside Valorant and Apex Legends, among others.

Pros and cons, I suppose.

With so many different motherboards on the market, it's hard for vendors to make something that makes you really pay attention to it. And in the case of the new Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial, that's exactly what happened when I first saw it, because the only thing I really noticed was that it has pre-installed Wi-Fi drivers. However, taking a closer look reveals all kinds of things: some good, some great, and something really odd.

As with all of Asus' ROG Crosshair boards, the X870E Glacial is a top-end, mega-bucks model, replete with M.2 slots, heatsinks, and a whopping five-inch LCD panel. An awful lot of motherboards pass through my hands, so I honestly didn't pay that much attention to it (sorry Asus), other than the drivers thing.

But now that I've taken a closer look, there are some things about it that I really like and hope to see across more boards, especially those that are more affordable. To start with, Asus' horribly-named 'EZ PC DIY' stuff is genuinely useful: there's a solid lock for both PCIe slots, which is easy to access and use, plus the M.2 slots get quick-release mechanisms for the SSD itself and the heatsinks.

New to this family of goodies is a proprietary connector for an AIO liquid cooler. Normally, I'm no fan of anything that locks you to a vendor, but in this instance, I do think having a row of large pins/pads is much better than having to deal with PWM header and USB cables to power and control a cooler.

Mind you, Asus' AIOs are fiercely expensive, so I should imagine it will be a good while before this makes an appearance in any mainstream products.

That's the great stuff. What's possibly good (perhaps great, perhaps rubbish) is that you can pop off a small cover to reveal a couple of connectors for a magnetically attached fan, included with the motherboard, that blasts air along the length of the DRAM sticks installed in the board.

How well it works in practice is an important question, though, because if the fan is loud and cheaply-made, it'll get annoying very quickly. It might not be something most people would ever use, either, because unless you're seriously overclocking the memory modules, they don't really get all that hot.

My main concern about it, though, is that the fan's intake is right next to where the graphics card fits into the board and if you have a long, powerful card, the little DRAM cooler is just going to be drawing in hot air.

And speaking of graphics cards, take a closer look at the board. Yes, that's right, there are no PCIe slots whatsoever. Okay, I'm joking—there are actually two on the motherboard, but by default, they're hidden under two magnetically attached plates.

These "conceal the motherboard's connectors for a cleaner look, or they can be attached to any magnetic surface as a decorative element," according to Asus, though they just seem rather pointless to me. Perhaps not the very bottom one, which does a nice job of hiding the usual array of headers, but that big one?

You physically can't use a graphics card with it in place, so unless you do have a spare chunk of metal somewhere you can slap it onto, then it'll just sit in the box.

A similar fate may befall the ROG Hyper M.2 card, which fits into a PCIe slot, and the ROG Q-DIMM.2 thingy, which you install in that long slot just to the right of the DDR5 connectors. These host two SSDs apiece, which sounds lovely, but then you get to the caveats with using them.

Should you install the Hyper card into the bottom PCIe slot, it will force the top one for your graphics card to run in x8 or x4/x4 mode. The Q-DIMM.2 thing has two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, but only one of them is x4; the other is half that speed. Add in the fact that using the second M.2 slot on the motherboard itself will force it to run at half speed, too, if you use any of the USB4 ports.

Admittedly, this is a limitation of all AM5 X870E motherboards, and it's not a failure of the Glacial. But why give us all these connectivity options if there are so many performance restrictions? How many PC gamers need to have seven NVMe SSDs anyway? Three or four, sure, but seven?

Anyway, all of this serves me right for not giving the Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial enough attention when it was first announced. There's a lot to like here, despite some odd design choices (and a $1,200 price tag), and if we manage to get one in for testing, we'll let you know how good the new things really are.

Modern gaming PCs are relatively easy to build and use, but underneath that friendly exterior, they're still incredibly complicated things. So when they start doing weird stuff like refusing to boot after being used for a while, it can be really hard to solve the issue. However, if your PC is doing precisely that and uses an AM5 Ryzen processor in an ASRock motherboard, then the fix is actually very simple.

Specifically, all you need to do is update the BIOS to ASRock's newly announced beta version 4.07.AS01, which incorporates AMD's latest AGESA ComboAM5 PI 1.3.0.0a (don't you just love short, snappy tech names?). Just head over to this list of all AM5 ASRock motherboards to the right update for your rig.

"This update is specifically designed to address system no-boot scenarios, including cases where systems may fail to boot after being used for a period of time," says ASRock. "Users who encounter such behavior are recommended to update to this BIOS version to help restore normal system boot functionality."

It's worth noting that if your gaming PC doesn't have a 'no boot' problem, and it's sunshine and roses, then you can skip this BIOS update. It won't make anything faster or provide new features, just a fix for the above problem and "optimized memory compatibility." The latter only matters if you're planning to buy a cheap, unknown-brand DDR5 as an upgrade, because that's all anyone can afford these days.

Now, you might be wondering just how you're supposed to update the BIOS if the PC won't boot. That's where ASRock's BIOS Flashback feature comes in, and you watch its tutorial for the process below. Mind you, if your PC won't boot because of ASRock's issue and you don't have access to another machine, then you're somewhat scuppered.

The same is true if your PC won't boot because your ASRock motherboard appears to have fried your AMD Ryzen processor. No amount of BIOS updates is ever going to solve that problem. I hasten to add that it's not just ASRock motherboards that have been giving PC gamers coniptions because there have reports of CPUs dying in Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI boards. However, when you collate all of these, ASRock does top the list and by no small margin.

Given that the company had worked really hard at overcoming its old reputation of 'cheap and cheerful', it's a shame that it's topping the news headlines for all the wrong reasons at the moment. Still, at least ASRock is releasing solutions to these various problems. Now it just needs to develop a fix for its reputation.

With Intel's Nova Lake desktop CPUs expected to land later this year, we have finally got our first major leak of the motherboard chipsets to support them. The big takeaway is that they aren't all that different from the previous generation, but there now appear to be three of interest for prospective gamers.

Leaker Jaykihn took to X to post a chart with the specs of the Intel 900-series chipset, and if true, it suggests Intel has changed its naming nomenclature going forward. At the bottom end, we have the B960 and Z970, both of which offer 14 PCIe 4.0 lanes total.

Most of the specs of these two boards are similar, with two DMI Gen5 lanes to connect to the processor, one Thunderbolt 4 port, and an identical number of USB ports. The difference between the two is support for CPU overclocking—the Z970 supports it, the B960 does not, and neither support BCLK tweaking.

The B860, the current-gen Intel 800-series chipset, also has up to 14 PCIe 4.0 lanes, with the same number of SATA 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. Notably, Nova Lake reportedly uses an LGA-1954 socket, which would make it not compatible with previous Intel motherboard chipsets.

The H chipset seems to be missing from the 900-series table, suggesting that Intel has cut its lowest-end chipset entirely. The H810 offered a lot fewer lanes than anything listed in the 900-series here, so perhaps it's gone entirely, and good riddance. Jaykihm even suggests there are "No H-series board at all" in a follow-up post. However, the H810 did launch later than high-end boards in the 800-series, so that's always a possibility again.

Historically, Intel used to use the Zx70 naming convention (like with the Z270), until AMD started doing the same with Ryzen-compatible motherboards. Intel shifted to Zx90 and Bx60 as a result, in what can only be described as a schoolyard game of 'my imaginary dinosaur is bigger than yours'. So it's a bit of a surprise that Intel appears to be going back to the Z970, which may look quite similar to any X970 motherboard from AMD.

Then, moving over to the Z990, which is the flagship chipset, we have 24 total PCIe lanes, which is the same as the Z890. Now, it uses four DMI Gen5 lanes, as opposed to eight maximum Gen4 lanes, but they offer a similar bandwidth, so there's not a distinct upgrade there. You're getting CPU OC, BCLK OC, and memory OC, as well as a large number of supported USB ports.

Previously, us gamers only really cared about the Z890 and B860 in the 800-series, there are now three worth considering: the B960, Z970, and Z990. If you are considering getting a Nova Lake chip, you will want to keep an eye on all three.

The Q970 and W980 are both chipsets intended for business users, explaining the presence of the Intel vPro+ Standard Manageability (though this is now called Intel vPro Essentials). This means their capabilities will be wasted in a gaming rig. Plus motherboards with them don't look anywhere near as cool.

As of the end of last month, Nova Lake CPUs were confirmed to be on track for a release in late 2026, with Intel saying 'We have important customers in both datacenter and client and that needs to be our priority'. Naturally, with the memory crisis ongoing, and the knock-on effects of that when it comes to hardware supply, we can never be fully confident with estimated release dates, but Intel's knocked it out of the park in Panther Lake testing, so it's all to play for. We just need Nova Lake to be worth the upgrade.

Imagine that you'd just bought a new Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the best gaming CPU around right now. You drop it into your AM5 socket motherboard and start enjoying the freshly boosted frame rates. After a while, you then start experiencing all kinds of problems, until eventually your gaming PC no longer fires up: the CPU is dead. That's happened to some owners of ASRock motherboards, but it's also apparently occurring with Asus models, and the company has launched an investigation into it all.

In the case of the whole ASRock thing, the company was arguably a bit dismissive of the whole problem to begin with, before admitting that the BIOS on certain motherboards was allowing too much current to be drawn by the CPU in specific scenarios. A little while afterwards, AMD itself stated that "this issue arises because some ODM (original design manufacturer) BIOSes do not adhere to AMD's recommended values."

However, Ryzen chip failures haven't been exclusive to ASRock motherboards, and there have been reports of issues with models from all the key manufacturers: Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte. Without a detailed investigation into every single case, though, you just can't point the finger at these companies and say it's their fault. It might be, but it could also be more down to user error, or a combination of both.

Hence why Asus has issued a public statement on the matter: "We are aware of recent reports concerning AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs and Asus AMD 800-series motherboards, and we have initiated an immediate internal review. Our teams are conducting preventive checks on product compatibility and performance, working closely with AMD to validate reported cases and ensure ongoing stability and quality. We are looking to provide timely solutions to ensure our products and services meet expected standards."

It goes on to recommend that users should "update their Asus AMD 800-series motherboard to the latest BIOS via Asus EZ Flash or BIOS Flashback to help ensure system stability; we provide an official technical support FAQ with detailed instructions."

And should you have experienced any issues yourself, then it says that you should "contact ASUS customer service for direct assistance. We take this matter seriously and value our customers’ trust, and we remain committed to transparency and to ensuring our products can be used with confidence." Though given Asus' history with customer service, you may not feel particularly encouraged by that advice.

Understandably, no company is ever going to admit fault until all the facts are clear and present, and even then, any responses are likely to be tempered to avoid causing alarm. But I do wonder if there is more to all of this than just out-of-specification BIOS configurations. After all, the failure of 13th and 14th Core processors in 2024 ultimately transpired to not being a motherboard problem, but design and manufacturing flaws inherent to Intel's Raptor Lake processors.

That required a slew of microcode updates to be released, to bring voltages and currents back under control, though the reputational damage was irreversible. As good as the Core i7 14700K and Core i9 14900K are, you won't see many PC enthusiasts recommending them, simply because one can't know for sure that they won't fail at some point, despite Intel's best efforts in resolving the problems.

Could it be that AMD's processor designs are doing something similar? Will Ryzen 7000 and 9000-series owners, especially those with X3D models, require microcode updates to limit current draw such that even if a motherboard vendor doesn't quite stick to AMD's guidelines, there's no way the chip can permanently fail?

One thing is certain, though: We haven't heard the last of AMD CPU meltygate, as Zen 5 chips are still going to be popular choices for many years to come.

As much as I like a good motherboard, reviewing them can often be a frustrating experience, especially if it has a brand-new chipset. Wonky BIOS files and awkward connectors are easy enough to deal with, but it's a whole different story when it comes to Wi-Fi drivers. That's why Asus' new ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial is noteworthy, because it comes with those drivers pre-installed on the board.

It's not the only spangly feature the X870E Glacial has; it's a high-end Asus model, after all. In fact, the mobo sports a veritable smorgasbord of gadgets, extras, and options, all designed to make it as user-friendly as possible. I also have to say that the whole thing really does look very nice.

However, one of the last Asus motherboards I reviewed, the TUF Gaming B860M-Plus WiFi, was anything but user-friendly. That's because Asus uses one of three different Wi-Fi modules for this particular model, and there's no way of telling which one you've got without ripping the whole thing apart.

That means you have to try three different Wi-Fi driver sets until you hit the right one. That's not much of a problem when you've already got Windows fully set up and running, but with Redmond making it increasingly harder to set up a local account, when you first install Windows, it's quite a hassle juggling drivers, USB sticks, and funky key shortcuts to get a wireless connection going, just so you can have an operating system on your PC.

So when I saw that the X870E Glacial has its Wi-Fi driver pre-installed on the board (they kick in when you're installing Windows), I was genuinely excited to see this feature.

It's not just Asus that has this problem with guess-the-vendor Wi-Fi drivers, as I know that some Gigabyte motherboards are like this, too. To be fair to both companies, it wouldn't really be an issue if Microsoft just let you quickly skip past the Internet requirement during Windows installation, though you would still be faced with guessing which set is the right one to use.

The automatic installation of drivers is something that's relatively new in the world of motherboards, but I'm glad it's here, as it really does help with the whole process of setting up a new build. That said, it only takes place once Windows is fully installed and even then, you're reliant on the board vendors having the latest drivers on their servers, and you still need a net connection to start with.

Sticking all of the key drivers into a bit of onboard memory on the motherboard seems to be the best solution, to my eyes at least. Unfortunately, it also adds to the cost of manufacturing the motherboard (not just the increase in the bill of materials but also the time it takes to package the product), so we may never see this filter down to the mainstream or budget sector.

There again, with DRAM set to be hugely expensive for at least another year, perhaps Asus and the like might just add it as an option to all their new motherboards as a means to keep people interested in buying a new mobo. It won't make building a PC as easy as sticking Lego bricks together, but every little helps.

If you have an Asus PC, laptop, AIO, or mini PC, you might want to make sure your pre-installed apps are up-to-date. That's generally always good advice, but with the patching of a high-severity exploit in Asus' MyAsus app, it's particularly true right now.

As posted to the Asus security board, "An uncontrolled DLL loading path vulnerability exists in AsusSoftwareManagerAgent." With this, an attacker could mess with the app, "potentially resulting in arbitrary code execution". From here, the attacker could have a pretty serious level of access to your rig.

As shared in the security record, this problem is of high severity, with a score of 8.5. Luckily, attackers need local access, so that certainly makes the exploit a little less worrisome. In this case, that severity is likely linked to how dire access would be, as opposed to how easy it is to pull off, as needing local access cuts out 99% of the world from your rig.

This vulnerability affects 64-bit machines before update v3.1.49.0 or before v1.1.37.0 and ARM machines before update v3.2.50.0. If you're looking to update your MyAsus, it should automatically do so via the Microsoft Store.

You can also manually prompt it to get the latest update via the Microsoft Store by booting it up and finding the app. The MyAsus app is a way to maintain your system and update software, and it's something you will find pre-installed in Asus laptops and PCs from the factory floor.

Asus warned users of its Intel motherboards just last month that they are potentially vulnerable to attacks that gain "unintended access to system memory" and would need to update. Like the latest vulnerability, it was of high severity but required local access to do the exploit. In this case, one could use a PCIe device to gain access to system memory between the first boot up and the OS managing DMA operations.

Just a month prior to that, Asus warned users to download updates for the MyAsus app and for its routers, as it had discovered and fixed new vulnerabilities present in both. The problem with issues in the MyAsus app is that potentially millions of users will just have it preinstalled without even thinking about it.

Naturally, flaws and exploits will be caught in software and hardware every day, so this is as good a chance as ever to go through your PC and make sure everything is up-to-date and looking good. You've likely got tonnes of apps that would never see an update if it weren't for automatic update tools, so it can't hurt to get ahead of the curve.

That reminds me, I need to… go do something.

When it comes to the latest CPUs and GPUs, we all know that they need to be made on the most complex and expensive process nodes, in order to pack in billions of transistors into the die. However, not all chips need to be fabricated this way, which is why Intel is only just making the transition to 8 nm for its motherboard chipsets. More importantly, though, it seems that it won't be the US chip giant that will be making them, but Samsung instead.

That's according to a news report by The Korean Economic Daily, aka Hankyung (via Tom's Hardware). Sources within the industry have told the publication that Samsung is "on the verge of securing an order for Intel's 8 nm chips." It's not talking about the company's CPUs or GPUs, though, but rather its PCHs or platform controller hubs.

Better known as a motherboard chipset, these little dies are responsible for handling the control signals and data flows between the CPU and all the peripheral slots and ports (PCIe sockets, M.2 slots, USB, etc). Intel doesn't provide a huge amount of information about how and where these chips are made, but in general, they're not manufactured via cutting-edge process nodes.

Rather than using Intel 7 or TSMC's N3, PCHs can be made on older nodes (think 22 to 14 nm) because they're not packed with complex logic processing and dense cache. They don't even use much in the way of any power, either, as Intel's Z890 chip gets by on just six watts. But since CPUs are increasingly packing in more and more PCIe lanes, future generations of PCHs do need to be more capable.

Hence why Intel's next chipsets are expected to be made on an 8 nm process node. And it just so happens that Samsung has a very mature and cheap fabrication system of that type. For example, Nvidia used it to make its RTX 30-series of GPUs and still does for the Nintendo Switch 2 SoC.

The obvious question to ask here is which PCHs Intel plans on being made at Samsung? It's unlikely to be anything current, and given that the forthcoming Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake mobile processors don't require a PCH (as that stuff is integrated into the chip itself), it all points to Intel's next generation of desktop CPUs: Nova Lake.

All the rumours for that processor point to it being huge, with many more PCIe lanes than in Arrow Lake, so a more capable PCH is certainly going to be needed. With Nova Lake expected to appear at some point in 2026, Samsung will obviously need to have production of the PCHs in full swing well before the processors arrive.

The Korean Economic Daily claims that this is already well in hand, so at least that side of the chip package should be sorted, even if the rest isn't up to speed just yet. Mind you, if you're an Intel fan right to the very marrow of your bones, with an Intel CPU, GPU, and motherboard, you might be slightly disappointed that one tiny part of the whole caboodle won't be pure Team Blue.

If you have an Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, or ASRock motherboard, you need to update the BIOS if you want to continue playing Valorant. That's because a critical flaw was recently found that allows cheaters to bypass hardware-based security checks and potentially inject code before Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat can wake up.

As laid out in the Riot Games blog (via Tom's Hardware), Valorant relies on IOMMU (Input-Output Memory Management Unit) to check the ID of your memory and only allow greenlit devices to get access.

In the BIOS/firmware, your motherboard has Pre-Boot DMA Protection, which uses IOMMU to prevent a rogue device from accessing your system as it boots up. This means, once you're into the operating system, your device assumes all is good and continues as normal.

The blog post says, "In some cases, hardware manufacturer firmwares incorrectly signaled to the operating system that this feature was fully active, when it was actually failing to initialize the IOMMU correctly during early boot."

This means someone getting in before those security functions boot up can effectively bypass the security, and "by the time the system is fully loaded, it can’t be 100% confident that 0 integrity breaking code was injected via DMA." This flaw was shared with manufacturers, and updates will be rolling out going forward.

If you attempt to play Valorant on a system without the new updates, you will receive a VAN: Restriction—effectively stating that your rig isn't too dissimilar to those of a potential cheater.

Riot says, "BIOS updates aren't exactly as exciting as looking at ban numbers, but this is a necessary step in our arms race against hardware cheats". We don't yet know how long bad actors have been using this technique to cheat at Valorant, and the game being free-to-play already removes one of the biggest barriers to entry for reoffenders.

If you're looking to get information on your motherboard and how to update, you can find a handy list of the security advisories below.

• Case VU#382314
• Asus Security Advisory (CVE-2025-11901)
• Gigabyte Security Advisory (CVE‑2025‑14302)
• MSI Security Advisory (CVE-2025-14303)
• Asrock Security Advisory (CVE-2025-14304)

Asus warned motherboard owners of the same problem this week, as it will affect even those lucky enough not to play Valorant, though it does require local access to actually have any effect.

Still, a reminder to update your BIOS and an assurance of fewer cheaters in a single blog post is certainly not a bad way to end the year for Riot. Though users who dislike their anti-cheat software rustling around in their PC's underlying firmware might not be too happy.

Security warnings and updates for PCs, their components, and the software they run are everyday occurrences. So much so that we never really give them much attention: We just download the patch and carry on as normal. However, Asus has warned that many of its Intel motherboards are vulnerable and can allow access to system memory, which is enough to make anyone sit up and pay attention.

Asus does point out on its security advisory page that although the problem is widespread and has a CVE rating of 7 (High severity), the vulnerability does require local access to the motherboard in order to gain access to the system RAM.

The problem relates to the IOMMU (Input-Output Memory Management Unit) and add-on PCIe devices. The former has all kinds of protection mechanisms for direct memory access (DMA) operations, but Asus doesn't fully activate them on its Intel motherboards until just before the operating system is able to take over DMA protection duties.

In other words, between first booting up the motherboard and the OS managing DMA operations, there's a window of opportunity for someone to use a PCIe device to gain access to system memory. That's obviously not a good thing, hence Asus' security advice and its subsequent BIOS updates.

It's not just one or two motherboards that are affected by this vulnerability: any Asus motherboard that uses an Intel Z490, W480, B460, H410, Z590, B560, H510, Z690, B660, W680, Z790, B760, or W790 chipset will need a BIOS update. Basically, only its latest boards for Arrow Lake processors and its much older platforms are safe.

If you're wondering why the problem exists in the first place, it's to improve the level of compatibility between the motherboard and any PCIe device you care to install. Some will be a bit picky about DMA protections during the initial boot phase, so it will be interesting to know if such devices throw up any problems once the motherboard's BIOS has been updated.

For maximum security, Asus recommends that you "download and update the BIOS to the specified version from the official website and, in the BIOS Setup Utility, configure the IOMMU DMA Protection setting to 'Enable with Full Protection.' And avoid using unknown add-on devices that have not obtained security certification."

With so many Intel motherboards potentially at risk, there's no guarantee that your board will already have a BIOS update to resolve the problem, so keep checking to see when the new firmware comes through. In the meantime, just don't let anyone near your beloved gaming PC. Especially if they've got a dodgy-looking PCIe card that they want to test in your rig.

As hardware reviews go, this one has probably been the most challenging one I've ever undertaken in my three decades of testing and rating PC hardware. Not because the product is incredibly complex or difficult to use; far from it, in fact. And not because it was a bug-ridden, early-release mess either. Indeed not, as the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition is probably the most stable, easy-to-use, and feature-rich desktop PC motherboard I have ever tested.

The problem is in its name: X Edition. This is a limited release model, created by MSI to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its Godlike series of motherboards. Only 1,000 units will be made available, and restricted to Micro Center and Newegg in the US, and Scan in the UK. So the chances of an average PC enthusiast being able to buy one are astonishingly remote, even if you have a wallet capacious enough to afford the Godlike X Edition.

So how does one go about testing and ultimately reviewing a product that hardly anyone will be able to buy? In some ways, MSI has made the challenge simple by taking a standard MEG X870E Godlike (though they're hardly what you call standard) and upgrading the package to produce the X Edition.

I might as well get this out of the way now, though. It doesn't feel like MSI has done enough to make the X Edition really worth being limited to one thousand units. That's because there's only a handful of differences between the standard Godlike and the Godlike X Edition. You get an MSI plushy-keyring dragon toy, a bespoke heatsink for the primary M.2 SSD slot that's labelled with the unit's production number, plus a USB-powered stand/box to show off said heatsink.

There are also some minor tweaks to the look of the UEFI/BIOS, and the polychromic display over the rear IO panel shroud sports a different colour, but that's pretty much it. As far as hardware and operational features are concerned, you're not missing anything by picking up a normal Godlike.

Of course, that particular motherboard is just completely over-the-top anyway, and it's really not suitable for the vast majority of PC gamers or overclocking enthusiasts. It is an astonishingly well-equipped and comprehensively specified motherboard, but unless you absolutely must have 15 USB rear ports, all rated to 10 Gbps or faster, up to 7 M.2 slots, and all the visual bling possible, the standard Godlike is going to be an excessive purchase for anyone.

That said, while I can't afford an MSI MEG X870 Godlike, let alone the Godlike X Edition, for my gaming rig, I would buy one in a flash if money were no object whatsoever. Not because it's the best AM5 motherboard you can buy, but simply because I use a lot of USB devices and SSDs. If I could host them all on one motherboard, with next to no compromises, I'd be very happy.

If I had to rank the Godlike X Edition's features, expansion and connectivity options would easily come top of the pile. Starting with PCIe slots, there are only three of them, and while two are physically x16 in size, only the top slot is electrically x16 Gen 5. The second PCIe slot is x8 Gen 5, with the little one at the bottom being x4 Gen 4. The latter will be forced to run at x2, though, if you fill the fourth M.2 slot with any kind of SSD.

That's the only bad news, because when it comes to M.2 slots, it's a smorgasbord of connectivity. You get two x4 Gen 5, two x4 Gen 4, and one x2/x4 Gen 4 SSD slots, but if that's not enough storage options, you also get MSI's M.2 Xpander-Z Slider adapter card, which can house two hot-swappable Gen 5 SSDs.

While the M.2 card is very slim, taking up just one PCI slot in the PC's chassis, it's surprisingly tall and long. There's a single 60 mm fan to keep things cool when fully loaded with hot Gen 5 drives, but it's quite noisy under load. It also blocks airflow to very thick graphics cards (think monster-size RTX 5090s), but I guess if you've just bought a Godlike or Godlike X Edition motherboard, there's a strong chance you'll be watercooling your GPU anyway.

The rear IO panel on the MSI MEG X870 Godlike X Edition is the same as the normal Godlike, and it's like a small slice of paradise for any USB hoarder. Where the vast majority of motherboards offer a range of USB ports at various speeds, MSI has gone all out here. You get eight USB 3.2 Type-A and five USB 3.2 Type-C, all rated to 10 Gbps, and as per AMD's X870 requirements, there are two USB4 Type-C ports that are good for 40 Gbps.

That's fifteen USB ports on the rear panel alone. However, if you go ham with SSDs and fill the second M.2 slot, then the USB4 ports will be limited to 20 Gbps, and the drive will go from x4 to x2. That's because the motherboard's USB4 board-mounted controller shares PCIe lanes with that second M.2 slot.

If you've spent all that money on a Godlike motherboard, you might be disappointed to find such compromises, but all AMD AM5 boards have them, because desktop Ryzen processors and the X870E chipset just don't have enough PCI Express lanes to go around. Should that be a deal-breaker for you, then you'll either have to go down an Intel Core Ultra 200S route or blow your budget clean out of the water with an AMD Threadripper build.

Continuing the theme of excess, the Godlike and Godlike X Edition both sport two displays: a polychromic one on the rear IO panel shroud, and the other is MSI's Dynamic Dashboard III. The latter is built into the EZ Bridge, a unit that magnetically attaches to the motherboard, and as well as being home to a configurable four-inch LCD display, it also houses power and reset buttons, a release mechanism for the main PCIe slot, as well as a host of headers.

These are all mounted horizontally, making it much easier to have a neater-looking build in terms of cables. This is where you can connect the included fan hub to the motherboard, with dedicated headers for its SATA power and control, along with headers for thermocouple sensors (also included), front panel chassis connectors, MSI's special all-in-one fan/USB/ARGB cable header, and more.

To be honest, there are so many headers and sockets for power, fans, lights, and sensing that it's somewhat overwhelming. If you're a PC novice, no matter how wealthy you are, it's likely to be far too daunting to use in a first-ever build.

Experienced builders, especially those who are keen on overclocking, will no doubt relish all these options to expand, cool, and monitor the motherboard. And speaking of cooling, MSI has naturally plastered the whole motherboard with swathes of metal, front and back, to prevent excessive thermals from ruining anyone's day.

The heatsink covering the CPU VRMs, for example, is one of the largest I've ever seen. That doesn't automatically mean it's very good, of course, but we'll see just how capable it is when we dig into the benchmarks shortly. The same goes for the M.2 heatsinks: they're dense and large, but the one covering the primary SSD slot does have some issues.

Rather than it being an enormous slab of steel, it's actually quite slim, and it's topped by a very smooth and reflective surface, plus there's a small display embedded in it. Neither aspect is a good thing for heat dissipation, as we'll see soon enough. You actually get two of these heatsinks, one that you can use all the time, and another (unique to the Godlike X Edition) that you can either fit to the motherboard or mount in a special display box.

This has a USB Type-C port on the rear for powering the heatsink's display, and a small button at the front of the box cycles through various preset modes for the screen. It all looks very pretty when running, but it doesn't quite feel 'special' enough for an anniversary, limited-run product.

Benchmarks and performance

PC Gamer test rig: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Asus ROG Strix LC III 360 AIO cooler | 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | 2 TB Corsair MP700 SSD | Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1000 W PSU | Thermal Grizzly Der8enchtable chassis | Acer XB280KH monitor | Windows 11 25H2

Something else that doesn't feel all that amazing is the performance of the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition. It's certainly not bad, but as you can see below, you're not getting anything better from it than you would from a motherboard that's a quarter of the cost of a standard Godlike.

While some of the differences in gaming performance between the boards can be explained by changes in BIOS, CPU microcode, Windows updates, and game patches, the fact remains that you're not going to magically get a higher frame rate just because you've bought one of the most expensive desktop motherboards around.

Through my various tests of MSI's latest boards, both AMD and Intel, I get the feeling that it uses quite conservative CPU and memory settings by default, to maximise stability and compatibility. You can bypass some of these by jumping into the UEFI and enabling things like Enhanced PBO or Game Mode, but they don't automatically result in a significant gaming boost.

It's a similar story in our productivity/content creation benchmark results. The MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition is pretty on par with the other motherboards, and for the same reasons as in the gaming benchmarks. If you want more performance than this, you'll just have to spend a lot of time working through and testing each UEFI option that relates to the CPU and RAM.

I did explore this briefly, but the Ryzen 9 9900X isn't AMD's best processor for overclocking and our choice of RAM kit is based on stability and compatibility, not outright performance. In other words, I didn't get much more out of our test rig with the Godlike X Edition, or at the very least, nothing more than I've got from other AM5 motherboards.

While the gaming and CPU test results are perhaps a little disappointing, they're completely understandable. However, the one aspect of the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition that you might be surprised about is just how average the thermal performance seems to be.

It's best to ignore the CPU temperatures, as these are far more affected by the cooler and test environment than the motherboard itself. This is also true for other temperatures, of course, but as the VRMs and primary SSD were being cooled entirely by the host's heatsinks (i.e. no active fans), the above results are a good indication of how well each motherboard handles heat.

Despite the enormous VRM heatsink, the Godlike X Edition's voltage regulators appear to run hotter than almost any other board in the test group. However, I have noticed that there is a distinct lack of information provided by any vendor as to where and how this temperature is reported. That means the differences in reported temperatures could be entirely down to the placement of the thermal sensor.

To see how well the X870E Godlike X Edition coped with more extreme power loads, I enabled PBO Enhanced Mode 3 in the UEFI and ran the Baldur's Gate 3 and Cinebench tests again. It made not a jot of difference in BG3, neither performance nor temperatures, but it caused havoc in Cinebench.

With a peak CPU package power of 208 W (24% higher than when using the default configuration), the extra energy drove the CPU temperature up to 97 °C, but produced a score no different from before. Interestingly, though, the VRM temperatures were no higher (they were actually a little lower), which shows that MSI's heatsink is a lot better than the test results suggest.

I do wish MSI had a better heatsink for the main SSD slot, though, because while it looks very nice, the combination of the reflective surface and active display does little to help thermals. A peak temperature of 76 °C isn't catastrophic for a Gen 5 SSD, but it's not exactly great, either.

Conclusion

At this point in a motherboard review, I normally move on to discussing whether the item in question is worth buying or not, weighing up its relative merits and failings against the competition at its price point. There's no point in doing that here, partly because there are very few other desktop AM5 motherboards that cost this much.

The main reason, though, is that I suspect most people just won't be able to buy the MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition. With only 1,000 units available, they're likely to be snapped up the very second they reach the scant few retailers. You can buy the normal MSI MEG X870E Godlike, though.

Let's ignore the price ($1,100 at Amazon) of that particular board; forget about its enormous size and weight, too (E-ATX size and almost three kilograms). Think of the average default performance as simply being an invitation to experimenting with coolers and UEFI settings. What really matters is MSI's 'everything and the kitchen sink' approach to the Godlike.

You get truly exceptional levels of expansion and connectivity, more so than any other AM5 motherboard. The visual appearance is spectacular when everything is fully lit and displaying merrily away. As a centrepiece for building the ultimate Ryzen desktop PC, the MSI MEG X870 Godlike and Godlike X Edition imbue the kind of excess that many a PC enthusiast aspires to.

Sadly, even if you could afford the Godlike X Edition, you probably won't be lucky enough to actually get one. Best just get the MSI MEG X870E Godlike instead, then.

I'm not sure I love that we've started flippantly calling it 'the memory apocalypse,' but given just how much hardware this peaking pricing could affect, it does feel fitting. Motherboard sales are apparently just the latest victim, with some retailers apparently seeing a devastating year-on-year decline.

According to Hong Kong hardware site, HKEPC, a number of Chinese media reports claim that major motherboard manufacturers—including MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus—have seen motherboard sales drop up to 50% compared to figures from November and December 2024. HKEPC suggests this drop in Motherboard sales is due to DRAM prices beginning to rise in October, putting off would-be PC upgraders at a time when we'd normally see a bunch of enthusiasts making new purchases. The report goes on to further predict that this will have a subsequent knock-on effect for CPU sales before long.

HKEPC observes that gamers are spending their funds elsewhere, with sales figures for gaming peripherals (such as gaming mice and controllers) alongside monitors being much less affected. HKEPC reports that many users online have either postponed or simply downsized their PC hardware upgrade plans as a result of memory prices surging.

For instance, the site claims some forum folk who were planning to buy a completely new rig have instead opted for setups with lower RAM capacity as they wait for prices to become slightly more reasonable. Unfortunately for all of us, the memory pricing apocalypse could carry on well into 2028 and beyond, as Samsung and SK Hynix opt to 'minimize the risk of oversupply.'

But how did we get here? Would it surprise you if I said 'AI'? A whole lot of memory is necessary to sate the computational demands of an AI server. With AI continuing to be big business (Nvidia, Microsoft, and Anthropic announced a multi-billion dollar strategic partnership less than two weeks ago), it's perhaps little wonder we're seeing such a shortage.

As these major tech players hog supply, that means there's less to go around at a consumer-level—and that means surging prices. But as we're already seeing, it's not just memory we've got to worry about. For one thing, TLC and QLC NAND flash wafers often used in SSDs are also seeing a shortage induced price hike. For another, GPU prices weren't exactly tumbling down during the latest Black Friday sales either.

At the best of times, PC gaming is an expensive hobby—but that's more true now than ever before. With prices like these, it's not hard to see why there are fewer purchases.

The motherboard is objectively the most frustratingly complicated piece of computer hardware to figure out. Show me an entire GPU generation line-up and I can figure out what I want for my budget in very little time at all. Show me two motherboards and I'll be umming and ahing for quite some time. At least, that was the case, but now some absolute legend has made a tool that should make things a lot easier.

The web-based tool, MoboMaps by Robin Wilde, does what I think most people who have been in the gaming PC building bizz for a while will recognise as a giant service to humanity. It shows you visually and interactively exactly where different motherboards have different PCIe lanes routed.

Apart from how many VRMs it has and how many I/O ports it has, probably the most important thing to consider with a motherboard is how many PCIe lanes it has routed to different areas. This is particularly important when you expect to use multiple storage devices or expansion cards.

PCIe lanes are what your different components use to communicate with each other—they're physical, embedded routes that run through your motherboard. Each lane has one upstream and one downstream wire, and can either connect directly to the CPU or indirectly via the motherboard chipset.

The faster lanes are the ones that connect directly to the CPU, so these are usually reserved for at least the GPU (usually 16 lanes, designated x16) and the first NVMe port (usually four lanes, designated x4). After this, though, all bets are off. Sometimes further expansion ports and NVMe slots get chipset lanes, sometimes four of them, sometimes two, sometimes a mix of both.

That's where this app comes in. It shows you very clearly for each motherboard where the different lanes are going. It even has interactive buttons for different modes, so you can see how the lanes get split when you plug in different components. For instance, with the Asus Prime X870 P WiFi, you can choose between having two chipset lanes heading towards a fourth M.2 slot, or to a SATA slot.

The tool has filters, too, so you can narrow the motherboards down to just those you're interested in by features, number of different slots, price, manufacturer, and so on. Understanding a motherboard's lane configuration can sometimes be the biggest and most frustrating hurdle, so let's all breathe a collective sigh of relief for this one.

The best PC gaming gear 2025

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The latest version of the BTF or Back to the Future rear-connect standard for motherboards, BTF 3.0 , goes even further in its quest to banish cables for a super-clean look, this time consolidating power supply for everything into a single server-derived power slot rated at over 2,000 W.

BTF has always been about reducing cable clutter and moving what cables remain to the rear of the motherboard, allowing the topside to be as clean and clutter free as possible.

To that end, features like the BTF supplementary power connector for graphics cards does away with plug-in cables in favour of an additional slot on the motherboard—which in turn requires custom-designed graphics cards—are at the heart of the standard.

But for the most part, BTF 2.0 mostly moved cables and connectors to the rear of the motherboard rather than actually getting rid of them. The new BTF 3.0 revision, however, takes cable consolidation to a new level by amalgamating literally all power into a single 50-pin connector.

If that sounds ambitious, it's derived from the CRPS power supply standard used by enterprise servers, in which application it's rated to over 3,000 W. For BTF 3.0, this interface tops out at 2,145, with 1,680 W available for the CPU and GPU.

That's plenty for even the most demanding current processor and graphics card combo, which is probably a 270 W TDP AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with Nvidia's 650 W RTX 5090 graphics.

Another intriguing element is a new modular take on the aforementioned GPU power connector. The existing BTF standard means that compatible graphics cards can only be used on BTF motherboards.

With the new BTF 3.0 revision, a new GPU power board plugs directly into a standard 12V-2x6 12-pin GPU power socket on the end of the GPU board. In turn, that board then slots into the BTF GPU power socket on the motherboard, enabling a cable-free GPU.

However, without the GPU power board plugged in, the graphics card is essentially standard, complete with the 12-pin power socket and compatible with any regular motherboard and PSU. Clever. (For the record, it seems similar to the BTF 2.5 graphics adapter that Asus announced earlier this summer, but it's not totally clear how the two are related).

Of course, BTF 3.0 isn't quite a fully cable-free solution. Various headers and connectors remain on the rear for functions like the front panel I/O, SATA and more. But it's getting there.

Incidentally, you may not know that BTF is not, in fact, a project backed by big motherboard makers. Instead, it's the work, essentially, of a DIYer who goes by the handle DIY-APE who has been inspired by the idea of creating a PC equivalent to the sleekly cable-free Apple Mac Pro. BTF 3.0 brings DIY-APE a significant step closer to that aim.

His latest video takes you through the whole story of how he developed the standard despite limited technical knowledge, promoted it with reluctant motherboard makers and iterated various features. It's all very impressive and well worth a watch, with oodles of interesting details.

The video also helps you to understand why standards like this generally don't get adopted. But DIY-APE seems to be incredibly dedicated to the cause and it's remarkable that he managed to get big OEMs like Asus to adopt BTF at all.

So, there's at least some cause to hope that BTF will become more widely adopted. Apart from the reduced cable clutter, reducing all the power cables to a single connector doesn't half make PC builds simpler. We like, we like a lot.

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The MEG Z890 Ace is one of MSI's most expensive Intel LGA 1851 motherboards around. It's not the absolute priciest, as that honour goes to the $1,000 Z890 Godlike. But while the Ace is half the cost, it still sports a very steep price tag for a mere motherboard. So what exactly are you getting for $500 that you don't get with a $250 model?

Let's start with the most eye-popping feature, the number of USB ports on the rear IO panel. At first glance, it would seem that you get four Type-C and 11 Type-A sockets for USB devices, but that's only half the story. Like many mainstream and high-end Core Ultra 200S motherboards, the MEG Z890 Ace sports two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

These support up to 40 Gbps in Thunderbolt 4 mode, 20 Gbps in USB4 mode, or 10 Gbps when operating as USB 3.2 Type-C sockets, as well as providing DisplayPort 2.1 outputs. The other Type-C connections are 10 Gbps USB 3.2, but here's the really impressive part: So are all the other Type-A ports.

Yes, that's right. There isn't a single 5 Gbps or USB 2.0 socket, just a veritable wall of high-speed peripheral connectivity. If you care not one jot about gaming performance, thermal levels, or anything to do with storage, then the MEG Z890 Ace is well worth considering for that alone, assuming the price tag doesn't put you off.

But there's even more to drool over. The motherboard is home to three PCIe expansion slots and five M.2 SSD connectors. In the case of the former, two are Gen 5 and are hooked up directly to the CPU, with the remaining slot being Gen 4 and handled by the Z890 chipset. However, while they're all physically x16 slots, only the primary one is electrically x16; the others are x8 and x4, respectively.

The compromises continue with the M.2 slots, because while three of them are connected to the CPU, and they're all either Gen 4 or Gen 5 in capability, there's a fair degree of PCIe lane sharing between the PCIe and M.2 slots.

Basically, the CPU and chipset only have so many to go around, so if you load up every slot with a device or SSD, you'll have to sacrifice some performance.

There's no way around this limitation, unfortunately, but at least none of the slots are fully disabled if you choose to use them all, and they don't affect the USB ports at all.

As with all of MSI's latest motherboards, there's a host of user-friendly features to make your PC life that little bit easier. All of the M.2 heatsinks and the primary PCIe slot for a graphics card have quick-release mechanisms, dedicated buttons for clearing and flashing the BIOS, debug LEDs and a display to indicate boot process stages and errors, and even the Wi-Fi antenna just pushes into its sockets (no screws involved).

The UEFI is logically set out and easy to use, though once you delve into the advanced section, it helps to have a Master's degree in electronics to decipher the terminology. That's entirely normal, of course, and certainly not meant as a criticism of MSI's interface, but given that today's motherboards support a high-resolution output, it's a shame that more information isn't displayed about what many of the settings actually do.

The overall build quality of the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is very high, as one would expect from a $500 motherboard. It's helped by the substantial metal support panel on the rear of the board, and although it makes the Ace very heavy, there's practically zero chance of it warping when loaded with massive graphics cards.

With a multitude of other features, many relating to power and overclocking, you'd think that using a Core Ultra 9 285K in the MEG Z890 Ace would result in premium-level performance. Surprisingly, that's not the case.

PC Gamer test rig
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 AIO | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | GPU: Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1050 W | OS: Windows 11 25H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

The motherboards in our benchmark results were tested over a long period of time, so some of the differences will be due to BIOS, microcode, and Windows updates. However, I've been using this particular motherboard in test rigs since it first launched in October 2024, and it's never been top-tier when it comes to performance.

For example, our Factorio test stresses the CPU's cache and memory systems, with the latter relying on RAM timings employed by the motherboard. The Z890 Ace was slower than this 12 months ago, but it's barely improved since then.

The overall gaming performance can't be described as being bad, as some of it is down to quirks of Intel's Arrow Lake architecture, but that $500 price tag carries certain expectations. A year ago, it was even more expensive ($650 at launch), and you would have surely been disappointed by the gaming results if you'd bought one back then.

It's a slightly better situation when it comes to content creation and CPU-heavy benchmarks, but once again, not what you'd expect from such an expensive motherboard. One possible explanation for the so-so results is that MSI could be using conservative RAM timings to improve stability and support for ultra-fast CUDIMMs.

However, the Zzip results suggest that this might not be the case, as they're pretty good for the most part. Compressing lots of files very rapidly demands high memory bandwidth and low latencies, so if the MEG Z890 did have slow timings, they'd show up here.

That said, given the gaming results, if your content creation apps are heavily dependent on RAM performance, you might want to consider the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero over the MSI MEG Z890 Ace. They're both just as pricey and feature-rich as each other, but the Asus board doesn't exhibit the MSI's variable performance.

Perhaps the biggest surprise with the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is that despite being festooned with metal heatsinks across the board, its thermal performance is no better than motherboards that are half the price. Again, none of the figures are poor in isolation; it's only when you compare them to the competition that you begin to wonder just where all that money is going.

Well, the answer is simple: connectivity options. The veritable wall of USB ports and M.2 slots, along with a 10 Gbps LAN interface and Wi-Fi 7 module. Few other motherboards come close to the Ace in these aspects, especially the fact that every USB port on the rear IO panel is 10 Gbps or faster.

Something else $500 is buying you is overclocking support. While Intel's Core Ultra 200S chips can't hit the same heights as its last-generation Raptor Lake processors in terms of raw clock speeds, significant gains can be found by overclocking the die-to-die (D2D) and E-core clocks. This is something the MEG Z890 Ace makes very easy to do, though how successful such endeavours are will depend heavily on the quality of the CPU.

But that's it, unfortunately. You might think that all those user-friendly additions, such as the quick-release mechanisms, are also part of the cost, but MSI's MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi has many of them too, and it's half the price of the Ace.

All of which means that the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is only going to appeal to a very specific PC user, and it's certainly not going to be one who's solely interested in gaming. Such enthusiasts will, of course, choose an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D over a Core Ultra 9 285K anyway, but diehard Intel gaming fans will be better served choosing the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite.

On the other hand, if you have a small mountain of USB devices and SSDs all wanting a single home, then the MSI MEG Z890 Ace is certainly worth considering.

The MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi has been on the market for 12 months, as it was one of the first motherboards to be released alongside Intel's Core Ultra 200S range of desktop CPUs, aka Arrow Lake, in October 2024. At the time, there were few other models to choose from, but that's considerably changed over the months, and MSI faces stiff competition at this price point.

The Z890 Tomahawk's original MSRP was $300, though you're more likely to find it around the $260 mark, and while that's not a huge reduction, it brings it more in line with boards from ASRock and Gigabyte. That's not the only thing that's changed since last year, as the performance of Arrow Lake has noticeably improved due to a wealth of microcode, BIOS, and Windows updates. In gaming, Core Ultra 200S still lag behind AMD's Ryzen 9000-series, though.

MSI's Tomahawk series of motherboards has been around since 2018, as part of its budget and mainstream selection of products, sporting the MAG (MSI Arsenal Gaming) moniker. The Z890 Tomahawk WiFi sits near the top-end of the MAG pile, partly because of its price tag, but mostly because of the comprehensive array of features it has.

That's because, as its name suggests, the Tomahawk utilises Intel's Z890 chipset, which provides the most PCIe lanes for expansion slots, storage options, and USB ports among the entire 800-series. The motherboard has three PCIe slots: one x16 Gen 5, directly connected to the CPU, and two x4 Gen 4 via the Z890 chipset.

Alongside them, there are four M.2 slots for SSDs. The CPU controls two of them, with the primary slot being Gen 5 and the latter being Gen 4; the remaining two are both Gen 4 and controlled by the chipset. One of the best aspects of Arrow Lake and the Z890 is the fact that there are sufficient PCIe lanes to allow for all of the above to be filled and still retain full performance.

The same is true for all the Thunderbolt and USB ports on the rear IO panel. You get two of the former, and given that they support up to 40 Gbps in Thunderbolt 4 mode, 20 Gbps in USB4 mode, or 10 Gbps when operating as USB 3.2 Type-C sockets, as well as providing DisplayPort 2.1 outputs, you get a host of options just from them alone.

As for the other USB ports, there are four USB 3.2 running at 10 Gbps (three Type-A, one Type-C) and a further four USB 3.0 at 5 Gbps. Surprisingly, there are no USB 2.0 ports on the rear IO panel, but I don't think anyone can complain about having a total of ten sockets for peripherals, as that's the going rate at this price point.

Likewise, the array of user-friendly features across the motherboard is most welcome. Two of the M.2 heatsinks and the primary PCIe slot for a graphics card have quick-release mechanisms, there are buttons to clear and flash the BIOS, debug LEDs and a display to indicate what's happening during the boot process, and a Wi-Fi antenna that simply pushes into its sockets. Even the UEFI is clear and easy to use.

So far, so good. In fact, if all you care about is storage, expansion, and support for peripherals, then you might as well stop reading now and just head off and buy one. Before you do, though, it's worth noting that the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk isn't outstanding in every area.

PC Gamer test rig
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 AIO | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | GPU: Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1050 W | OS: Windows 11 25H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

Given that the above motherboards in the gaming benchmark results were tested over a broad period of time, some of the discrepancies will be down to differences in BIOS, microcode, and Windows. However, the fact that MSI's board is notably slower in our Factorio test has been an issue since launch. It's better than it was, but there's no obvious reason as to why it should be so far behind the other motherboards.

That said, the overall gaming performance isn't bad; it's just very average when compared to other boards. Some are better, some are worse. It's almost certainly not helped by the peculiarities of Arrow Lake, as MSI's X870 Tomahawk for AMD processors performs just as well as any other X870 board.

It's a similar story when it comes to content creation and CPU-heavy benchmarks. In all cases, the MSI Z890 Tomahawk lags behind the other boards we've tested, but not enough to be really noticeable in real-world situations. MSI may be using conservative RAM timings to boost stability, which would go some way to explain the above results and, to a lesser extent, why it's slower in Factorio.

You might be tempted to think that you can get around all of this by simply applying a spot of overclocking to the Core Ultra 200S processor used in the motherboard. That's certainly very easy to do, as MSI's UEFI has everything logically set out and clearly labelled. However, with default settings, the Z890 Tomahawk isn't starting at the best position to overclock from.

As you can see, the Core Ultra 9 285K used for all our LGA 1851 motherboard tests is drawing the most power during the Baldur's Gate 3 benchmark on the MSI board. Not by a huge margin, but when it's already 9 W up on the Gigabyte, overclocking will only make that worse. More power means more heat, and not just for the CPU, as the VRMs will be tasked harder.

While the ASRock Z890 Taichi Lite's peak VRM temperature is almost certainly a manufacturing error, the fact that the Z890 Tomahawk runs hotter than the NZXT N7 Z890 and ASRock B860 Steel Legend doesn't bode well for serious overclocking. It doesn't cope particularly well with a first-generation PCIe 5.0 SSD, either, though newer drivers do run cooler, so if you are going to take that route with your primary storage, you should consider one of the latest Gen 5 SSDs.

If you're looking for the best performance and thermals, regardless of budget, then the fiercesomely expensive Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero is untouchable. However, it's $220 more expensive than the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi, almost double the cost.

That doesn't mean it's the best Z890 motherboard out there, of course. If money is no object, then the Maximus easily wins, and where budget is important, ASRock's B860 Steel Legend WiFi can be picked up for as little as $160 at Amazon. The latter doesn't support Wi-Fi 7, though, and it has fewer Thunderbolt and USB ports than the MSI model.

Taking everything into consideration, the MSI MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi stands out as being a solid proposition: It has connectivity and expansion options that wouldn't look out of place on high-end motherboards, yet it sports a competitive, mainstream price. You don't get the best performance, unfortunately, but it's not so slow that you'd have any reason to be concerned.

Had I reviewed this motherboard back in October 2024, the conclusion wouldn't have been anywhere near as positive, but sometimes it really does pay to be late to the party.

For more than 20 years, ASRock has been churning out motherboards for just about every possible PC user and scenario. They were all very barebones and functional, though, and it wasn't until 2010 that it specifically targeted the gaming sector, with a collaboration with esports player Fatal1ty. Fast forward to 2019, and ASRock broadened its gaming appeal with the first of its Phantom Gaming series of motherboards.

These were designed "closely with partners to fine-tune the products, and to ensure every product can deliver outstanding gaming experience." Well, I can say now that one of its most recent Phantom Gaming offerings, the X870 Nova WiFi is neither fine-tuned nor delivers anything like an outstanding gaming experience.

Don't get me wrong: it's not a bad motherboard. It's just that it's hampered by a number of compromises, middling performance, and a price tag that's a touch too high in today's competitive market.

ASRock set the Phantom Gaming X870 Nova's MSRP at $300 for launch, barely a month ago, but it's already been reduced to $280 at various retailers around the globe. It's not a huge reduction, but even so, the overall price isn't quite low enough for what you're getting.

The problem is that what looks great on paper doesn't translate into a dropped jaw when experienced first-hand. This is especially true of the main feature of ASRock's Nova models: a mountain of M.2 slots for SSDs.

There are five M.2 slots in total: two Gen5, two Gen4, and one Gen3. Sounds okay, yes? Well, that fifth PCIe 3.0 slot only uses two PCIe lanes, so not only is it two generations old, it's also half the speed. Oh, and you'll lose the two SATA ports if you do use it.

Then, if you install any kind of SSD in the second M.2 slot and use either of the two USB4 ports on the rear IO panel, both systems will run at half speed. You can override this in the UEFI/BIOS, so that the M.2 slot is fully 4x, but that will completely disable the USB4 ports.

Finally, if you stick an SSD into the second Gen4 slot, the x16 PCI Express slot at the bottom of the motherboard will...you guessed it...run at half speed. Given that it's electrically an x4 slot to begin with, that leaves you with just two PCIe lanes. Fine for something like a sound card, but not so good if you planned on setting up the X870 Nova in a dual-GPU AI rig.

It's a similar situation with the rest of the rear IO panel's sockets. While there are 11 USB ports in total, only four of them are really fast: the two USB4 and the two yellow ones (40 Gbps and 10 Gbps, respectively). The rest are pretty basic, 5 Gbps in speed or USB 2.0, which is really only fast enough for mice and keyboards.

All of this is caused by the fact that AMD Ryzen processors and the solitary X870 chip in the motherboard only have so many PCI Express lanes, and every PCIe slot, M.2 socket, and SATA and USB port has to share them. There are just not enough lanes to ensure they can all run at max speed if used together.

While we're on the subject of the M.2 slots, it's worth noting that only the primary slot between the CPU and top PCIe slot has a quick-release heatsink and SSD mounting system. It's only one of two M.2 slots that has a thermal pad on the motherboard itself.

The two Gen4 and sole Gen3 slots have traditional heatsinks that require nimble fingers and a precision screwdriver to remove and reinstall them. At least, they all have quick-release mounting systems for SSDs, though if you plan on fitting anything other than 2280-sized drives, you'll be out of luck, as that's the only size the motherboard supports.

The rest of the Phantom Gaming X870 Nova's niceties include a board-mounted power button and a BIOS code LED display, both of which are useful for testers like me, but also handy for that initial boot-up test when building a gaming rig. There are plenty of fan headers, though they're not located very well and configuring them in the UEFI is very clunky.

Benchmarks and performance

PC Gamer test rig
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Strix LC III 360 | RAM: 32 GB Lexar Thor OC DDR5-6000 | GPU: Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: Thermaltake ToughPower PF3 1050 W | OS: Windows 11 25H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

Since AMD launched its Ryzen 9000-series of processors last year, relevant motherboards, Windows, and AMD's drivers have all undergone a wealth of updates to improve power management, thread scheduling, and RAM compatibility. For the performance tests of the ASRock X870 Nova, I used its latest 3.50 BIOS, which incorporates AMD's most recent microcodes for the CPU.

Theoretically, there should be no difference between any AM5-socket motherboard if one uses the same hardware, but due to the constant nature of firmware and software updates, you will always see some disparities between motherboards tested a few months ago and anything brand new.

But even accounting for that, the X870 Nova WiFI is rather underwhelming in our gaming benchmarks. It's possible that Microsoft's latest 25H2 update to Windows 11 is responsible for part of the performance deficiency, but I suspect that it's more to do with ASRock being very conservative with its CPU and RAM settings.

If that's the case, then it's a symptom of ASRock's solution to a run of CPU failures some people were experiencing with its motherboards. Given the very short time any reviewer gets with a motherboard, it's impossible to tell if ASRock has fully solved the issue, and although I'm reasonably confident it has, any cautious buyer is likely to be wary of picking up an ASRock AM5 motherboard at the moment.

So, not great, but not bad, at gaming. Fortunately, whatever ASRock is doing to affect our game benchmarks, it has no impact on Cinebench, Blender, and 7zip. All of the above results are perfectly normal for a Ryzen 9 9900X, and I repeated all of those tests multiple times to confirm the figures.

7zip is far more affected by RAM speeds and timings than the other two benchmarks, but since that's okay as well, it does mean the Phantom Gaming X870 Nova is worth considering for a content creation rig. Well, a content creation rig that only uses a couple of SSDs at most.

On the plus side, even when the Ryzen 9 9900X was pulling its maximum power consumption of 162 W for well over 10 minutes, the voltage regulator modules (VRMs) barely got hot. With a peak temperature of just 50 °C, it's clear that ASRock has installed a very solid heatsink and thermal pad solution on the X870 Nova.

Alas, the same can't be said about the M.2 slots. The primary slot only just about copes with a PCIe 5.0 SSD, and at a peak of 78 °C, that's close to hitting the thermal limit of the Corsair drive used. However, if you stick to using a Gen4 SSD or buy one of the very latest Gen5 SSDs (which do run a lot cooler than the first generation of PCIe 5.0 drives), then you should be fine.

I did find that the second Gen5 M.2 slot performed a little better, in terms of thermals, and that's probably because there's a wider area of metal to dissipate heat from. We're only talking about a handful of degrees, though, and should you fit another SSD under that heatsink, that difference will surely evaporate.

The one thing that did catch my eye (and hands) with the ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi is just how solid it feels and how good it looks, under a certain light. There is a strip of LEDs along the bottom edge of the board but none anywhere else, so the aesthetics aren't due to them: it's the coating on the M.2 heatsinks that's responsible for the pretty looks.

Around the back of the motherboard, there's a very large slab of steel, there to prevent any possible flexing of the board when fitted with a massive graphics card. I do wish more manufacturers would do this because the X870 Nova feels very sturdy. It does make it rather heavy, of course, but at least you get a sense of quality to it all.

Conclusion

If you've read through all the way to this point, I don't think you'll be surprised by my conclusion. The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi won't be suitable for most PC enthusiasts—in fact, it's only likely to appeal to a very niche group of individuals.

Put simply, this motherboard only makes sense if you need to use a lot of SSDs. More specifically, lots of SSDs and no SATA HDDs, or any peripherals that demand a full-speed USB4 port. However, if outright storage options are a must, then you're going to be better off picking an X870E motherboard, though many of these are not better than the ASRock model.

Given the so-so gaming performance and ASRock's history with CPU failures, it's not particularly suitable for gamers. And if your PC is going to be used solely for gaming, then you might as well opt for a budget B850 board and save yourself a heap of cash.

I'm a big fan of ASRock's Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova, which I use in one of my Intel test rigs, as that has six M.2 slots and only one of them is compromised in terms of PCIe lane availability. Every slot is Gen4 or better, and you can fit any size SSD and still use all four SATA ports.

Of course, many of the X870 Nova WiFi's issues are to do with the nature of AMD's Ryzen processors and its motherboard chipset, but had ASRock gone with the X870E chipset, quite a few of them would disappear altogether. It probably wouldn't be any better at gaming, but it would certainly be in more keeping with the Nova range's USP of being storage monsters.

Innovation in the world of PC motherboards is surprisingly rare, as we've been using the same format, sockets, and connectors for a long time. Which is probably why one component maker has decided that a brand new design and format moniker is what's needed to shake things up a bit. The only problem is that the whole thing is all kinds of wrong.

"More than ITX, this is YTX." That's the marketing tagline by Maxsun for its new Terminator H770YTX D5 motherboard. Unfortunately, the tweet also says "Innovative motherborad solution" and you can already guess what memes have appeared in the comments to the post.

So, what exactly is this new-fangled YTX form factor? It's a board design that's the same width as mATX but the same height as ITX. Or if you prefer numbers, YTX is 245 x 175 mm, whereas mATX is typically 245 x 245 mm, with ITX usually being around 172 x 172 mm.

That's it, there's nothing else that's particularly revolutionary about the whole shebang. The problem is that it's not an evolution of any current design, either, as the total board area is 29% smaller than mATX, yet 45% larger than ITX. Worse still, due to its dimensions, it won't fit in any ITX-sized cases, just mATX ones or larger.

Maxsun claims that its YTX form factor is "space-efficient…without compromising performance," but so what? The design provides room for two additional M.2 slots compared to all the ITX boards I've seen, but that's it. If you must have four SSDs, then just get an mATX board with three slots and use an M.2 PCIe adapter for the final one.

So you're not getting the benefits of ITX's compactness, nor the increased space for connectivity options offered by the larger area of mATX. Which all seems a bit silly. Sure, it comes with a decent number of M.2 slots for SSDs, but there's only one PCI Express slot.

For reasons that I can't quite fathom at the moment, Maxsun has also chosen to use Intel's H770 chipset in this odd mobo design. If you've never heard of it, I wouldn't be surprised, as it's the forgotten cousin that sits between the range-topping Z790 and the mainstream B760 chipsets for 12th/13th/14th Gen Core processors.

The few H770 motherboards that you can find in stores aren't any cheaper than decent Z790 ones, so you might as well just buy one of them. For example, the Asus Prime H770-Plus D4 is $350 at Newegg, whereas the Gigabyte Z790M Aorus Elite AX Ice is $258 at Newegg. The latter is also an mATX board, with two PCIe and three M.2 slots.

Coming back to the Maxsun YTX, the one thing that it does have going for it is that it's a 'rear-plug' layout, i.e. all the power, fan, and header connectors are on the back of the board. I've built a PC using such a format in the past, and it is a great way of making the inside of your gaming PC look really clean and tidy. However, it's not enough to make me choose the YTX over any other mATX or ITX Z790/B760 motherboard.

I have a lot of respect for Maxsun trying to do something new in the motherboard world, but taking a hacksaw to an mATX PCB and sticking M.2 slots in a funky position isn't going to turn the industry upside-down. Top marks for giving it a go, some marks for effort, and zero marks for the end product.

Gigabyte has just released three new motherboards with on-board AI to tune your Ryzen processor for top performance in games, even promising up to a 25% improvement. Thanks, bot.

Back at Computex, Taiwan's biggest tech show, we heard about the latest version of Gigabyte's X3D Turbo Mode, a technology that would squeeze the ever-loving heck out of your Ryzen processor to extract every drop of performance out of it. This technology, aptly-named X3D Turbo Mode 2.0, works by analysing what a chip is doing and adjusting frequency, power, core count, and balancing temperature to improve performance dynamically.

Gigabyte announced the tech but the motherboards fitted with it had been a no-show. Until now. The X870E Aorus Elite X3D Ice, X870E Aorus Master X3D Ice, and X870E Aorus Pro X3D Ice are now officially available (though yet to show up at any retailer).

"Our proprietary X3D Turbo Mode 2.0 intelligently dynamically optimizes gaming performance up to 25% by built-in AI model, delivering exceptional gaming experience and productivity that adapts to your usage scenario in real-time," Gigabyte says.

"Up to 25%" improvement—that's a greater improvement than the company previously noted, which suggests in the time between Computex and now, Gigabyte has found a game that takes to bot-boosting better than most. Though Gigabyte doesn't specify which games we'll see that sort of leap in. In slides seen by WCCFTech back in May, it noted Cyberpunk 2077 with a 15% increase with Turbo Mode 2 turned on.

These X3D motherboards also integrate Gigabyte's D5 Bionic Corsa tech, which sounds like a new racing game but I assure you it's actually more AI gubbins to max out your memory speeds. Gigabyte claims DDR5 could be boosted up to 9000 MT/s here—though AMD Ryzen chips don't necessarily love uber-fast memory speeds, or at the very least, they're not always worth the extra dosh.

Let's focus on the Master X3D Ice, the daddy of the new lineup. This motherboard comes with 18 + 2 + 2 "Twin Digital" VRM, 8-layer PCB, support for that 9000 MT/s RAM speed, and plenty of PCIe 5.0 slots for both add-in cards and storage. It also features four Type-C ports on the rear IO. Nice. The other two boards are slightly scaled-back versions, though all use the X870E chipset and come with an additional 8-pin PCIe power connector to power a 65 W USB Type-C connector. That's pretty neat.

All three motherboards only come in white. That just goes to show how white components have shifted from a niche to mainstream in recent years.

"This revolutionary motherboard embodies our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in PC building technology. Every feature has been meticulously designed to enhance the user experience while delivering uncompromising performance," Gigabyte says.

Though it's really this Turbo Mode 2.0 tech that I want to see in action. Will it keep the chip at reasonable temperatures and stick to power limits, or will it be a bit of a novelty and easily beaten by a human? I'm sure the latter is true in the right hands, but dynamically shifting performance on-the-fly might be a good way to get the best of both worlds, providing Turbo Mode 2.0 really is a "one-click" solution as Gigabyte claims.

Small form factor (aka SFF) builds are the PC equivalent of bespoke mechanical timepieces. Beautiful to look at and stylish to have around, but a bit of a pig to work inside them, especially when it comes to dealing with ever-larger graphics cards. You might therefore be interested to know about Maxsun's unique solution for the latter—shifting the PCIe graphics card slot to the back of its motherboard.

The mobo model in question is the snappily-titled MS-Terminator B760BKB D5 WIFI, a name that's possibly bigger than the Mini-ITX motherboard itself. At first glance, it just looks like every other teeny-tiny Intel board you can buy, but if you stare closer, you'll notice something is missing.

Well, appears to be missing. Rather than placing the main x16 PCIe slot for a graphics card directly under the CPU and the first M.2 slot, Maxsun has switched the connections around, so that the slot is now mounted to the rear of the motherboard. It's also a right-angled slot, resulting in the card becoming vertically mounted when installed.

Somewhat obviously, sticking the GPU slot here means that some SFF cases are off-limits to be used in such a build. To be honest, I'm a bit puzzled as to how Maxsun expects the motherboard to be mounted, because most PC cases, including SFF ones, have the board attached to stand-offs screwed into a panel. Here, it'll have to be nothing more than a frame, to allow space for the graphics card.

Then there's the fact that most PC cases that support vertically mounted GPUs have the opening in the chassis (for the card's IO plate) to the right of the motherboard's rear IO panel. Here, it's on the left. Oh, and it'll be upside-down, too.

I also think that having the backplate of a graphics card right next to the 'underside' of a CPU, with hardly any gap between the two, might cause a headache or two when it comes to cooling both components. Hopefully, all that happens is that the coolers for both parts just have to work a little harder to shift that heat out of the way.

Motherboards with rear-mounted connectors aren't new, and I've tested Asus' BTF system, which has all the fan and peripheral sockets on the back of the motherboard. The GPU slot, though, is very much traditionally located.

Obviously, Maxsun doesn't expect the MS-Terminator B760BKB D5 WIFI to be a motherboard for every SFF PC enthusiast out there, but this one is a lot more niche than most Mini-ITX boards. It doesn't help that the rest of the specifications are a bit mundane: no Gen 5 M.2 SSD slots, no Wi-Fi 7, no USB4.

To be expected, given that it uses Intel's B760 chipset, but I think it needs something a little more than just a goofy PCIe slot position. Still, I'm more than happy to be proved wrong about this one, and if anyone manages to get their hands on one and successfully builds a potent, pocket PC with Maxsun's motherboard, fire some pictures over.

Godlike, that's the name MSI gives to its very best gaming motherboards. It has released a number of models over the years, going back to the MSI X99A Godlike Gaming for Intel's high-end desktop chips. I even reviewed one back in 2019, the MSI MEG X570 Godlike. That over-the-top tradition is still going strong today, and MSI is celebrating 10 years of Godlike motherboards with a golden special edition.

Before you get your hopes up, this isn't golden in the same way as, say, the ROG Astral Dhahab RTX 5090/RTX 5080. The MSI MEG Godlike X Edition is highlighted in gold, across the dragon emblazoned on the IO, the chipset, heatsinks and dynamic dashboard (the screen unit magnetically attached to the right of the RAM).

I couldn't imagine a better combination for showing off your immense and immeasurable wealth than the Godlike X Edition, ROG Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition, and G.Skill Trident Z5 Royal Neo. Damn, I want to build that PC, but I wouldn't want to pay for it. We don't have a price for the Godlike X Edition yet, but the standard edition costs $1,100, putting the total for these three parts at $8,510 alone. I also couldn't imagine having that much cash to spend on PC parts—cry me a river, yeah?

You could save some cash with the ROG Astral RTX 5080 Dhahab Edition, to be fair. That's a little over $2,500—you could buy an RTX 5090 for that sorta cash.

"During Gamescom 2025, MSI celebrates the 10th anniversary of Godlike with the MEG X870E Godlike X Edition," MSI says, "a limited-edition board that honors a decade of innovation and sets a new overclocking record. It features Dynamic Dashboard III, EZ Link, and the M.2 Xpander-Z Slider Gen5 with EZ Slide, plus exclusive X-shaped anniversary accents."

MSI is manufacturing only 1,000 units of the Godlike X Edition. It comes with a golden nameplate, stand, and a Black Lucky plush—this being a black version of the company's dragon mascot, as far as I can tell.

The Godlike X Edition appears to be the same as the standard MSI MEG X870E Godlike, beneath the revamped trim. It's nonetheless absurd to the extreme, combining chunky VRM (24 + 2 + 1 phase), heaps of heatsinks, extra power connectors, and top-quality materials with all the added extras you'd expect in 2025—a built-in screen among them.

I used to use the X570 Godlike in a PC build, until I finally got fed up with the lack of USB ports (ironic, right?) and moved on to something cheaper with more connectivity. Though for the latest board, MSI hasn't skimped on the IO: the X870E has seven USB Type-C ports on the rear, two of which are USB4. The remaining five Type-C and eight Type-A are all USB 3.2 Gen 2. That's quite an improvement even on the X670E Godlike, which has nine ports total, and the X570 Godlike, which only has six. The previous boards felt more focused on overclocking ability than usability, whereas this appears more suited to both.

It might be slightly gauche, but that's nothing new for luxury goods. And that is the market that MSI is aiming for here, as we've seen other manufacturers try to do the same. Attempting to make PC hardware into a premium product for the ultra-rich leaves me with some ill feelings, but that'd likely be missing the point of this product, I suppose.

Just be extra careful placing the CPU into it—you don't want to be bending any pins on this bad boy.

MSI also has a line-up of new motherboards it's calling 'Max' coming out. These offer overclocking tools such as OC Engine and OC jumper to enable fine-tuned control over the AMD CPUs they're built for. And if there aren't enough screens in your system, it also has a new screen coming out, the MAG View Xpander 12 is a 12.3-inch screen you can run inside its Pano, Velox 300, and Maestro cases, or as a seperate screen on the desktop. The new Maestro 900 Series also announced at Gamescom looks like a pretty beefy, too.

Good news, cats and kittens! If you're the proud owner of a furry cat-themed keyboard, a cat-themed GPU, and a cat-themed Colorful B650 Colorfire motherboard, you can now complete your kitty-based setup by updating the BIOS to feature, you guessed it, a little cat at the bottom of the screen.

Also, your family worries about you. Anyway, Colorful has been on a bit of a cat-themed frenzy in recent months with its Colorfire Meow gear, and now it's gone one step further and put one of the fluffy little blighters right at the bottom of its new, eye-searingly orange BIOS theme.

You could also pick a blue or black variant, if you're dull—but why not soften up the cold, hard edges of a base-level computing menu with the warm glow of a delicious orange cat?

Did I say delicious? My mistake. The cat in question is wearing a pair of goggles that look like a handheld gaming PC, for reasons I don't understand, nor care to research. What matters is, your BIOS theme can now match the rest of your cat-astrophic taste in PC hardware, and that's something we can all celebrate.

All of which reminds me of quite possibly the best PC gaming setup I saw at Computex this year, which was this Colorful Meow Colorfire gaming PC running Doom: The Dark Ages:

I'm not going to lie, something inside me loves the idea of playing one of the goriest, grimmest shooters currently available on the puss-PC—and should you need to delve into the BIOS to tweak the most out of your hardware, you can now wave at yet another furry little friend while you do so.

As you would expect, my gaming rig is a sober set of edgelord-friendly black and red components, so I have no need for the delights of this kitten-clashing whimsy in my machine. Still, if you're in possession of more of a sense of humour than I (and a very specific motherboard variant), have at it.

Me, I'm off to be boring with my own set of nerdy tastes. Wake me up when there's a Lego version. Oh no, have I given too much of myself away again? At least this isn't a fluff piece. I'll see myself out.

If you're using an older Gigabyte motherboard with an Intel CPU—up to and including a Z590/B560 chipset—you should probably update your BIOS. Some "legacy" chipsets are apparently vulnerable to memory corruption in the System Management Module (SMM), and the company is releasing BIOS updates to patch the vulnerabilities.

In a security update, Gigabyte explains it has "identified multiple memory corruption vulnerabilities within the System Management Mode (SMM) modules used in several legacy GIGABYTE/AORUS consumer motherboards."

While Gigabyte is keen to point out that "newer platforms are not impacted", bear in mind that many gamers still use Z590 and B560 boards today. Those feature the LGA1200 socket for Intel 10th and 11th Gen processors, so if you're using an Intel 10th Gen or 11th Gen CPU and have a Gigabyte motherboard, this vulnerability likely applies to you and you should update your BIOS.

Here's the table of affected chipsets and respective BIOS release schedules Gigabyte has provided:

It looks like the most recent chipsets, Intel 8th to 11th Gen, should have BIOS updates ready to download and install. To do that, you'll want to download your BIOS files from your motherboard's specific support page, copy the files to a FAT32 USB drive, plug it into your motherboard's rear USB port (one that's labelled BIOS or Q-Flash, if there is one), boot into your BIOS, click Q-Flash, and update.

As someone who updates their BIOS about once every *checks watch* never, I'm very much shouting into a mirror with this one. Thankfully I'm just about safe, though, because while I am using an older Intel chip on a Gigabyte motherboard, it's a 12th Gen CPU on a Z690 mobo. Phew, I can bury my head in the sand a little longer, it seems.

For anyone on a slightly older Intel chip, though, get those Gigabyte boards updated. In fact, it's probably best to just keep everything up to date, as even standard gaming software can open kernel-level vulnerabilities on occasion, it seems.

It might be late to the party, but NZXT’s trio of new motherboards bring a refreshing new look to both Intel and AMD platforms that’s sure to appeal to those wanting to color-match their motherboard to the rest of their hardware. The N7 Z890 looks a lot like the N9 Z890, which is NZXT’s flagship Intel motherboard for Core Ultra 200 processors, but if the thought of hitting your wallet up for $500 isn’t your idea of fun, then the N7 Z890 is much cheaper at $350.

Aesthetically the two boards seem very similar at first glance with large shrouds and heatsinks covering most of the PCB and like the flagship, the N7 Z890 is available in black or white too. Both also support overclocking. However, on closer inspection there are some significant differences. Those covers over the lower M.2 SSD slots are plastic and unlike it’s more expensive sibling, there’s no RGB lighting here at all.

Thankfully, though, if you’re sold on the aesthetics, the hardware underneath offers nearly everything the more expensive N9 Z890 does including decent audio, Thunderbolt 4, plenty of USB ports and some useful overclocking and testing tools. There are one or two other things missing though.

First and foremost, it’s worth pointing out that ASRock actually makes the motherboard, as is evident by the EFI, which features the familiar style, layout and somewhat dated feel of other ASRock boards we’ve looked at. It’s simple and functional, but lacks the pizzazz of Asus and MSI’s latest high definition EFIs that are dripping with features. One feature they have that NZXT’s boards lack is the ability to adjust fan speeds with an easy-to-use fan curve interface.

This is instead available using NZXT’s CAM software, which provides simple control over the board’s lighting and fan speeds, but if you prefer not to use software and use the EFI instead, you’ll be left dealing with the text input for fan speeds there, which could be very time consuming.

The CAM software also gives you the ability to control NZXT 8-pin RGB devices using the connectors on the motherboard, which can also be split up into 4-pin fan headers and 4-pin NZXT connectors using adaptors in the box.

Switching to the M.2 ports and we have four to play with, all PCIe 4.0 except for the top one that offers PCIe 5.0 support and is the only port that is cooled by a heatsink. The lower covers over the M.2 ports are plastic and for aesthetic purposes only. The top slot also doesn’t cool the underside of your SSD, but that’s somewhat rare at this price anyway.

If you like having overclocking and testing tools, then most are here too including CMOS clear and USB BIOS Flashback buttons as well as power and reset buttons. The rear I/O panel has seven Type-A USB ports, all of which are USB 3.0 or faster a USB 3.1 Gen 2x2 Type-C port and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. This brings us on to perhaps the only feature you’d expect to see here that’s absent, which is Wi-Fi 7, with NZXT instead opting for Wi-Fi 6E while the board also has decent audio in the form of Realtek’s ALC1220 codec.

There was nothing to suggest the board performs less well compared to the competition with very similar frame rates in our Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 benchmarks hovering around 80 fps mark one percent low in the former and 69 fps in Baldur’s Gate 3. Both of those are within a couple of frames of other Z890 motherboards. The Factorio result was less than a second off the NZXT N9 Z890 too, with gaming CPU temperatures a touch lower.

The Blender and 7zip benchmarks revealed a slight edge for the N7 Z890, which also had lower VRM and chipset temperatures too despite having slightly higher CPU power draw when running Cinebench. This could be down to the boards being new and receiving regular BIOS updates. The peak VRM temperature of just 43 °C was particularly impressive. The lack of underside cooling seemed to hurt the PCIe 5.0 SSD temperatures a little compare to the more expensive NZXT board, with a peak of 80 °C only just saving it from throttling, but if you use a PCIe 4.0 SSD you should be fine.

The N7 Z890 turns heads and offers excellent cooling for most of its hardware, especially the VRMs. If you’re looking for a board that can handle a high-end Intel CPU then for current Arrow Lake options the board seems to have what it takes and thanks to its Z890 chipset, offers headroom for overclocking too.

Apart from its lack of Wi-Fi 7, opting instead for Wi-Fi 6E, the board offers a solid specification with Realtek ALC 1220 audio, PCIe 5.0 SSD and GPU support, power reset, CMOS clear and USB BIOS Flashback buttons and a unique aesthetic design. Coupled with plenty of high-speed USB ports and Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, there isn’t much here you’ll miss even if you’re building a high-end system.

That said, the price of $350 seems a little high looking at the competition. The ASRock Z890 Steel Legend Wi-Fi costs $80 less and offers a similar specification with more M.2 heatsinks and Wi-Fi 7 included albeit lacking many of the overclocking and testing tools of the NZXT board. For $100 less you can pick up the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WI-FI 7 Ice, which arguably looks even better, has RGB lighting, tool-free components and better EFI-based fan control section.

The N9 Z890 offers more unique appeal to help justify its price tag, but for the N7 Z890, value is of greater concern and unless you’re totally sold on the design, there are much cheaper options that offer a more modern feature set, look just as good, and like the N7 Z890, come in black and white too.

Like a number of manufacturers, NZXT opted to put its weight behind Intel with last year’s new processor and chipset launches. Even though it’s very late to the party and only just launching a trio of new motherboards co-designed with ASRock, it still went with two LGA1851 motherboards and just a single AM5 board, in the form of the N9 X870E that we’re looking at today.

That might seem illogical given AMD has long been seen as the better option with Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs not faring well, at least so far. Sales for the latter pale compared to AMD’s hardware, especially when it comes to pairing up 3D V-Cache CPUs. It’s a shame then we don’t have an AMD B850 chipset option with AMD this time around, but instead a monstrous $500 X870E model.

Despite a similar price to the N9 Z890 option, this one doesn’t appear to be quite as lavish in terms of aesthetics, lacking the extensive RGB lighting that flows across the M.2 heatsinks. This is partly due to the X870E board having two chipsets that need cooling so is more of a case of function over form. If I were to pick, I’d still chose the N9 Z890, though, just as it’s more of a head turner, but there’s still an impressive array of features.

If you want to use multiple M.2 SSDs then the N9 X870E has four in total with one of those supporting up to PCIe 5.0 SSDs and includes underside cooling too—something the N9 Z890 does not, although it had a larger heatsink. There’s enough bandwidth available for all slots and ports to be occupied with no devices needing to share bandwidth, which is one of the perks you expect spending more on X807E.

There are three more M.2 ports lower down with a single large heatsink cooling them. Here the heatsink is tool-free unlike the top one that will need a screwdriver, but these ports lack underside SSD cooling. This shouldn’t be an issue with cooler-running PCIe 4.0 SSDs though. There’s Wi-Fi 7, 5G LAN and Realtek ALC4080 audio and the rear panel offers two USB4 Type-C ports too, so that’s the modern technology boxes ticked. If you still have older SATA devices you want to add to your new system then there are four SATA ports here too and these are angled to improve cable tidying.

There are lots of shrouds on the PCB that neatly surround features such as power and reset buttons and the various ports so there’s a minimum of ugly PCB visible. This means the black version is especially stealthy-looking, but the white version still has a black PCB and components such as ports and memory slots, so Gigabyte does a better job here if you’re looking for a motherboard that’s as white as possible.

Being NZXT, cooling is tweaked mostly using its freely available CAM software, with the EFI remaining basic with no modern graphical interface for playing with fan curves. This does make adjusting your PC’s fans and lighting simple, but one issue we did have is the pair of VRM fans hidden under the large heatsink over the I/O panel cooling the 20+2+1 phase power delivery. These are linked to the CPU temperature, not the VRMs and the latter take much longer to warm up.

As a result, the tiny VRM fans are often noisy under medium to heavy CPU loads. Thankfully the software allows you to tune these down to acceptable levels, but as there’s no VRM temperature reading, you’re left guessing somewhat. HWiNFO revealed an auxiliary temperature that matched a reading for the VRMs in the EFI, so we went with that for our results, but again the VRMs fans aren’t linked to this as standard which is odd.

The rear panel has a generous amount of USB ports with 10 Type-A in total with half of these being USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A 10 Gbps, in addition to the two Type-C USB4 ports. You also get CMOS Clear and USB BIOS Flashback here too, while the small holes in the I/O shield allow ventilation through to the small fans. Speaking of fans, as well as normal fan headers, there are 8-pin NZXT connectors too, that support its RGB accessories. There are adaptors in the box that convert these to standard fan headers and NZXT 4-pin RGB connectors, though.

If the auxiliary reading is indeed the VRM temperature, it was decent at 38 °C, which is one of the lowest we’ve seen. You’d expect that given it has two noisy fans actively cooling the heatsinks though. Of more concern was the chipset temperature, which was the complete opposite. It was one of the highest we’ve seen at 69 °C, perhaps because the actual heatsink is relatively small for dealing with the two chipsets underneath, with other X870E boards we’ve seen using something much larger. Still, it didn’t seem to impact any of the benchmarks with similar results to other boards in the 7-Zip benchmark for example.

The average CPU package power was also a little high at 10-15 W more than we’ve typically seen from other X870 boards. This didn’t seem to translate into a clean sweep of top spots in our benchmarks, though, with typical results in Cinebench, Blender and our game tests. Our PCIe 5.0 SSD seemed happy, though, with a peak temperature of 67 °C allowing it to hit its maximum speeds while still sitting well over 10 °C away from throttling.

While it’s maybe not as eye-catching as its Z890 sibling, the NZXT N9 X870E is a mostly solid home for a Ryzen 7000 or 9000 CPU and is happy to sit at the heart of a high-end gaming or content creation PC. Both black and white versions look stunning, although the icing on the cake would be a white PCB and ports on the white version, which is the competition gets more points for doing.

It has plenty of USB ports, modern features such as USB4, WI-Fi 7, PCIe 5.0 GPU and SSD support and it has premium features such as power and reset buttons and a large tool-free M.2 heatsink. The speed of the USB ports on the rear panel is impressive too, with most being USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps or faster.

There are some niggles though. The peak chipset temperature is a little high and the VRM fans quickly become audible under medium to to CPU loads. The reason for this is they respond to the CPU temperature not the VRM temperature, even though the latter is visible in the EFI. Equally, there’s no VRM temperature option in NZXT’s CAM software, only the ability to tweak the VRM fan speed. It’s a somewhat quick fix to reduce the noise, but this could have been set up better

Overall the NZXT N9 X870E offers a unique design, high-end features and plenty of speedy connectivity. However, it’s dated EFI that lacks modern fan control options as well as its noisy VRM fans mean that despite its excellent VRM temperatures, unless you want to spend time fine-tuning the cooling, there are slightly better options out there.

It’s rare to see a motherboard with a brand name other than the usual four of ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI; and also one that differs in design enough to stand out from the crowd too. But that’s exactly what the NZXT N9 Z890 has and does. Under the hood is a slightly different story, though, as it’s actually made by ASRock.

That said, there’s still plenty here that’s NZXT too such as support for its CAM software to control the board’s lighting and cooling and even proprietary connectors for NZXT’s latest case accessories. It also has the distinction of coming in black or white, so would look fantastic inside one of the company’s white snazzy cases too.

It’s most appealing feature, though, is its RGB lighting. It’s simple, with opaque plastic strips diffusing the lighting from LEDs beneath into vibrant areas of color. However, this stretches all the way down the I/O heatsinks, across the middle M.2 heatsink thanks to some clever connector trickery and then down to the bottom of the board. It’s easily one of the most eye catching motherboards available.

At $500, it’s not cheap and while NZXT has three new motherboards to pick from, the N9 Z890 with its extensive RGB lighting obviously only supports Intel Core Ultra 200 CPUs, which are less attractive to gamers than AMD’s latest Ryzen models. The company does have an AMD Socket AM5 model with the X870E chipset that we’ll be looking at soon, but the flagship of NZXT’s trio is definitely the model we’re looking at here.

The most significant difference between the NZXT N9 Z890 and other motherboards is that the primary way of controlling your fans and lighting is using NZXT’s CAM software. It’s gone to the rather extreme measure of removing the usual fan curve user interface in the EFI too, which means if you don’t want to install CAM, you’ll be forced to go back to 2003 and manually configure each fan header using massively time-consuming text-based inputs rather than spending a few seconds tweaking a visual representation of the fan curve.

Thankfully, CAM worked flawlessly and makes it simple to control your fans and the board’s lighting from the comfort of your desktop. It still doesn’t have the granularity of other motherboards such as fan spin up time and you’re limited to picking between the CPU and GPU for the temperature input too, but for your average PC user it’s enough to get your PC setup how you like it.

It’s clear that NZXT was serious about cooling here because the two large VRM heatsinks not only have a heatpipe linking them to spread the heat load, but have a pair of small fans to help keep the VRMs in check under extreme conditions. In their default mode in CAM, these are quite noisy, even at stock speed, as they’re tied to the CPU temperature and hitting 4,000 rpm before the motherboard breaks a sweat.

A more serious issue was that the 3.03 BIOS fans wouldn’t budge from full speed either. Thankfully the latest 3.04 BIOS fixed this after we mentioned it to NZXT, so updating is vital as is setting the fan speed to silent mode, which means they only ramp up under extreme loads.

We doubt you’ll be left wanting from any of the board’s features, though, as it’s ticked most boxes when it comes to expectations from its $500 price tag. You get dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, nine Type-A USB ports with none of those being slower than USB 3.0, 5G LAN, Wi-Fi 7 and Realtek ALC4080 audio. If you’re planning on overclocking, which is of course possible thanks to the Z890 chipset, you get CMOS clear and BIOS Flashback buttons with reset and power buttons plus an LED POST code display on the PCB that's also very helpful.

There’s a massive five M.2 ports too, with one being PCIe 5.0 and illuminated using contacts that touch when the heatsink is screwed into place. The rest sit under a massive tool-free heatsink at the base of the board. There are only five 4-pin fan headers, but NZXT also includes two 8-pin ports that either support its own RGB accessories, or can be split into NZXT 4-pin accessory connectors and standard 4-pin fan headers using included adaptors.

The VRM temperature peaked at 52°C cooling the 20+1+1-phase power delivery, which is reasonable, but not the lowest we’ve seen, which is surprising given there were two fans aiding the heatsinks. This didn’t impact boosting, though as this is well away from the kind of heat that would cause throttling. This temperature might be linked to increased performance that we saw in several tests, with the NZXT N9 Z890 posting impressive Cinebench R24 single-core and multi-core scores from an LGA1851 motherboard along with better frame rates in Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 plus higher samples per minute in Blender than most other boards too.

Even so, the average and peak CPU package power was average compared to the highest results we’ve seen. Elsewhere temperatures were reasonable too, with a peak PCIe 5.0 temperature of 77 °C and average of 66 °C. This is enough to prevent throttling in extended high loads, although only just, but other tasks such as gaming won’t get close to this. The peak chipset temperature of 38 °C was middle of the road too.

We are pretty sold on the NZXT N9 Z890’s design. It looks stunning, especially in white, mostly thanks to a unique design and its extensive RGB lighting that’s punchy and complements its angular design. We don’t have any complaints about the features either, with plenty of USB ports, two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports and rather than force you to uses its accessories, NZXT does at least give you adaptors to make use of its proprietary 8-pin connectors.

It also performed well in our benchmarks and had reasonable VRM and M.2 temperatures as well as nearly all the gadgets you need for testing and overclocking such as CMOS clear, USB BIOS Flashback and power buttons. The only real issues we found were with other aspects of cooling. We would definitely like to see NZXT include fan curve adjustment graphs in the EFI. Stripping these out and forcing owners to use CAM, while it worked well, won’t please everyone.

Also, you’ll need to make sure to update to BIOS version 3.04 or newer to avoid VRM fan issues, and most will want to set these to silent mode using the EFI or CAM software to avoid excessive noise. Aside from these issues, this is a stunning motherboard with an excellent feature set that stacks up well against similarly-priced competition and will certainly stand out from that crowd too. If you’re in the market for an Intel Z890 motherboard and have around $500 to spend, the NZXT N9 Z890 should definitely be on your shortlist.

Motherboards aren't usually the first component that comes to mind when I think of what really wows me in the visual department. But I'll be damned if the ASRock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi doesn't hit me square in the aesthetics cortex (right next to the amygdala), and I'll be even more damned if I don't gush a little over how cool it keeps SSDs.

We already had the B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi as our pick for a midrange AMD AM5 motherboard, and now we've got its sibling, the B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi, as our pick for the best budget Intel LGA1851 motherboard (for Core Ultra 200S processors). I know, I know, B850 for AMD and B860 for Intel—motherboard naming schemes are atrocious.

The new addition to our guide offers a ton of features for a downright reasonable price tag, and the wonderful white-and-steel aesthetic is just the icing on the cake, really. The cherry on top of that icing is the cool embrace of the board's M.2 dual-sided cooling (for the first M.2 SSD, at least—the other two that have heatsinks are just single-sided). This cooling keeps PCIe 5.0 drives chilly enough to be actually usable, which is a minor miracle.

And with the Core Ultra 265K dropping below $300 these days, $500-ish for that and this B860 isn't half a bad shout for a new build, I reckon. The Core Ultra 200S series hasn't blown us away, but it's capable and, importantly, much more power-efficient in gaming than Intel's last-gen CPUs.

Now that we've got this B860 listed, our motherboard recommendations cover the whole gamut of current and previous-gen AMD and Intel chips and sockets (yes, even back to AM4).

The quick list

The best motherboards for gaming

If you’re dead-set on owning an Intel system and have a Core Ultra 200-series Arrow Lake processor in your sights, as well as a Mini-ITX case, then ASRock has not one, but three motherboards vying for your attention. The Phantom Gaming B860I Lightning Wi-Fi we’re looking at here is the middle of the three in terms of price and features, sitting at $219, which is also roughly what the competition has its B860 offerings set at too.

It's less imposing than those options from Asus or Gigabyte, with smaller heatsinks and perhaps lacking a little wow-factor in the aesthetics department too by comparison, with Gigabyte offering an all-white motherboard and Asus sporting a moody black design with large heatsinks.

However, ASRock has done a decent job of making that price tag go a long way.

It has managed to cram in a lot at this price, including Thunderbolt 4 support. Of course, being a B860 chipset-based board, it lacks the ability to overclock K-series CPUs, which is only possible on motherboards using the Z890 chipset. That’s maybe less of an issue for small form factor PC owners, who generally prefer to dump less heat into their systems anyway. Plus Intel now has a variety of non-K models available, including some that cost less than $250.

Other modern features you get in spite of the $200 price tag are PCIe 5.0 support for both graphics cards and SSDs, although both are somewhat pointless right now with graphics cards not benefitting and compatible SSDs only offering higher sequential speeds rather than better all-round performance.

The heatsink for the primary M.2 slot is quite small too, so I have my doubts it can cool anything hotter-running than a PCIe 4.0 effectively anyway. There’s a second M.2 port, limited to PCIe 4.0, located on the rear of the PCB.

The rest of the specification is decent, with ASRock not skimping in areas usually in line for cuts at this price point. There’s Realtek ALC1220 audio, 2.5 Gbps LAN and seven Type-A USB ports, so even if you have half a dozen peripherals to plug in, you’ll still have a port left over. The power delivery isn’t the most extensive out there with 10 100 A power stages, but as the board won’t be involved in overclocking, that’s plenty.

Despite the Phantom Gaming B860I Lightning Wi-Fi being mid-range, it even has a VRM cooling fan embedded behind the I/O panel. Thankfully, this didn’t spin up to any noticeable levels during out benchmarks so ASRock seems to have fine-tuned it to only ramp up when the VRMs get extremely toasty. Seeing as we were using a Core Ultra 9 285K, it’s unlikely it will be a problem, and even if it is you can control the speed in the EFI or in ASRock’s software.

If you have older SSDs and hard disks that require SATA ports, there are three of them on the PCB and there are also three 4-pin fan headers, which is typical of most Mini-ITX motherboards. ASRock also managed to squeeze in two 3-pin RGB headers and the front Type-C port even offers USB 3.1 speeds.

Probably the biggest issues here other than a comparatively small SSD heatsink, are the lack of a quick-release GPU mechanism so removing your graphics card could be a bit fiddly. Also, ASRock’s EFI isn’t the best and feels a bit clunky and dated compared to the competition.

PC Gamer test rig

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

Performance in our game tests was largely on par with other B860 and Z890 boards we’ve tested, with similar results in Cyberpunk 2077 with an average frame rate of 115 fps and 105 fps in Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s Factorio result of 28 seconds was exceptional, though, and possibly down to new BIOS tweaks applied in the latest version we installed from ASRock. The Blender, 7Zip and Cinebench results were all a match for the likes of full-size boards such as the ASRock B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi and Asus TUF Gaming B860M-Plus Wi-Fi.

Despite its tiny size, it kept the VRMs at 47°C during our stress test, which was one of the coolest results we’ve seen on an LGA1851 board, potentially thanks to its tiny fan wafting air over the heatsinks, thankfully without producing any noticeable noise.

The same was true for the chipset, which peaked at just 35°, coming joint lowest with the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite Wi-Fi 7 Ice. Sadly, the PCIe 5.0 SSD temperature hit 80°C, so unless you’re planning on using a third party heatsink, we’d suggest steering clear of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs for now.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming B860I Lightning Wi-Fi stands up well to the competition from Asus and Gigabyte in a number of areas such as having more USB ports and a quiet fan cooling its VRMs. It also has a decent audio codec, USB BIOS Flashback and three SATA ports, so whether you’re using a Core Ultra 9 285K or Core Ultra 5 225, it has what it takes to cope with high-end components without going overboard on price or features.

There are a few disappointments, though, such as its M.2 heatsink not being up to the task of cooling PCIe 5.0 SSDs during extended workloads. Getting at the GPU release lever is very tricky, ASRock’s EFI isn’t as pleasant a place to be as the competition and it lacks Wi-Fi 7. Ultimately, no B860 Mini-ITX board seems to tick all the boxes, with others falling short in some areas compared to the Phantom Gaming B860I Lightning Wi-Fi, while scoring more points in others. It’s never quite a killer blow.

The sums up our view of the Phantom Gaming B860I Lightning Wi-Fi too. It’s far from a bad motherboard and is actually very well balanced in terms of its features, especially Thunderbolt 4, which has proven to be an eye wateringly-expensive addition in the past. Perhaps our biggest criticism is that it doesn’t stand out. The competition offers white designs that would attract those owning a white case, or just has more visual pizzazz.

A lot also depends on which country you’re in too. The US sees the competition sit at very similar prices, while in the UK, the Asus ROG Strix B860-I Gaming Wi-Fi is nearly £100 more, making it poor value compared to Phantom Gaming B860I Lightning Wi-Fi, which is a good match in terms of features. We’d maybe be swayed towards the Asus and Gigabyte options largely thanks to aesthetics and better EFI’s, especially on the Asus board, but only if priced within $30 or so. Otherwise ASRock’s mid-range B860 offering is a good buy.

Expensive motherboards are all very well, but if you just want a solid base for a decent PC, but still want a few cutting-edge features, then dipping below $200 can be risky. Features are cut from certain areas to lower the price tag, but with Intel and AMD’s mid-range chipset motherboards now a few months old, prices are keener than ever if you’re looking to upgrade or build a new PC. ASRock’s B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi actually leaves you with change from $200 and at first glance, doesn’t seem to have decimated its feature set to get there either.

This is partly thanks to the board trying to live up to its name. ASRock claims the B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi is designed for creators and makes a big deal on the product page about connectivity and a quick glance over the specifications reveals important areas such as audio and Thunderbolt 4 support match more expensive boards and certainly give it scope to appeal as a budget-conscious board for creators.

It certainly doesn’t look like it costs less than $200 either with decent-sized heatsinks for the VRMs and M.2 SSDs and ASRock as even included RGB lighting beneath the lower M.2 heatsink too. If you’re considering an Intel motherboard at this point, you’ve hopefully mulled over the question of whether to opt for AMD’s generally faster Ryzen processors already, and perhaps even the fact that you can’t overclock an Intel Core Ultra processor using a B860 chipset motherboard either. If neither of those things are dealbreakers then keep reading.

As usual the RGB lighting underneath the large bottom M.2 heatsink are set to color cycle mode as standard, but can be controlled in ASRock’s software or if you prefer, switched off in the EFI. The PCB is otherwise quite unassuming, with purple/grey heatsinks and plenty of space thanks to a lack of features such as LED POST code displays, buttons and additional M.2 ports and heatsinks.

Underneath the VRM heatsinks is a relatively modest 12+1+1+1+1 phase power delivery, but with the worst case scenario being a stock speed Core Ultra 9 285K, it should be more than up to the task. The only other slip from what we expect to see on current motherboards us Wi-Fi 6E as opposed to Wi-Fi 7, but the likelihood is your home Wi-Fi probably won’t meet that standard for another year or two at least and if you end up needing it, you can always swap out the Wi-Fi module.

The rest of the specification is impressive for the price. The audio codec is often Realtek’s aging ALC897 at this price, but ASRock has somehow managed to shoehorn in ALC1220, which is much more capable. You still get three M.2 ports with one being PCIe 5.0, while the primary PCIe slot is also PCIe 5.0 compatible and has a tool-free heatsink. Thunderbolt support used to mean having to chase your wallet around the house, but the ASRock B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi offers it despite its sub $200 price tag and you also get 2.5G Ethernet too.

The rear I/O panel might not have many other ultra high-speed USB ports, but it does have one of the biggest collection of Type-A USB ports we’ve ever seen on a motherboard, with a total of 12 and six of those are USB 3.0. Sadly, the front panel Type-C port is only rated at USB 3.0 and it hasn’t also increased SATA ports, but these are widely seen as feature in its twilight years.

Still ASRock hasn’t done what others have and cut the typical four to two, so you can still power a bunch of hard disks. ASRock’s EFI and software are pretty basic, though, and lack the polish of other manufacturers both in terms of features and visual appeal, but they’re still easy to use and work well.

PC Gamer test rig

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

Perhaps the most impressive parts of the B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi were its temperatures. The VRM temperature barely topped 40°C with one of the lowest results we’ve seen and equally cool was its chipset, again undercutting every other board we’ve looked at recently at just 31°C. it even managed to tame out toasty PCIe 5.0 SSD, which was a good seven degrees away from throttling even after a lengthy stress test. Clearly, the M.2 and VRM heatsinks do a great job.

Cyberpunk 2077 has received a major update recently, which might go some way to explaining the great result we saw at 1080p of an average of 115fps, while the Baldur’s Gate 3 test also offered chart-topping numbers for our Core Ultra 9 285K. Factorio, Blender and Cinebench were less impressive, though, but only a little off the average, for example with the Cinebench R24 multi-core test score of 2,301 sitting around 100 points lower than the ASRock Z890 Steel Legend Wi-Fi and Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice. It wasn’t being particularly power frugal here either, with its average and peak CPU package power of 221 W and 230 W in our stress tests being very similar to other LGA1851 motherboards.

There really is very little to get hung up about with the ASRock B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi. Its only downsides are a mediocre EFI and software and that, due to its chipset, it does not support overclocking, and this is actually a shame as Intel’s K-series Core Ultra processors respond quite well to some tweaking and the board also has plenty of VRM cooling headroom. It also lacks Wi-Fi 7 and anything faster than USB 3.0 by way of Type-A USB ports.

However, it makes up for that with a massive 12 Type-A ports on the rear I/O panel in addition to a 40 Gbps Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port, includes audio that’s on par with far more expensive boards including an optical output and its M.2 SSD and VRM cooling were exceptional. We’re not quite sure how ASRock managed it, but if you’re looking for a rock solid base for an Intel Core Ultra system, the ASRock B860 LiveMixer Wi-Fi looks good, has loads of connectivity and can be relied on to keep your hardware cool too.

If you remember the days that you could pick up a relatively high-end motherboard for less than $250, you’re not alone, but even today there are one or two apparent good deals around that offer plenty of premium features and leave you with change from $200. The ASRock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi might lack overclocking support as it uses the B860 chipset and not Z890, but it still offers full PCIe 5.0 support and even has Thunderbolt 4.

It used to be the case that adding the latter alone would require you taking out a mortgage, but ASRock has even managed to make the board look attractive too, with a silvery white colour scheme. And RGB lighting splashing around the two lower heatsinks on the PCB. So far, it seems like the perfect motherboard for the price.

In fact, moving around the board and scouring more closely at the specs table, there doesn’t seem to be any significant cutbacks to hit that price either. There are plenty of USB ports, three of the four M.2 ports have heatsinks, there are four SATA ports, which is typical these days and plenty of fan headers too.

If you’re in the market for an Intel Core Ultra CPU and don’t want to spend more than $200 then so far so good as ASRock seems to offer nearly everything you need in terms of modern features with the B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi likely to turn a few heads too.

Looking a little more closely as the specs table and ASRock has used Realtek ALC1220 audio rather than skimping and going for ALC897, which is probably what we expected given the price so this was a pleasant surprise. There’s an impressive nine Type-A USB ports on the rear panel too and only three of these are USB 2.0 before you ask with the rest being USB 3.0 and two being USB 3.1.

Both the top M.2 port and primary PCIe slot are PCIe 5.0 compatible and the M.2 slot here even has a double-sides heatsinks to cool both sides of SSDs. This should give it a fighting chance of effectively cooling our toasty PCIe 5.0 SSD. Installing your SSDs is simple too, thanks to the top heatsink featuring a tool-less mechanism as do all the actual M.2 ports, while you’ll need to reach for the screwdriver to deal with the lower M.2 heatsink.

ASRock has also added what it calls PCIe Lite Release to the primary PCIe slot too, which is a release leaver extension that makes it a lot easier to remove your graphics card due to large M.2 heatsink. We’d still prefer one of the push-button designs, probably for pure laziness, but ultimately this is still more intuitive than the Asus method, which involves doing the very unnatural thing of lifting your graphics card from the PCI slot end, which is usually recipe for disaster.

There are eight fan headers, which is on par with high-end boards, a total of four RGB headers, a USB BIOS Flashback button on the rear I/O panel and the Type-C front panel header even supports USB 3.1 Gen 2x2. The only feature that’s a drop down from the current crop of most Intel and AMD boards is Wi-Fi 6E as opposed to the more modern Wi-Fi 7.

PC Gamer test rig

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

Performance-wise things weren’t lacking compared to more expensive motherboards either. Its average frame rate in Cyberpunk 2077 of 116fps was actually one of the best we’ve seen of any LGA1851 motherboard while the 104fps in Baldur’s gate was identical to the ASRock Z890 Steel Legend Wi-Fi. There were no undue issues with the CPU temperature or package power, which were both level with the competition in games, while in the more demanding Cinebench, the peak CPU package draw of 223W was also on par.

The VRM temperature of 45°C was pretty decent too, and actually slightly cooler than quite a few more expensive boards, as was the chipset temperature of 34°C. Perhaps the biggest win was that of the PCIe 5.0 SSD temperature, which at a peak of 69°C meant the board easily tamed it and performed better than the MSI MEG Z890 Ace and Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Ice.

ASRock’s M.2 heatsinks here are either making better contact than lots of other boards or the pads themselves are of better quality. The content creation tests again saw the board sit level with pricier options and showing no signs of throttling the Core Ultra 9 285K, with a sample per minute rate of 175 in Blender and multi-core core of 2,409 in Cinebench both right in the mix.

These days its rare to have such a good-performing motherboard available for so little, and it’s almost a shame that the ASRock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi landed on such a lacklustre platform as Intel’s somewhat ill-fated LGA1851 and its mediocre CPUs. It’s also a shame that overclocking isn’t enabled due to the B860 chipset and in our view with lashings of hindsight, Intel allowing overclocking on B860, even to a smaller degree, would have made the platform much more appealing.

The fact you can get Thunderbolt 4 for $200 and no more is something we never thought we’d see, buy ASRock doesn’t stop there. As we said at the start, the ASRock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi looks great and also has plenty of USB ports, onboard RGB lighting and more than enough fan headers too, which are evenly distributed at key points on the PCB.

As usual with ASRock boards, though, the ASRock B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi’s EFI isn’t great and is in dire need of an update to bring it in line with the revamped versions from the likes of Asus and MSI, especially when it comes to the ancient-looking fan control section. Still, it’s functional and most of us will only need to visit it once or twice. Overall this is a stunning motherboard for the cash and capable of handling any hardware you throw at it.

ASRock's motherboard saga has been an ongoing story for months now, with CPUs appearing to fail, ASRock finding debris at fault for one problem, and then over 100 cases of AMD 9800X3D chips dying in just a few short weeks. Just days ago, ASRock acknowledged problems with its board, with an accompanying BIOS fix, and an interview with the company may suggest this saga isn't quite done.

But first, the context. Users with both ASRock motherboards and AMD 9000-series chips found that something in that specific combination was causing CPUs to die. In an interview with Gamers Nexus, Chris Lee, the VP of motherboards at ASRock, explained the three central cases they found when analysing the problem.

The first, which is said to be a "small percentage", was simply down to user error. Debris finding its way into the socket or getting thermal paste in the wrong place are just some of the cases where user damage can be attributed to.

In "a lot of cases", after sending CPUs to AMD, it was found out that the CPUs were actually still operational. The cause for this problem is reportedly a mixture of memory compatibility issues and a BIOS problem.

BIOS update 3.25 launched just a few weeks ago (and can be accessed via the ASRock site), and Lee claims this fixes a problem where the Thermal Design Current (TDC) and Electric Design Current (EDC) were set too high for some AMD chips. The memory compatibility issue was reportedly fixed with the previous BIOS update, 3.20.

This was explained a few days ago as a PBO (Precision Booster Overdrive) issue, as the two currents are linked to that mode, but it wasn't made clear which company was actually responsible. In the latest video, ASRock notably states it is not AMD's fault.

However, this does not account for users who don't have PBO active running into those problems, or claims that some users with the recommended BIOS update are still running into the same problem. As it's all still developing, those cases could be outliers, but users will need time with the new BIOS to see what issues it fixes. Notably, this update will be present on motherboards manufactured in the future, but not those that are already at retail. If you have an ASRock motherboard, make sure you're on the latest version of the BIOS.

Lee tells Gamers Nexus that if there's a problem with the CPU, ASRock will send it back to the user to go through the RMA process with their retailer. ASRock can't replace failing chips, but it could function as a middleman to retailers, which it is currently refusing to do. Notably, though, Lee says this is the case with defective CPUs, so there's a chance he could have misunderstood Gamers Nexus' question as one pertaining to already failing CPUs.

In the interview, Lee claims that ASRock did manage to get its hands on a CPU with scorch marks (indicating faults due to voltage shortage), and it has been sent off to AMD, but analysis has not yet come back.

Despite months of back and forth, it seems this story isn't quite complete, but either way, now is a good time to get that BIOS update, if you have a Ryzen X3D chip in an ASRock motherboard.

Among many other descriptors, we could arguably call the last year one of hardware being pushed to the point of failure—think Intel CPU crashes, melting RTX 50-series power cables, and dying AMD Ryzen 9000-series CPUs on certain motherboards. We already had explanations for the former two, and it now looks like we might have an explanation for the 9000-series deaths, too.

ASRock has apparently told Tech YouTuber Tech Yes City that these 9000-series fatalities were caused by PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) being set too high. While the problems didn't just seem to be occurring with ASRock boards, the majority did, so it's relevant that ASRock is the company saying this.

As a reminder, we started hearing about these AMD Ryzen 9000-series CPU deaths, primarily on ASRock motherboards, early on in the year. At the time, ASRock said that reports of these deaths were "inconsistent" and issued a statement only about "boot issues and error codes," not processor failures. A BIOS update to fix these "boot issues and error codes" was released.

Now, however, ASRock seems to be admitting there's not only "inconsistency" to reports of CPU failures.

According to Tech Yes City, ASRock explains that the problem is with the amperage that the CPUs are being delivered by high-end ASRock boards. While the motherboard manufacturer says its EDC (Electrical Design Current) and TDC (Thermal Design Current) settings were within the range outlined by AMD, it claims the resulting amperage was too high for the CPUs and so it's had to lower things somewhat.

PBO is a technology built into AMD processors that allows for automatic dynamic adjustment of power, voltage, and clock speed, based on temperature headroom and other such metrics. Just how much PBO pushes the chip can vary depending on motherboard current limits, and ASRock seems to be claiming that these limits were set too high in its high-end 9000-series motherboards despite the limits being within the range that AMD provided.

The solution, ASRock tells Tech Yes City, is to set these current limits to lower levels to match motherboards from other manufacturers such as MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte.

Tech Yes City had previously suggested that Ryzen CPUs were dying due to voltage spikes. ASRock motherboard amperage was actually lower than competitors' in their testing, but it was spiking higher.

Whether this is AMD's fault or ASRock's is hard to say. On the one hand, if it's true that ASRock was operating within the limits AMD had set out, it's hard to put all the blame on the motherboard manufacturer. AMD has already said on the issue that it believes its chips are not dying, and in fact were no longer functioning due to memory incompatibility issues.

On the other hand, if other motherboard makers were already operating under lower limits that didn't cause these problems, it must make us wonder whether ASRock could and should have known to do the same from the start.

Whatever the case, ASRock is apparently rolling out a BIOS update to fix the overly aggressive PBO limits. So, if you have a high-end 9000-series ASRock board, you should probably get downloading.

What isn't yet clear is whether a processor that has already been used extensively within an affected motherboard will be permanently damaged or not. That was the case with Intel's 13/14th Gen CPUs, which had to be replaced entirely. This matters not only for the short-term, but in the long-term. If any chip were to break down the line, outside of warranty, who is liable to replace it, AMD or ASRock? Is there an easy way to prove the damage, if any exists, to a chip from the motherboard?

Futher clarification on what this means for customers from both AMD and ASRock feels like an important next step.

Towards the end of last year, Gigabyte launched a BIOS feature for its AMD AM5 socket motherboards called X3D Turbo Mode. With a single click, the motherboard would reconfigure how a Ryzen X3D CPU was set up, squeezing a little more performance out of it. Well, it's back again with a new version, X3D Turbo Mode 2, and this time, Gigabyte is promising a much larger boost.

At this year's Computex event, Gigabyte unveiled the latest generation of its one-click-booster system alongside a raft of new motherboards, as reported by Wccftech. The first version of X3D Turbo Mode worked in a similar manner to other vendors, such as Asus' Turbo Mode, in that it simply disabled SMT (simultaneous multithreading) and for Ryzen 9 X3D processors, it also disabled the second CCD.

So, if you had a Ryzen 7 7950X3D, activating X3D Turbo Mode would turn it from a 16-core, 32-thread chip into an eight-core, eight-thread one. This would ensure that every thread from a game would be processed by cores with 3D V-cache for maximum performance.

Well, that's the idea, but I found that Asus' version just made things worse.

This time, however, Gigabyte has added a bit more to its X3D Turbo Mode system, and instead of just heavily restricting the number of threads a Ryzen X3D chip can support, it also tweaks the power delivery and clock speeds to eke out more performance.

In a presentation slide for X3D Turbo Mode 2, Gigabyte claims that Cyberpunk 2077 can be made to run 15% faster than normal, three times faster than the first generation of Turbo Mode. It's not clear what CPU, motherboard, RAM, and graphics card were used for such a test, nor what game settings were applied, so how easy it will be to verify its claims is anyone's guess.

I must admit that I feel a fair degree of scepticism over the 15% performance increase claims. While disabling SMT and one CCD will work on any Ryzen X3D, not all of them will overclock to the same degree. You could buy ten Ryzen 9 9950X3D chips, and each one will probably have different clock speed limits.

With Gigabyte claiming a 15% increase with Turbo Mode 2 and 5% with the original Turbo Mode, that suggests the BIOS setting applies a 10% overclock to the Ryzen processor, involving changes to the boost clock, power delivery, and memory timings.

It's possible to do all of it yourself, of course, but it involves an awful lot of tweaking, as well as having the right hardware to hand and no small degree of fortune in the silicon lottery. Is Gigabyte achieving all of this via X3D Turbo Mode? It's possible, but as I've already said, I'm sceptical.

Even more so because Gigabyte is also claiming that the second generation of Turbo Mode improves 'multi-core thread' performance by 41% compared to the first gen, which suggests it's no longer disabling SMT (but still shutting off one CCD).

Still, I'm happy to have my doubts shot down with actual test results, so when we get the chance to test out X3D Turbo Mode 2 for ourselves, we'll be sure to let you know how well it actually works.

Ask any PC enthusiast 'What are the best CPUs for gaming?' and you'll get a practically unanimous response: one of AMD's Ryzen X3D processors. They work well in just about any build, from no-expense-spare builds down to compact budget rigs, so if you're looking to make your own small form factor gaming PC, you're probably hunting around for the best mini ITX motherboard to house the Ryzen X3D chip. SFF specialist Minisforum has just announced one such board, but it's an odd one, for sure.

The BD790i X3D is a pretty cool-sounding name for a mere motherboard, and to make it even more special, Minisforum will ship the board with a Ryzen X3D CPU. If you already have such a processor then you might want to look elsewhere, because in the case of the BD790i X3D, the chip is built into the circuit board itself. (via HKEPC Hardware).

Yes, that's right—it's an embedded system, whereby the motherboard houses a Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, normally found inside a high-end gaming laptop. This is basically a 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor but with lower boost clocks and a much lower power limit. Where the desktop chip can reach up to 5.7 GHz and 120 W, the mobile variant is limited to 5.4 GHz and 75 W.

The rest of the BD790i X3D is pretty much standard fare for an AMD mini ITX motherboard: two RAM slots, one PCIe Express slot for a graphics card and two M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots for SSDs. However, because the embedded CPU requires a specialised heatsink, there's little room on the rear IO panel for connection sockets, and you get just five USB ports.

If you grab a normal mini ITX motherboard for AMD AM5 processors, such as the Asus ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming WiFi (currently our top pick in this category), then you'll find twice as many USB ports and all of the same WiFi, LAN, and storage options as the BD790i X3D. Actually, it's somewhat better because it has SATA ports, whereas the Minisforum board doesn't.

So why would you even consider the embedded option over a normal setup? Well, it's mostly about price: Minisforum is currently selling the BD790i X3D for $599, whereas if one heads over to a retailer, a Ryzen 9 7950X3D will set you back $699 on Amazon. Add another $200 or so for a mini ITX motherboard and cooler, and you're looking at way more money.

Of course, one could pick a cheaper X3D chip—the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is now $390 on Amazon—and it'll be just as good, if not slightly better, than the BD790i X3D in gaming, thanks to its higher power limit. But since Minisforum's embedded setup is limited to 100 W in total, it'll churn out less heat. For SFF builds, dealing with less heat means having to deal with fewer fans, and it makes for an easier build.

The Ryzen 7 7945HX3D is a better processor for content creation and heavily multithreaded productivity tasks than the eight-core, 16-thread 7800X3D, so the BD790i X3D might be useful for an ultra-compact, multi-purpose build.

I personally wouldn't pick one up, though, even though I'm a big fan of the weird and wonderful when it comes to PC components. The dearth of USB ports puts me off the most, but I also prefer to have full control over my choice of cooling solution.

It's possible that Minisforum's heatsink can be easily removed and swapped for something else, but then you're probably just better off sticking with a normal setup.

Given how expensive PC building is becoming at the moment, the BD790i X3D might actually sell quite well, as a decent price tag is a rare sight these days. Stranger things have happened in the world of gaming PCs, that's for sure.

Our newsfeeds have been dominated by one word over the past few weeks, and that word is "tariff". President Trump's favourite word, apparently. His administration's international trade policies have thrown markets the world over into something of a loop. Still, even among all this pricing turmoil, there's really no excuse for a $1,371 motherboard, is there?

As reported by Benchlife, that's the dollar equivalent price for the Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Extreme AM5 motherboard. It's suggested retail price in China is said to be RMB 9,999, which works out to some $1,371 at the time of writing.

So what do you get for all that cash? Well, to be fair, a serious slab of electronics. The AM5 socket mobo supports up to 256 GB of 9000 MT/s DDR5 across four DIMM slots, up to five M.2 drives, four USB-C ports, and WiFi 7.

Plus you get two PCIe 5.0 slots with Q-Release Slim mechanisms (both of which look to be the updated version of the socket after a kerfuffle over potential GPU damage from the previous version earlier this year) and what Asus calls an Extreme OC kit—with a host of extra buttons, modes and component upgrades to facilitate mega CPU clocks.

That's quite the impressive specs sheet, and worthy of the Extreme moniker. As is the price, which is truly monstrous.

Of course, components are priced differently for different markets—and given the yo-yo-like nature of the current US tariff situation, it's entirely possible the suggested price may change over the coming weeks, or even minutes at this rate.

Should the price stick around, however, or work out to the equivalent when it eventually reaches western shores, it would easily be the most expensive consumer-grade AM5 motherboard we've seen to date.

That's for a component that many system builders choose to overlook when pricing out a new build. Still, given the high-speed memory support and the wealth of overclocking-friendly components, this motherboard seems destined for the enthusiasts market no matter what price it eventually ends up receiving.

I'd class myself as something of an enthusiast, but I would absolutely baulk at spending that sort of figure on a motherboard, of all things. Still, I'm not an extreme digit-chasing overclocker, and by the looks of it this mobo is built for those who desire the very tippity-top in AM5 motherboard tech.

So, if that's you, it looks like you're going to need some deep pockets if you plan on picking up one of these in the near future. I'd rather drop that sort of cash on a GPU, if I really had to—but you do you, my overclocking friends.

White PC cases are very common these days but finding hardware to color-match with them can be tricky. Thankfully, there’s a growing number of motherboards and graphics cards to choose from when it comes to creating a clean, white PC and the ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi is one of the cheapest options out there for doing so if you’re building an AMD PC using a Ryzen 7000 or 9000-series CPU.

It doesn’t go quite as far with the white as Gigabyte and its Aorus Elite Ice motherboards, though, which have white ports and sockets for items such as memory modules and PCIe devices, However, the equivalent of the ASRock B850 chipset model we’re looking at today retails for noticeably more on Gigabyte’s side. The B850 chipset also brings with it the flexibility to drop certain features you might expect to see on a modern AMD motherboard.

For the ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi, that cut comes in the form of USB4, which is optional on this chipset, and has been dropped from a variety of similar boards too as it’s deemed unnecessary given its expense and niche appeal that likely don’t match up with what is essentially a low-end motherboard in the overall scheme of things.

Ultimately, it also depends on what else ASRock has decided to cut from the specs list as to whether the ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi is a decent option in its own right, aside from its color scheme.

For just over $230, it’s a great-looking motherboard, although, up close those white trimmings are more of a light silvery grey than pure white, but would still look better in a white PC case than a black motherboard. The 14+2+1 power phase design is cooled by two large heatsinks, with similar chunks of aluminium dealing with three of the four M.2 SSD ports too.

At mid-board is a single PCIe 5.0 M.2 port that’s equipped with a large tool-free heatsink, while the rest of the M.2 ports are all PCIe 4.0 and all can be used at the same time at full speed, with the only sacrifice being the second PCIe slot. Being able to run a PCIe 5.0 graphics card, SSD and three additional PCIe 4.0 SSDs at the same time is quite impressible for what is a low end motherboard, even if graphics cards won’t benefit for a few years in terms of actually offering higher frame rates.

Only of those ports lacks a heatsink and the lower ports use one single heatsink that will need tools to install.

There are six fan headers to choose from, which is the bare minimum we’d expect on an ATX board to offer the flexibility to power multiple CPU cooler fans, pumps and several case fans without having to use splitter cables. There’s a generous four RGB headers too, made up of three 5V 3-pin and one 12V 4-pin. ASRock even managed to include some RGB lighting on the board itself under the long M.2 heatsink at the bottom.

As it’s ditched the expensive USB4 support, ASRock has managed to avert downgrading other features such as the audio or Wi-Fi, with Realtek ALC4080 included, while Wi-Fi 7 is the latest standard offered across both Intel and AMD platforms right now. The future-proofing continues with a USB 3.1 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps Type-C front panel header, which can power the latest external SSDs and shove data to them at over 2,000 MB/sec.

What it lacks in fan headers it makes up for in Type-A USB ports on the rear I/O panel with nine in total, although only just over half of these are faster than USB 2.0. Still, there’s also two Type-C 10 Gbps ports here too plus you get a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port and a USB BIOS Flashback button too. Quick words on ASRock’s software and EFI, as there’s not much to write home about. They’re fairly basic and definitely not as fresh and snazzy as equivalent Asus alternatives, but still provide easy access to commonly used options.

PC Gamer test platform

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

Sadly there were no VRM or chipset temperature readouts to delve into and compare, but the result from our PCIe Gen 5 SSD was encouraging at a peak of just 71°C, so well away from the throttling dangerzone. There were certainly no warning signs with the CPU package power either, which were within single figures of the Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi and Gigabyte X870 Aorus Elite WiFi Ice, while the Cinebench scores were close too.

The Blender Junkshop result of 149 was just a single point behind the Gigabyte and two behind the Asus board, but in games things seem to have improved potentially thanks to software updates, with a higher Factorio score, average frame rate in Baldur’s Gate 3 and again in Cyberpunk 2077. This was all while consuming less power too.

If you want a motherboard for a white-themed PC and can’t stretch to Gigabyte’s Aorus Elite Wi-Fi 7 Ice models, then the ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi is a worthy alternative that’s future-proofed for PCIe 5.0 graphics cards and M.2 SSDs and cooled the latter comfortably too. It has plenty of USB ports and even manages to offer USB 3.1 Gen 2x2 on the front panel.

However, it lacks USB4, which may become more useful in future, especially as it supports Thunderbolt 4 too, and while it has USB BIOS Flashback, it lacks most other similar features. While the Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite Wi-Fi 7 Ice also lacks USB4, it offers more in the way of features, more expensive M.2 SSD cooling and tool-free features and goes all-out with a white color scheme too.

If you’re looking to build a Mini-ITX PC using one of AMD’s Ryzen 7000- or 9000-series CPUs then there’s quite a range of Mini-ITX motherboards to choose from, bolstered relatively recently by the launch of the B850 chipset that mostly brings lower price points than X870 and X870E. One of these is the ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi, which will leave you with change from $300.

Still not exactly cheap. It also has both current and previous generation chipset options to consider for similar prices or less as well as sizable variations in its own price depending on where you are. The key benefit here is that unlike B650 chipset options such as ASRock’s own Phantom Gaming B650I Lightning Wi-Fi, the PCIe x16 slot is PCIe 5.0 compatible.

The issue for the Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi, though, is that there’s very little else that’s new given the near $100 price difference between those boards. Both support PCIe 5.0 SSDs, both have one PCIe 5.0 M.2 port and one PCIe 4.0 M.2 port along with Wi-Fi 6E.

The benefits are worth considering, though, as they relate to audio performance and CPU power delivery, which could make up at least some of that sizeable price difference. What’s more of an issue is that the likes of the Asus ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming Wi-Fi have active VRM cooling while Gigabyte’s B650I Aorus Ultra boasts three M.2 ports and both are cheaper. Let’s see how the ASRock fares overall.

Compared to the Phantom Gaming B650I Lightning Wi-Fi, it’s a similar design here, with the benefits of an additional two CPU power phases and also better audio in the form of Realtek’s ALC1220 instead of ALC897. That’s about it, though, and both boards have very small M.2 heatsinks for dealing with hot-running PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Another competitor is ASRock’s own B650E PG-ITX Wi-Fi, which includes an actively cooled M.2 heatsink. Other than that, though, the Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi seems to be almost identical, yet costs about $30 less.

One feature that seems to be hard to find especially on B-series chipset Mini-ITX boards is USB4, but Gigabyte has managed to shoehorn this in to the X870I Aorus Pro Ice, which costs about the same and also includes Wi-Fi 7 and a snazzy white color scheme. As if the venerable Asus ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming Wi-Fi wasn’t enough to worry about, the ROG Strix B850-I Gaming Wi-Fi adds Wi-Fi 7 to the equation as well as actively-cooled VRMs while costing the same as ASRock’s offering. These boards especially makes the Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi feel a little expensive for the features on offer.

It does have a decent seven Type-A USB ports backed up by a USB 3.1 Type-C port, and unlike the Gigabyte the X870I Aorus Pro Ice, has an optical output and even boasts a 2-pin thermal probe header. However, one of those is also included on the Asus ROG Strix B850-I Gaming Wi-Fi. The M.2 heatsink, as well as being small, lacks underside cooling for the SSD so its unlikely to tame most double-sided PCIe 5.0 SSDs, while the second port is located on the rear of the PCB and lacks a heatsink completely.

We’d maybe have liked to see the third of three fan headers located with the others at the top edge of the PCB, if only to be able to access it more easily in a cramped Mini-ITX case, but otherwise the smaller heatsinks to mean wide CPU cooler compatibility and most liquid coolers we tried such as the Arctic Liquid Freezer III and NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB fit fine. Our biggest issue, though, was the EFI, which just feels dated clunky especially compared to those from Asus.

PC Gamer test platform

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

Sadly, there were no VRM temperature readouts, but there was a chipset sensor and the result of 68°C was noticeably cooler than the Asus ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wi-Fi at 73°C, but still noticeably warmer than any ATX motherboard we’ve tested. Gaming performance was mostly similar to the Asus board as well as its bigger siblings we’ve tested recently, although Factorio exhibited the same slower results we’ve seen from a few other boards including the Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi, which are seemingly isolated results.

The average CPU package power in games and content creation of 99W and 162W respectively were again level with other boards, closely matching the mighty Asus ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wi-Fi, with results just a tiny bit slower in Cinebench R24 too. Sadly, one area the Asus board fared far better was in cooling our PCIe 5.0 SSD, which started throttling right at the end of our stress test, hitting 82°C, while the Asus board peaked at just 74°C.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning Wi-Fi does a decent job of bringing AMD’s overclocking-enabled B850 chipset to the Mini-ITX form factor, but the price is a little high for what it offers. The competition at this price includes the Asus ROG Strix B850-I Gaming Wi-Fi, which has a far superior EFI and Wi-Fi 7 as well as an actively-cooled VRM heatsink.

The Gigabyte X870I Aorus Pro Ice looks far better and includes USB4, Wi-Fi 7, a larger M.2 heatsink and more tool-free features. Where the ASRock board excels is its decent number of rear Type-A USB ports and CPU cooler compatibility. The rest largely depends on where in the world you are, but in the US right now, it’s the same price as aforementioned better options from Gigabyte and Asus, while in the UK, it’s over £100 cheaper.

Here it suddenly makes a lot more sense as a budget-conscious Socket AM5 Mini-ITX motherboard that matches or betters older boards. We’d still love for ASRock to revamp it’s EFI and the M.2 heatsink can’t cope with most PCIe 5.0 SSDs. But if you can find it for significantly less than the Asus alternative, it’s much better value, so long as you use a PCIe 4.0 SSD or third party SSD heatsink.

While ATX motherboards don’t vary much in their design and layout, the same can’t be said of Mini-ITX motherboards. Like the cases that go with them, manufacturers have different approaches to cram everything into a 170 mm x 170 mm PCB, allowing them to offer a similar experience to full-size motherboards.

The Asus ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wi-Fi is no exception, building on the drool-worthy ROG Strix X670E-I Gaming Wi-Fi and going all-out on features. You get USB4 ports, PCIe 5.0 SSD and GPU support, Wi-Fi 7 and like the old model, there’s even a desktop sound card giving you quick access to even more ports and features.

Despite Mini-ITX being a niche option, though, there’s stiff competition, not least of all from B-series chipset options including those from Asus itself.

This means there’s a spotlight on the Asus ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wi-Fi’s price tag of $450 and whether it’s worth a sizeable premium over cheaper models when all are dealing with severe PCB real estate limitations. There are premium options from the competition and what if anything is better than its X670E sibling, although the latter is now end of life and rarely available so a comparison here is more out of interest than a potentially better option.

Starting with what’s new and the biggest change is the move from X670E to X870 for the chipset. All extreme versions of AMD’s desktop chipsets use two physical chipsets in tandem, meaning the original board had to find a way to cram two onto an already packed PCB. However, as we said earlier, Mini-ITX is never boring, as Asus decided to mount it vertically on a separate PCB. The downside, though, was that it was cooled by the M.2 heatsink that already struggled to deal with SSDs.

This time there’s just one, so the lower M.2 port gets the heatsink all to itself. Now that X870 supports PCIe 5.0 GPUs, X670E lacks any significant advantages that can be worked into the tight confines of a Mini-ITX motherboard. Despite the older chipset sporting twice the 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps USB and SATA port counts of X870, both boards have the same two SATA ports and the ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wi-Fi actually has more USB ports in total.

These include two Type-C USB 4, one Type-C USB 3.1, four Type-A USB 3.1 and three USB 2.0 on the rear panel plus USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports on the included external ROG Strix Hive II sound card. The rear I/O panel also includes a CMOS clear button and USB BIOS Flashback button, along with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet and Wi-Fi 7 antennas.

The vertical heatsink stack for the SSDs houses one PCIe 5.0 M.2 port at the top with a second port limited to PCIe 4.0 beneath. Thankfully, despite the close proximity of the heatsink to the CPU socket, the motherboard supports large liquid coolers such as the Arctic Liquid Freezer III and NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB, at least with the tubes at the top of the motherboard.

Neither top M.2 port is cooled on both sides, so you’ll see better temperatures with single-sided SSDs. The top port is easy to access, but the lower one needs a few minutes to disassemble the heatsinks to get at it. The two SATA ports are located on yet another daughterboard that connects to two vertical Type-C ports next to the memory modules, which also provides two USB 2.0 headers and the front panel header.

The board uses a 10+2+1 phase power delivery with a single large heatsink. Both it and the M.2 heatsinks are actively cooled by two tiny, embedded fans. These don’t seem to spin up, even under extended loads, but you can’t fully control them in the EFI or software either than to switch the VRM fan to full speed, where it sounds hideous. Hopefully it’s only in extreme situations where they’d become a problem.

PC Gamer test platform

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin III 360 ARGB Extreme | RAM: 32 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5-6000 | Storage: 2 TB Corsair MP700 | PSU: MSI MAG AB50GL 850 W | OS: Windows 11 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Dell U2415

The average frame rate in Cyberpunk 2077 was on par with other boards we’ve tested recently at 117 fps, powered on by an RTX 4070. In Baldur’s Gate 3 its average of 114 fps was the highest we’ve seen of any recent board, while its average Factorio benchmark time of 19.4 secs was mostly on par too.

The CPU temperature in games was a little high, though, despite using the same cooling as the ASRock B850 Steel Legend Wi-Fi for example, where the latter was 6°C cooler. The gaming CPU package power of 101 W might explain this as it’s one of the highest we’ve seen for the Ryzen 9 9900X CPU we use for testing.

The Blender and 7zip results were again within fractions of what other boards achieved so nothing much to write home about there. The VRM and chipset temperatures were more interesting, though, with the chipset being by far the hottest we’ve seen at 73°C, while the VRMs were a middling 53°C. The CPU package power under full load in Cinebench was much more in line with the rest of the field at a peak of 162 W, while achieving a decent score of 1,833 in Cinebench R24’s multi-core test.

Perhaps the best result is that our PCIe 5.0 SSD was just about tamed by the relatively small and single-sided heatsink, peaking at 74°C and in doing so avoiding throttling that starts at 80°C or so.

It’s always great to see some out-of-the-box thinking and exotic design with motherboards and the Asus ROG Strix B850-I Gaming Wi-Fi makes the current crop of ATX motherboard look boringly similar by comparison. The design is functional, though, as it provides enough cooling to handle the heat from the latest CPUs and SSDs, while clearing the way for probably the best connectivity of any Socket AM5 Mini-ITX motherboard.

We do have slight concerns over the chipset fans as Asus doesn’t have a great track record here that owners of this board’s X570 predecessor will attest to, while the lower M.2 SSD is a pain to get to buried under layers of heatsinks. Some small form factor fans dislike the Hive external sound card too and there’s also nearly no tool-free features.

The biggest issue, though, is the price. At $450, it’s $150 more than Gigabyte’s X870I Aorus Pro Ice and Asus’ own ROG Strix B850-I Gaming Wi-Fi, which is a huge premium that could be better spent on a better graphics card or higher capacity SSD. However, if you’re building the Mini-ITX PC of your dreams and just want the best board you can get, while it’s not perfect, the Asus ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wi-Fi is undoubtedly it.

We can all go home folks. The saga of Asus' Q-Release Slim system has finally reached its conclusion, as the company has released a statement confirming design changes to reduce the risk of damaging graphics cards.

As reported by Videocardz, the Asus statement reads: "Yes, a change has been made to the Q-Release Slim system for new X870 motherboards. We have modified the PCIe slot for the Q-Release Slim system based on user feedback.

"A metal component has been removed to reduce the risk of damaging the video card. Additionally, stickers have been added to the system to inform users about the correct use of the system."

Time for a quick catchup for those of you not paying attention: Asus' Q-Release Slim system was accused of grinding GPU contact pins over multiple reinsertions, which would be a very bad thing indeed. The company then released a statement to Wccftech saying that its own testing showed "no damage to the motherboard or graphics card that would affect functionality and or performance."

Despite this, a revised socket design showed up in new product photos of an Asus ROG Apex X870E motherboard, and Asus China's customer support was spotted offering motherboard replacements for owners of motherboards equipped with PCIe Q-Release Slim slots.

Oh, and Gigabyte released a video of its own PCIe slot being used many, many times without issue. Possibly innocently, although the timing was suspect to say the least.

Anyway, it seems Asus has officially bitten the bullet and changed the design, even if its own testing showed no issues. Plus, who doesn't love an extra sticker?

I'd imagine, given the coverage of this potential issue from many outlets, it would probably be a good idea to update the slot even if the issue wasn't repeatable in its testing facilities. Good PR, and all that, but it looks like we can finally put the issue to bed.

Sleep safe, PC Gamers. Asus' slot woes appear to be over, and we can all be thankful for that.