ASUS ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi

[Combatus]

AMD's B850 chipset is here and the first board we're looking at costs $300, but still includes PCIe Gen 5 support for SSDs and graphics cards while maintaining great VRM cooling and plenty of features. However, how does it stack up against cheaper B650 or slightly pricier X870 options?

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[FreedomEclipse]

This was a very nice touch but so unnecessary as nobody will be able to see it once everything is strapped in.

 

[Chaitanya]

• Lack of USB4 might reduce future proofing for some

For the asking price of this Shitsus RoGarbage not even surprising to find feature castration so overall just skip over for better competing options from MSI and Gigabyte and Asrock at cheaper prices.

This was a very nice touch but so unnecessary as nobody will be able to see it once everything is strapped in.

View attachment 378650

Thats where the extra money is being wasted for what should be a sub $200 motherboard.

 

[thefabgar]

So hear me out, now motherboards manufacturers believes that you take out your nvme out more often than, let's say, your GPU?

Nobody does that, PCI-E Easy Release should've stayed. No reason to replace it with a non sense new nvme easy release system.

They released that feature less than two chipsets ago and Asus is deprecating that already? Even in high end motherboards?

I swear to you that the ratio of how many times you take your GPU out vs your NVME is 1 million to 1.

Unbelievable.

 

[freeagent]

What a little beast. Like my little Strix XE.

 

[_roman_]

page 1

BIOS Flashback button
Clear CMOS button
1x 2.5 Gbps Ethernet
1x HDMI port
1x DisplayPort
1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps (Type-C)
1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps (Type-C)
2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps (Type-A)
4x USB 3.0 (Type-A)
4x USB 2.0 (Type-A)
2x Wi-Fi antenna connectors
2x Audio jacks
1x Optical S/PDIF Out port

I think it should be written like this. I prefer complete statements. (I assumed these numbers below)

4x USB 3.0 5 Gbps (Type-A)
4x USB 2.0 480 Mbps (Type-A)

1x Intel 2.5 Gbps Ethernet
1x Wi-Fi 7

Which one? the defective intel ones? My previous mainboard had a defective intel wlan MSI B550 Gaming edge wifi. My current intel wlan ax210 wlan crashes the hole operating system randomly.

Please add the manufacturer / chip type / revision type.

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It seems no more SATA. Harddrive manufacturers should slowly think about adapting the m2 connector or some other means. 2 SATA Ports are showing the connector vanishes from mainboards.

--

ASUS: For those who dare
.. to buy a ASUS product with high quality and good customer support.

--

Last Page

Of course, we also have B650 to consider. The likes of the ASUS ROG Strix B650E-F Gaming Wi-Fi are still readily available and could potentially save you $50-60.

B650E, right?

 

[sLowEnd]

Just another overpriced ROG product

 

[dartuil]

This was a very nice touch but so unnecessary as nobody will be able to see it once everything is strapped in.

View attachment 378650

I have a big space behind for this in my case depending where this is.
EDIT : You right its useless

 

[Cheeseball]

@Combatus A little correction needed on the first page:


Other than that, great review.

$300 for a B850 which is essentially a B650E is... just no. VRM cooling is great, but price puts this close to X870 boards which have the same amount of ports and similar cooling.

 

[Pepamami]

The teamed VRMs are made up of 16 phases for the CPU, two for SOC and two for MISC. These are all 80 A Vishay SIC629, so a bit of a climb down from the 110 A stages on the Crosshair X870E Hero for example, but still perfectly capable of handling a Zen 5 16-core CPU.

80A Vishay has a better "peak" efficiency, than 110A Vishay. This "max current" label is just a marketing stuff.

Also it would be nice to see too see a map of USB Root Hosts, which usb port goes where, since stinky mobo makers always hide this info, and u have to probe it urself with HWINFO64.

 

[Readlight]

Where 7.1 sound, SATA 6

 

[Combatus]

@Combatus A little correction needed on the first page:
View attachment 378746

Other than that, great review.

$300 for a B850 which is essentially a B650E is... just no. VRM cooling is great, but price puts this close to X870 boards which have the same amount of ports and similar cooling.

Fixed, thanks!

 

[kapone32]

What a little beast. Like my little Strix XE.

The E is like our XE.

 

[Combatus]

page 1



I think it should be written like this. I prefer complete statements. (I assumed these numbers below)

4x USB 3.0 5 Gbps (Type-A)
4x USB 2.0 480 Mbps (Type-A)



Which one? the defective intel ones? My previous mainboard had a defective intel wlan MSI B550 Gaming edge wifi. My current intel wlan ax210 wlan crashes the hole operating system randomly.

Please add the manufacturer / chip type / revision type.

--

It seems no more SATA. Harddrive manufacturers should slowly think about adapting the m2 connector or some other means. 2 SATA Ports are showing the connector vanishes from mainboards.

--

ASUS: For those who dare
.. to buy a ASUS product with high quality and good customer support.

--

Last Page



B650E, right?

Fixed these. Typically we'll go into more detail on the component analysis page but I'll get in the habit of adding the manuf/chip/revision in the specs too. Was slightly hampered this time as the board arrived with no review guide or manual so had nothing to go on while writing the first page.

For USB specs, I do see your point but we've not included speeds below 10 Gbps for a while as data speeds below that are largely irrelevant as you're not going to want to connect anything speed-dependant too them. And all boards have something faster now unless its something we wouldn't feel worthy of reviewing. Just adds clutter to the specs table for the sake of it. It was more for clarity given the USB 3.1/3.2.gen2x2 fustercluck confusing people so 10/20/40 Gbps helps to clarify the differences and more importantly, where to plug in external SSDs and the like. I feel most people know that USB 3.0 and 2.0 are just for peripherals or slow flash drives. Plus I think less tech-savvy peeps may and mistakenly misread bigger numbers being faster - 480, which in this case it isn't.

 

[Cadasiso]

Classic 1300A VRM for CPUs that don't pull more than 250A and components that have their peak efficiency at 30% load, this feels so corny

 

[Pepamami]

Classic 1300A VRM for CPUs that don't pull more than 250A and components that have their peak efficiency at 30% load, this feels so corny

its just a marketing number in VRM, because some 60A rated dr.mos can outperform some other 110A dr.mos, just by having a better effiency on 20-50% load.

 

[GO DAWGS!]

@Combatus isn't this a piece of plastic peel over the audio housing? I remember when I built my system with the B650E-F motherboard I peeled a piece of plastic off, but it wasn't easy to do. It was stuck on there pretty good. I've had no issues, but I wondered if it was supposed to be removed. Just curious. As for the sound quality of the Realtek ALC4080 codec, it sounds great to me. Impressive sound quality from on-board sound for music and when gaming. Enjoyed the review!

 

[Gmr_Chick]

This was a very nice touch but so unnecessary as nobody will be able to see it once everything is strapped in.

View attachment 378650

As someone who hates ASUS overuse of the tacky "gamer" aesthetic, I see this as a good thing -- keep all that crap behind the board so I don't have to look at it.

This is coming from someone with an X670-A board. It's got stuff like the above printed on the back of the board, completely unnecessary.

 

[Chaitanya]

Turns out Gigabyte has B850 AI TOP board for $350(B&H listing) and that board comes with 2x 10Gbps NIC and 16x PCIe slot that can be bifurcated into 2x 8x slots or you can get B850 Elite for $230 and have similar features and connectivity to this overpriced Shitsus RoGarbage board. There also are X870 boards that cost less than this board.