Component Analysis

With an extremely basic feature set, there's not a great deal to go over here except to nail down exact model numbers for components. The Wi-Fi 6E module is a MediaTek MT7922A22M and ASRock has a note on the product page that claims the module only has a Windows 11 driver and is only compatible with that OS, so Windows 10 users beware.


The AMD B850 chipset is equipped with a small heatsink that could probably have doubled as an underside cooler for M.2 SSDs, but as it stands it only cools the chipset using a thermal pad. One of the additional costs of the higher tier X870E is having two actual chipsets on the PCB and requiring more PCB real-estate as well as extra cooling. A lot will depend on your particular setup, but given the small nature of the heatsink and the fact the M.2 port sits right on top, sustained workloads could potentially be an issue. We noticed no issues in our testing, but in the confines of a toasty small form factor PC, things can get a lot hotter. Just something to consider.


Audio is provided by the trusty Realtek ALC1220 codec, with the main difference between it and newer 4000-series codecs being the newer models use the USB bus. They otherwise offer similar performance. I honestly expected this to be the inferior ALC892 at this price, but it was good to see something a little better on the PCB. The 2.5 Gbps Ethernet meanwhile is provided by Intel's Killer E3100G.