Component Analysis

On the left side of the board we have isolated audio circuitry plus the Realtek ALC 4082 codec, ESS SABRE9219 DAC and Realtek RTL8126 5 Gbps controller, while the Wi-Fi 7 M.2 module—buried deep under the I/O shroud heatsinks—is a MediaTek MT7925, which features numerous thermal pads.


The two X870E chipsets are located relatively close on the board compared to others we've seen, but are cooled by a large heatsink that's separate to that which cools the two lower M.2 ports. ASRock has also seen sense to extend this back across the board to increase surface area, although much of it will undoubtedly sit under your graphics card.


As the block diagram above shows and ASRock recommends, the M.2_1 port located above the primary 16x PCIe slot should be your priority for M.2 installation with lanes running directly from the CPU, and that slot still offers decent cooling too as we'll get to in a minute. We also found a small additional heatsink thermally connected to the larger VRM heatsinks in the I/O shroud and found this was to cool the ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 controller. Technically it's actively cooled as the VRM fan also cools this section, as is the Wi-Fi module.