Storage Interfaces

Storage Performance

The ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E HERO has plenty of 10 Gb/s USB 3.2 Type-A ports, thanks to the AMD dual X670 chipset(s). Knowing what devices are connected to what internally is a bit tricky, since ASUS does not have a block diagram included in the manual. Therefore, educated guesses were made based on other motherboards layouts and possible configurations.

*ORICO USB4 NVMe Enclosure (ORICO-M208C3-U4) used for USB bandwidth tests.

AIDA64 (SATA 6 Gb/s)

AIDA64 (USB 3.2)

The external USB-C enclosure is rated for 40 Gb/s over USB4 or Thunderbolt 3/4. The fallback is 10 Gb/s for everything else. 1032 MB/s is right on target for a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) enclosure. USB4 is also at peak performance, though it should be reiterated that these USB4 ports are shared with the motherboards M.2 Socket_1 (top). Both cannot be used at the same time.

AIDA64 (NVMe M.2)

Using a PCIe Gen 4 x4 M.2 drive, testing shows that all M.2 sockets are at least Gen 4 x4. Without access to a Gen 5 NVMe, those M.2 slots cannot be fully tested. The M.2 Gen 5 sockets are always connected to the CPU directly, regardless of the motherboard in question, as the X670E/X670/B650 chipsets do not have the throughput available for Gen 5 devices.

Included with the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E HERO is the PCIe add-on card for an additional M.2 Gen 5 NVMe drive. The main issue many will encounter with Gen 5 NVMe drives is thermal throttling. This has been brought up in previous reviews, though to reiterate here, the first generation of Gen 5 NVMe drives get extremely hot. If you're doing quick reads or writes it won't be a problem using the included heatsinks. However, if you plan on using the drives for sustained read and writes for a extended period of time, the first generation of Gen 5 SSDs will require active cooling. The ASUS PCIe Gen 5 card has a thick heatsink, but will ultimately rely on the passive airflow of the case.