Component Analysis

As we're dealing with B850, like X870, there's just one chipset whereas X870E has two separate chipsets, which amongst other things helps to spread the heat load. The situation is much less crowded here with just a single relatively small heatsink catering to the chipset. The upside is that the area around the M.2 ports and graphics card is much clearer than that on its X870E siblings. The top two M.2 ports are PCIe Gen 5 compatible, but both run off the CPU, not the chipset and with no USB4 on board, neither steals lanes from your graphics card.


There's not much to show for the audio except for the snazzy metal cap ASUS adds to the top of the Realtek ALC4080 codec lodged in the isolated part of the PCB. To power its mass of USB ports, USB 3.0 or under is via ASMedia ASM1074. As there's not hot-running USB4 controller, there's no need for an enlarged or separate heatsink here and only the VRMs are passively cooled with one.


The 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet is provided by Intel's i226-V controller and will likely prove useful if you prefer a wired connection to your router with home Internet speeds regularly topping 1 Gbps these days.


Here we see the Wi-Fi 7 module of choice - a MediaTek MT7925B22M. We can also see that it's possible to replace the module or the antennas despite ASUS using its Q-Antenna connectors. The module isn't making thermal contact with the heatsinks above as on some more expensive boards.


Finally, if you're wondering about fan power, all ports are limited to 12 W/1 A, which should be plenty for powering a trio of high-power fans on an AIO liquid cooler for example.