Board Layout

A closer look reveals quite a mix of whites and silvers, it's still a board that would look great in a white-themed build, but the competition does have options that extend the white theme to more areas on the PCB. This is as white as they come in the ASUS X870 line-up, but still, with the icy white I/O shroud and its embedded RGB lit ROG logo, the board looks fantastic when powered up so we doubt anyone would be disappointed by its appearance. The rear of the PCB lacks a backplate too, which we like to see for protection and additional VRM cooling, but $350 seems to be a cut-off point for this and other features we've grown used to at this price.


The ASUS tool-free features are here in abundance just like other manufacturers this time, but ASUS has taken a different approach to most of them, implementing the features across Wi-Fi connectors, PCIe slot release and M.2 installation in alternative ways. To start with, Q-Antenna is essentially separate push-fit connectors for the included Wi-Fi antenna. They're easy enough to install, Gigabyte's are a little easier being single-piece, but anything is better than the small rotating rings we've seen in the past. The upper M.2 heatsink features M.2 Q-Release, which has a large release lever at one end and a slot heatsink to slide into on the other. This is easier to use than Gigabyte or MSI's implementations here, but sadly this only extends to the single upper heatsink and PCIe Gen 5 M.2 port. This is a decent size heatsink though and feels larger and heavier than the one on the more expensive Crosshair X870E Hero.


Continuing with the M.2 theme and only the upper heatsink is cooled on both sides by thermal pads, with the additional three M.2 ports below the primary 16x PCIe Gen 5 slot only cooled from above. There's likely to be some variation in cooling potential here depending on whether your SSD is single or double-sided, but it's also worth looking at the PCIe lane configuration too. You'll want to avoid the slot below the primary 16x slot as this will steal lanes from your graphics card, but this also means the board only really has bandwidth for one PCIe Gen 5 SSD seeing as this is the only other slot with it, but also sees your graphics card cut to eight lanes.

This is potentially an issue as previously we've seen the larger lower heatsink perform better when cooling PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, but here, if you're holding a new 10,000 MB/sec+ SSD, then most of us will need to use the top slot and its smaller heatsink. We'll see how it fares later. The third slot which is limited to PCIe Gen 4 will also steal lanes, but this time from the lower PCIe slot, which only has four lanes. This is one of the drawbacks of X870 being the smaller sibling of X870E, but you'll still be able to concurrently run a PCIe Gen 5 SSD and a Gen 4 SSD without impacting PCIe slot one bandwidth for your graphics card.


All the M.2 slots feature M.2 Q-Latch, which is the ASUS tool-free mechanism to install M.2 SSDs. This is slightly easier to use than MSI's equivalent in being a little more positive-feeling and installing SSDs and the heatsink into the top PCIe Gen 5 slot takes seconds as a result. Sadly, the lower heatsink is secured using screws, whereas the competition often uses tool-free mechanisms and Gigabyte's makes it much easier to deal with large heatsinks. Still, it's likely only something you'll have to deal with once.

The lower PCIe slot lacks the next tool-free feature, which is PCIe Slot Q-Release and this isn't particularly clear in the manual or product page as the slots barely differ visually either. Rather than have a push button to release the slot lever for your graphics card, you simply lift the card upwards from the PCI slot end and this releases lock. Don't do this on the lower slot, though, as you'll be met with the usual refusal of the card to lift out. You need to use its lever as normal. PCIe Slot Q-Release does work well once you get used to it, but we'd definitely prefer a push button mechanism as it feels more positive.


The ROG Strix X870-A Gaming Wi-Fi has a mostly flawless layout, although having five of the eight fan headers located at the bottom of the PCB can cause issues in a few cases with multiple front fans, potentially requiring the need for extension cables compared to having these ports located near the 24-pin ATX connector, but at least there's both CPU OPT and AIO pump headers located next to the CPU header so powering AIO liquid coolers is possible from the upper half of the board which you might struggle to do on boards such as the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master.

Sadly, while there's a basic power button at the base of the board somewhat confusingly named Start, rather than the usual Power, features such as an LED POST code display and reset buttons are absent, which is a little depressing on a board that leaves you with no change from $350. Thankfully you do get Q-LED, which gives you an indication of where your board is at prior to getting to Windows, which is very useful on AMD boards that take a while to get there. All the 4-pin fan headers are 12 W/1 A, which is maybe a little limiting but is more than enough to run a couple of high speed fans from for typical use case scenarios. The rear USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port is the only one to offer more than your typical power output with 30 W PD fast-charging. We'd argue the extra power would likely be more useful on the case front panel Type-C, which is what the ASUS Crosshair X870 Hero does too.


The RGB lighting comprises only 3-pin headers with one up top and two at the base of the board, so ideally placed for cable tidying if you want to expand the illumination further than the I/O shrouds internal lighting. The covers on the fan headers are maybe a little unnecessary, though, and were actually a little tricky to remove. Definitely get rid of these before you install the motherboard as they could be difficult to get at in smaller cases.


The rear I/O panel doesn't get any complaints from us, though, with a decent nine Type-A ports and five of these being USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps, plus there's the usual two USB4 40 Gbps ports and additional Type-C that has the 30 W power delivery plus 10 Gbps speed. As well as full size DisplayPort and HDMI connectors, the two USB4 ports also act as DisplayPort outputs, so there's plenty of scope here for multi-monitor setups. As you'd expect with hopefully another generation of CPUs on Socket AM5, there's a USB BIOS Flashback plus a CMOS clear button. The Intel 2.5 Gbps Ethernet might seem pointless to some, but in terms of future proofing, plenty of mainstream routers out there are equipped with 2.5 Gbps ports now, even those provided by ISPs to cater for broadband speeds above 1 Gbps that are now relatively common.