Published: September 30, 2024 | Source: ASUS | Author: Tom Logan

ASUS Strix X870-A Gaming WiFi Review

Conclusion

Chances are this isn’t the first review you’re reading on OC3D. If it is, hi, hello and welcome. But as it probably isn’t you’ll be aware that white hardware has a special place in our heart. Unquestionably there is a current vogue for the white models of old to lean towards black PCBs with silver heatsinks. Things just aren’t as pale as they once were.

Thankfully the ASUS ROG Strix X870-A has gone nearly all in on that white aesthetic. It only needs the DIMM slots to be grey or white to basically be perfect. We rag on ASUS a bit for their glitchy text and pixel aesthetic – see the ROG Eye on the heatsink here for an example – but credit where credit is due. It’s gorgeous, crisp, clear. Lovely.

Aesthetics are only one thing though. The newest AMD chipset, in both X870 and X870E guises, is consistent enough that you can choose on aesthetics without fear of being stuck with a poor performing lemon. As you could see throughout our testing today the Strix X870-A performs plenty well enough for anyone’s needs. As you could see from our voltage graph ASUS aren’t pumping needless volts through our Ryzen 9 9900X. That leads to low temperatures, and if you’ve been curious about recent Intel releases, low temperatures are something it seemed impossible to get. Kudos to AMD for designing a processor that doesn’t thing 100Â°C is perfectly normal.

Performance isn’t the only element of the Strix X870-A that makes it worthy of consideration even if you’ve never thought of a white setup. Connectivity is important too. With the Strix A you’re getting one PCIe 5.0 slot, and two Gen5 M.2 slots. We’ve seen X870s with three slots today, but conversely the ASUS goes hard on the USB side of things with a full complement of USB3 and USB4 connections on the back.

The ASUS ROG Strix X870-A is right in that sweet spot. It has everything you need, little that you don’t, and wraps it up in a pristine white aesthetic. It’s perfect if you want a motherboard that will reward you for a smart choice without emptying your wallet to do so and wins our OC3D Gamers Choice Award.