ASUS X399-E Strix Gaming Review

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We’ve spoken at length about how attention grabbing the Strix packaging is and the X399-E Gaming is no exception. Whilst the ability to snag a passer in a component superstore is lessened due to the online way we all shop these days, it’s great to open the parcel and get that excited feeling and new purchase smell.

  

One thing the Threadripper CPUs do is use plenty of juice and push the power circuitry to its limits, so it’s not a great shock to see ASUS attempt to tame this issue by utilising a fan on the left hand IO shield heatsink whilst tying the power phase one to it via a heatpipe. This has necessitated the moving of the CPU power connectors to alongside the ATX 24pin. Handy for your cable routing at the very least.

  

With four full length PCI Express slots the bottom half of the X399-E Strix Gaming can be quite busy, but there is a lot of flexibility about which you use for soundcards and other addins, whilst still allowing you to go all in on multiple graphics cards should you so desire. The placement of the hardware is very good too, with everything grouped in similar places, rather than the higgledy-piggledy nature that can plague more complicated offerings.

  
  

It’s amazing how much of a flash in the pan the SATA Express idea was. The speedy tumbling of M.2 storage prices have made them the go-to option for anyone seeking speeds beyond that provided by the regular SATA III SSDs.

  

Dedicated pump and fan headers ensure that your Threadripper setup can be kept cool without the worries associated with putting pumps into regular fan headers and ensuring they never spin down.

  

Keeping your X399 chipset cool is a hark back to the early days of our hardware tweaking careers in the form of a 40mm fan. The heatsink it cools is tied to the MOSFET heatsink to help keep the VRM temperatures as low as possible. We’ll take advantage of this by overclocking the X399-E Strix in our testing.

  

Connectivity is well catered for as you would expect from a ASUS motherboard. Loads of USB 3.0 ports are matched with both Type-A and Type-C USB 3.1, WiFi, LAN and the audio jacks for the SupremeFX.