Published: March 23, 2022 | Source: ASUS | Author: Tom Logan

ASUS Strix B660-A Gaming WiFi D4 Review

Conclusion

If there is a negative to the modern life in which we live it is the number of people who hold, quite vocally, the opinion that unless you’re running some extremely expensive system, i9-12900K and RTX3090 sort of thing, then you’re just wasting your time and you’ll never have the proper experience. We despise gatekeeping. Just because throwing money at the problem is one solution it is by no means the only option, and in fact is the least satisfying one. Where is the joy in just buying the most expensive stuff without any thought at all, when you could carefully select your components to maximise the return on your investment?

The ASUS Strix B660-A Gaming WiFi, particularly in the DDR4 version that we have today, shows that you don’t need to take out a second mortgage just to have some gaming fun. Like our other B660 review before this we used the Intel Core i5-12400 CPU, a processor which combines fantastic performance, the kind that used to be top of the range not that long ago, with incredible affordability. It pairs beautifully with the Strix B660-A, a motherboard that brings you all the latest high bandwidth USB options, PCI Express 5.0, multiple M.2 slots and a not unattractive design and wraps it all up in a product that squeezes in just under the Â£200 mark.

That’s Â£100 less than the stock ASUS Z690-A motherboard, but you’re not missing out on anything significant. Okay this one has a DDR5 option, but reviewing it with those particular memory modules would seem disingenuous given their rarity and cost. Additionally our testing has shown that only at the absolute extreme edge of performance does the extra speed of the DDR5 option overcome their slacker timings when compared to DDR4.

It might not be a motherboard that will leave your jaw on the floor in the way that high end systems do, but that doesn’t mean you won’t sit using it with a massive grin on your face. Partly that you can get a system as capable as this for a very modest investment, but also that the very nature of a carefully selected set of components has the personal touch missing from one that just involved sorting by price (high to low) and buying whatever was at the top.

If you’re on a tight budget and want to get on board the PCI Express 5.0 train then there are few better options than the ASUS Strix B660-A Gaming WiFi D4, and it wins our OC3D Gamers Choice Award.

Â Â