The ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming Motherboard Review
by Gavin Bonshor on January 25, 2021 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Asus
- ROG
- AM4
- Ryzen 3000
- X570
- Strix X570-E
- Ryzen 5000
- X570-E Gaming
Visual Inspection
ASUS has elected for an aggressive yet stylish design for its Strix series. It has a large rear panel cover with a large ROG logo that includes customizable illumination via integrated RGB LEDs. It also has a holographic Strix logo that also benefits from RGB LEDs too, with more RGB included within the chipset heatsink. The chipset heatsink includes a cooling fan, like the majority of X570 models, which is in no part due to increased temperatures from the pressures of PCIe 4.0. Across the board it uses a black PCB with subtle grey traces and glossy black text around the CPU socket area. ASUS is using gunmetal grey heatsinks for the power delivery and dual M.2 heatsinks, which blend in nicely against the black background.
Dominating the lower portion of the board is the chipset heatsink and M.2 heatsinks, but more importantly, the PCIe slots. The ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming has three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/x+4, with two PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. Located above the top full-length and bottom full-length PCIe slots are two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots. Both slots can accommodate M.2 22110 form factor drives, and both include support for SATA drives. For other storage devices, ASUS uses the full allocation from the X570 chipset with eight SATA ports. All of these can support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays.
Other avenues of expansion include a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C header which is located just below the 24-pin 12 V ATX power connector, while ASUS also includes one USB 3.2 G1 Type-A header for two additional ports and two USB 2.0 headers which allow for another four ports. Adding the USB up including the rear panel, ASUS allows for a total of 13 x Type-A and 2 x Type-C. Along the bottom is a two-digit LED Debugger, while located around the edge of the PCB are seven 4-pin headers for cooling.
In the top right-hand corner, there are four memory slots. These allow users to install up to 128 GB of memory, with maximum speeds of up to DDR4-4400.
The ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming is using a 16-phase power delivery, which is split into twelve for the CPU and four for the SoC. Keeping the VRMs regulated is an ASUS specific ASP1405 PWM controller operating at 6+2. For the CPU VCore, it is using twelve International Rectifier IR3555 60 A power stages, while SoC is using four IR3555. Both the CPU and SoC are Teamed together, which allows the power delivery to run cooler and it improves transient response with quicker bursts of power without the drawbacks of phase doublers. Feeding power to the CPU is an 8-pin and 4-pin pair of EPS 12 V power inputs.
Keeping the power delivery cool is a gunmetal grey pair of heatsinks that are interconnected with a single heat pipe. This heatsink pairing is quite bulky and heavy and has some thicker thins designed to channel airflow over the power delivery.
Looking at the board's audio capabilities, it all flows around a SupremeFX S1220A HD audio codec, with dual OP amplifiers designed to boost the overall auditory output. The S1220A codec includes a SupremeFX EMI shield and uses nine Japanese Nichicon gold audio capacitors. Keeping the audio components separate from the rest is a PCB isolation line.
The rear panel on the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming has a phenomenal amount of USB connectivity. This includes seven USB 3.2 G2 Type-A and a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C port. Networking capability is also solid with two RJ45 ports, one powered by a Realtek RTL8125-CG 2.5 GbE controller and the other by an Intel I211-AT Gigabit controller. For wireless connectivity, ASUS includes an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 module which also provides support for BT 5.0 devices. The rear panel also has five 3.5 mm color-coded audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by the SupremeFX S1220A HD audio codec, while a BIOS Flashback button and a designated Type-A port. Finishing off the rear panel is a DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 2.0b video output pairing.
What's in The Box
Accompanying the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E within the packaging is a variety of accessories. The most notable of these include four SATA cables, an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 antenna, two RGB extension cables, a Strix branded door hanger, and a small ROG Strix sticker sheet.
- 4 x SATA cables
- M.2 screw kit
- Driver/Software installation DVD
- User manual
- Strix Door Hanger
- ROG Thank you card
- ROG Strix sticker sheet
- Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 antenna
- RGB extension cable (80 cm)
- ARGB extension cable (80 cm)
- Thermistor cable
- Cable Tie pack
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46 Comments
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du_bucha - Monday, January 25, 2021 - link
I have this board, they just forgot to tell that there is a bunch of bios upgrades in asus website that is causing a lot of errors in people systems, so it is a good thing check the asus forum first to see which ones are the stable bios before rushing into the last one ( using ver 3001 here but there is a 3402 beta already for download in asus website).Another thing that bothers me in this mb is the fact that it doesn't have a bios reset button for use when overclocking or fine tunning the memory. You only have an ancient jumper pin and terribly located in the bottom part of the motherboard.
The chipset sits right under the video card and suck all the hot air from it. My chipset temperatures was around 68ºC in idle with a GTX1060. Since I don't use the computer for gamming, I changed the GTX1060 to the second slot and changed the thermal pad too, and now chipset temp is around 62ºC.
These are the negative points I found in this board that was not mentioned in the review.
Beaver M. - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
All new mainboards have issues with crappy firmware. But its starting to get ridiculous with X570 and B550 ones. They sure as hell arent new anymore. Only the Zen 3 CPUs are, and they have been released for a long time as well.Yet nothing seems to change or improve.
I am seriously rethinking of buying an AMD because of that and because of the WHEA issues (not to mention the still not fixed X570 IO issues.
Guess people (and me) were right still recommending Intel simply because they are far more stable.
Qasar - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
news for you, myself, and some others i work with, have had issues with intel as well. be it bios updates or drivers. to claim intel is more stable, is also false.EG, i have 2 X99 boards, after a re install of win 10, for some reason, 6 of the 10 sata ports would not work after installing the latest drivers from the board maker AND intel's site, exclamation point in device manager. went back to both pages and tried a few of the driver revisions on both, i started to search for drivers. finally found ones that fixed the issue. this driver version was not available on either site.
i have this board, and it has been great for a year now. even with an issue with the SB Z sound card i have, and a bios update that cause it to reboot on its own from time to time, i would still get this board again. bottom line i have had issues with BOTH AMD AND Intel. and would get either or, depending in which has the performance and features i want for a price i am willing to pay. this round, its been amd, and have replaced 3 of 6 comps with amd and ryzen 3000 cpus that were intel.
Beaver M. - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
So youre comparing ancient boards with new ones?Ok.
You know, my one Z170 board also has lots of issues. But they started over time, because........ its degrading after 5+ years.
The issues with AMD are filling reddit and other forums. Thats a fact. And its not issues that are because of rare hardware failures that are normal, its because of bugs in software AND hardware design that can be reproduced rather often. In comparison, when the first Skylake had the "768 FFT bug", or the Z87 bug, it wasnt nearly as huge of a problem as the AMD fanboys made it out to be. Plus they were fixed quickly.
The issues with AMD right now are vast, critical and numerous and some of them have been there for quite a long time (some even since Zen 2). And all you hear are crickets.
If Intel had those issues, the cries of havoc would be so shrill and loud that even your rose colored glasses would burst into tiny shards. And very justified so.
But this "users keeping silent/uncritical about serious issues" phenomenon has always been a part of AMD. Even 20 years ago. I fell for it several times myself.
Qasar - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
yes, as while that issue with the sata ports were recent, when i picked up my x99 board new 5 years ago, i had issues then as well.the funny part, is EACH person has their own experience with either side. myself, i have had issues with BOTH. it hasnt been just amd, or just intel over the years.
" it wasnt nearly as huge of a problem as the AMD fanboys made it out to be " the SAME can be said about the intel fanboys with amd, whats your point ?
while you kind of accuse me of rose colored glasses, the same can be said for the other side as well, again whats your point ?
if intel does it, its just fine, and ok, but if AMD does it, its a federal offense.
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
They managed to squeeze so much projection, prognostication and ventriloquism into a few tight little posts. It's an exceptional demonstration in partisan rhetoric married to denial.Qasar - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
i didnt know that saying either side has had,and has, its issues was considered to be a demonstration in partisan rhetoric married to denial.Spunjji - Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - link
@Qasar - I was talking about Beaver M., not you. I agree entirely with you here. 👍Spunjji - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
I'm impressed by the way you made a claim about forums, threw in the declarative "Thats a fact" (it wasn't, it's hyperbole) and then followed with another statement that *definitely* isn't a fact - it's clearly just your opinion. Very self-confident; Dunning and Kruger offer a salute.I also appreciated your completely un-self-aware commentary on how other people have "rose tinted glasses", even as you assume the truth of your casual dismissal of specific Intel issues. To make it extra funny from an outside perspective, you hype up a few other AMD issues you just didn't quite get around to specifically naming.
Whatever this bit you're doing is, it's very good!
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
Cautiously-worded partisan FUD is still partisan FUD. You jumped from someone's specific anecdotal critique to a generalised one, then used that to bolster an unrelated conclusion.I Googled the WHEA issues, and it leads to two types of post:
1) People gathering data on the issue and noting that it doesn't do any harm in and of itself, and is often fairly trivially solved.
2) A bunch of similar posts on forums (some from the same users) that look like this: "My (fairly recent) high-spec Intel system was a saint that never crashed, and now my brand-new high-spec AMD system crashes aLl ThE tImE and this is definitely AMD's fault. /ragequit"
It's possible there's a selection bias here - and I might be missing a serious issue. I just don't really buy the way you introduced these topics.