ASUS fleshed out its Socket AM5 motherboard lineup with the new ROG Strix X870E-H Gaming WiFi7. The AMD 800-series chipset generation is the first one on the AMD platform to get the Strix-H (hero) tier of motherboards from ASUS, which had until now had only the other levels—Strix-F (formula), Strix-E (extreme), Strix-G (gene), and Strix-I (impact). The Strix-H (hero) is not to be confused with the ROG Crosshair Hero tier, which is positioned above even Strix-E. ASUS recently rolled out the ROG Strix X870-H Gaming WiFi7, and now backed it up with a Strix-H product based on the more premium X870E chipset. The overall board design sees ASUS do away with the RGB-illuminated design elements found on even the Strix-F product.
The ROG Strix X870E-H Gaming WiFi7 is built in the standard ATX form-factor and pulls power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and two 8-pin EPS connectors. It uses a 16+2+1 phase CPU VRM that uses 80 A DrMOS on the V-Core phases. For context, the more premium ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi7 uses an 18+2+2 phase VRM with 110 A DrMOS on these phases. The processor is wired to four DDR5 DIMM slots, and a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot which offers an easy eject mechanism. There are four M.2 NVMe slots, two of these are Gen 5, and the other two Gen 4, one of which shares its lanes with the PCI-Express x16 (electrical x4) slot.
Network connectivity on the ASUS ROG Strix X870E-H Gaming WiFi7 includes Wi-Fi 7 + Bluetooth 5.4, driven by a Realtek RTL8922AE 160 MHz WLAN controller. The wired networking option is a 5 GbE interface driven by a Realtek RTL8126 PHY.
USB connectivity includes two 40 Gbps USB4 type-C ports, one 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C with 30 W power delivery, three 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-A, six 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1, and two USB 2.0 ports, all on the rear panel. Front panel USB includes a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 header, two 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports by header, and four USB 2.0 ports by headers.
Luckily, ASUS has left its SupremeFX onboard audio solution virtually untouched from the more premium ROG Strix boards based on this chipset. The solution consists of a Realtek ALC1220P CODEC (120 dB SNR), with a Savitech SV3H712 AMP for the main front channels, meant for high impedance headphones.
ASUS did not release an ROG Strix-F product based on the X870E, choosing instead to launch it for the X870 (non-E). The ROG Strix X870E-H Gaming hence serves as an interesting alternative to the ROG Strix X870-F Gaming, if you’re looking for additional PCIe and NVMe connectivity.
