A good quality detangling shampoo and regular brushing will help with the crossed hairs problem probably. However it really can't do much for the awkward looking ROG.
Oh hey, Asus finally listened and offered a good mATX board for AMD. It looks pretty good on paper. 2x RAM slots with short traces. Perfect for fast DDR5 16x PCIe slot in position 1, when they didn't bother adding in any additional 16x PCIe slots is a bit of a miss. I understand that they added a 1x PCIe slot in position 4, but a GPU in position 1 is too cramped these days.
Depends on what you need. If you need 64GB RAM but only have 32GB it doesn't matter how fast it is your application will run poorly. I personally need 64GB minimum for my next build so I can make a larger virtual home lab.
Premium mATX boards are few and far between, so coverage of features is likely to miss something. No kidding those who waiting for mATX offerings would be disappointed. I've long learned to not even bother with consumer mATX, since it's always going to disappoint.
IME in recent years Asus mobos have been a lot of marketing but nothing special in terms of performance. They tend to offer a lot of "knobs to turn" but don't deliver any better performance than far less expensive mobos such as Gigabyte before they lost their way and Asrock who seems to still be on the ball.
For those of you old enough to remember when Asus was a single manufacturer supplier of OEM and ODM mobos - which had to be a proper, reliable design or they'd eat the costs of returns - their mobos were top notch. Since they went Hollywood and jumped into the consumer market their product performance and quality has been disappointing. I've have been building performance PCs for decades and the only two mobos I ever had fail were Asus. When I tried to warranty a less than one year old Asus mobo they sent me a used mobo that had some components manually replaced and looked like it sat on the ground by the side of a roadway for a couple years as it was covered in dirt silt. I tossed it in the trash as I wasn't about to install that POS in any PC.
Based on my experience with Asus I can't in good conscience recommend their current mobo products to anyone. I certainly would not buy them for the PCs that I build for customers or myself.
ASUS Apex Z590 went through over 10 mobos, all of them had pisspoor QC in board. Like so many boards have their paint chipped off at the edges, some of them have DRAM slots with poor plastics causing hazy issues. The I/O shield holder rattling, finally I settled on one board, and it failed to POST on both BIOS slots.
Next is their Board software. I think 99.9% of all board vendors (Except EVGA but more on them below) have complete pile of trash UWP feces with mega bloatware. ASUS's Armory Crate is one fine example of that cancer. I heard others also mention their CPUs being dead by their board or some power failure etc. Also ASUS charges a ton despite their boards having 6 layer PCB while GB and MSI ship 8 layer, idk about new Z690.
Gigabyte has solid electronics but their major issue is absolute trash BIOS. And DRAM is very poor on their boards. EVGA has no UWP cancer but their boards have very short life. Ever since TiN left them, it became a fanboy store for that Kingpin rip off BS. Their boards have absolute nightmare Support in terms of BIOS updates. ASUS kept on updating their BIOS for Z590 platform MSI also but man EVGA barely updated and their Z590 doesn't work on 10900K properly. Pure trash company, the worst ? Their entire X299, Z490, Z590, X570 all of them have their Q-Code type BIOS code indicator LEDs blown off in a mere months there's no fix, they sourced crap components and caused that issue. No manual in the box either. They do some things well, BIOS is solid but what's the use when it lacks updates. Design wise ok. Software no UWP trash which is good, price is very high as well.
Shame how PC DIY has been plagued by these practices. ASUS ROG newer boards look very very bad. Too much in the face of that ROG logo and matrix nonsense display crap tech.
They've definitely gotten boring. Gone are the days of clean workstation-class products like the P6T and P9X79, 10 year old motherboards that still sell for $100-$200 used for a reason.
When Asus absorbed QDI engineers in the mid 2000's, it immediately showed as they started focusing on high end retail\server instead of just mainstream\OEM. All of their boards are above average, but they are no longer consistently great, even in the HEDT space where previous jokers like MSI and specialty vendors like Supermicro are highly competitive.
If the gossip prices are true, I will certainly not buy an Asus motherboard this time. They really use their (overhyped) brand too take people for fools and ask way too much.
Honestly, nightmare is a massive understatement. My x570 RMA request took six weeks for them to process, then it took three months to get the board back. To top it off, they returned it without the AM4 heat sink bracket. I just ignored that and bought a new one. This is the second Gigabyte board that failed during warranty in a row for me. I won't be buying their products again anytime soon!
I really liked the dtx form factor of the crosshair viii impact board they released with ryzen 5000.the extra space was nice, but it was still cramped for things like fans and fp audio. Maybe this is the sweet spot?
@AnandTech (or someone else): can you explain why ASUS would want to use AMD's X670E chipset, versus the X670? Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the difference between them was the X670E doubled up on the "South Bridge" (or however you want to refer to it) chipsets, therefore doubling all the I/O for PCIe, USB, SATA expansion. But - on a microATX board, with a single PCIe x16 and another single x1, and limited room for SATA, I don't see the point? And again, I thought the vanilla X670 could still do a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics, and M.2 PCIe 5.0 as well. It was only once you dropped to the B650 that you started losing things like that.
The PCIe 5.0 lanes are used in the 16x slot, and two m.2 slots on a riser, next to the RAM. Presumably, this uses up all 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes off of the Zen4 APU.
I would guess the PCIe x1 4.0 slot comes off of one of the chipsets. I don't know the full specs of the chipset, but if this board is running USB3.2 Gen2x2, or USB4 on all of its USB ports, then it just might have to utilize the X670E chipset, instead of only X670.
The pictures from Asus are blurry, and they only provide one angle, so it's kinda hard to see how it's configured.
@ meacupia: Thank you for the detailed answer. I guess the USB4 thing could be true. But even so, I gotta assume going with X670E over X670 is a huge cost increase, and is it really worth it just for the USB ports haha? Since as you said, all of the PCIe I/O seems like it could be done the same way on vanilla X670.
Honestly, I don't think we have enough info to say that X670E will be a huge cost increase. It may just be a regular cost increase, with Asus bumping that up considerably beyond regular. Usually ROG Strix - features and semi-affordable, pricier than Prime. Then Crosshair, then Maximus, although it's difficult to say with certainty if Maximus would slot in above this Crosshair, since Gene has been used across both.
what the hell, x2 ram slots are bad enough, But only having a Single x16 & a single x1 in what appears to be a day one price is ridiculous for any day one am5. where do I put my generic 5Gbit/s x4 pcie ethernet card + 3050
Hey Asus. When customers are asking for better m-atx motherboards, there's a reason. You don't seem to grasp the reasons though. Basically taking the feature set on m-itx and adding 1 pcie 4 x1 slot is not what most consumers are after.
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PeachNCream - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
A good quality detangling shampoo and regular brushing will help with the crossed hairs problem probably. However it really can't do much for the awkward looking ROG.meacupla - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
Oh hey, Asus finally listened and offered a good mATX board for AMD.It looks pretty good on paper.
2x RAM slots with short traces. Perfect for fast DDR5
16x PCIe slot in position 1, when they didn't bother adding in any additional 16x PCIe slots is a bit of a miss. I understand that they added a 1x PCIe slot in position 4, but a GPU in position 1 is too cramped these days.
Chaitanya - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
Those 2 Ram slots will limit max capacity to mere 64GB(for now).nandnandnand - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
Almost anyone going small probably won't care. But if there are no 64 GB modules soon, we might see 48 GB modules come to consumer for 96 GB total.https://www.anandtech.com/show/17117/sk-hynix-to-m...
meacupla - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
"a mere 64GB"I would rather have 32GB of RAM that works at >6400, than 64GB that only works at 4800.
schujj07 - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
Depends on what you need. If you need 64GB RAM but only have 32GB it doesn't matter how fast it is your application will run poorly. I personally need 64GB minimum for my next build so I can make a larger virtual home lab.meacupla - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
Go get any other DDR5 mobo with 4 RAM slots then? It's not that hard.FreckledTrout - Friday, August 26, 2022 - link
Then a two ram slot board is a bad choice for you. However I suspect 99% of gaming builds would be fine with this board.shabby - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
Lol every time there's a new matx board posted here people chime in that its almost perfect but it's missing this that and these things 😂😂😂jeremyshaw - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
Premium mATX boards are few and far between, so coverage of features is likely to miss something. No kidding those who waiting for mATX offerings would be disappointed. I've long learned to not even bother with consumer mATX, since it's always going to disappoint.Techie2 - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
IME in recent years Asus mobos have been a lot of marketing but nothing special in terms of performance. They tend to offer a lot of "knobs to turn" but don't deliver any better performance than far less expensive mobos such as Gigabyte before they lost their way and Asrock who seems to still be on the ball.For those of you old enough to remember when Asus was a single manufacturer supplier of OEM and ODM mobos - which had to be a proper, reliable design or they'd eat the costs of returns - their mobos were top notch. Since they went Hollywood and jumped into the consumer market their product performance and quality has been disappointing. I've have been building performance PCs for decades and the only two mobos I ever had fail were Asus. When I tried to warranty a less than one year old Asus mobo they sent me a used mobo that had some components manually replaced and looked like it sat on the ground by the side of a roadway for a couple years as it was covered in dirt silt. I tossed it in the trash as I wasn't about to install that POS in any PC.
Based on my experience with Asus I can't in good conscience recommend their current mobo products to anyone. I certainly would not buy them for the PCs that I build for customers or myself.
YMMV.
Silver5urfer - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
ASUS Apex Z590 went through over 10 mobos, all of them had pisspoor QC in board. Like so many boards have their paint chipped off at the edges, some of them have DRAM slots with poor plastics causing hazy issues. The I/O shield holder rattling, finally I settled on one board, and it failed to POST on both BIOS slots.Next is their Board software. I think 99.9% of all board vendors (Except EVGA but more on them below) have complete pile of trash UWP feces with mega bloatware. ASUS's Armory Crate is one fine example of that cancer. I heard others also mention their CPUs being dead by their board or some power failure etc. Also ASUS charges a ton despite their boards having 6 layer PCB while GB and MSI ship 8 layer, idk about new Z690.
Gigabyte has solid electronics but their major issue is absolute trash BIOS. And DRAM is very poor on their boards. EVGA has no UWP cancer but their boards have very short life. Ever since TiN left them, it became a fanboy store for that Kingpin rip off BS. Their boards have absolute nightmare Support in terms of BIOS updates. ASUS kept on updating their BIOS for Z590 platform MSI also but man EVGA barely updated and their Z590 doesn't work on 10900K properly. Pure trash company, the worst ? Their entire X299, Z490, Z590, X570 all of them have their Q-Code type BIOS code indicator LEDs blown off in a mere months there's no fix, they sourced crap components and caused that issue. No manual in the box either. They do some things well, BIOS is solid but what's the use when it lacks updates. Design wise ok. Software no UWP trash which is good, price is very high as well.
Shame how PC DIY has been plagued by these practices. ASUS ROG newer boards look very very bad. Too much in the face of that ROG logo and matrix nonsense display crap tech.
Samus - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
They've definitely gotten boring. Gone are the days of clean workstation-class products like the P6T and P9X79, 10 year old motherboards that still sell for $100-$200 used for a reason.When Asus absorbed QDI engineers in the mid 2000's, it immediately showed as they started focusing on high end retail\server instead of just mainstream\OEM. All of their boards are above average, but they are no longer consistently great, even in the HEDT space where previous jokers like MSI and specialty vendors like Supermicro are highly competitive.
rmfx - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
If the gossip prices are true, I will certainly not buy an Asus motherboard this time. They really use their (overhyped) brand too take people for fools and ask way too much.lipscomb88 - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
They have good rma though. Gigabyte is a nightmare for any rma in my experience but asus has been great.Einy0 - Friday, August 26, 2022 - link
Honestly, nightmare is a massive understatement. My x570 RMA request took six weeks for them to process, then it took three months to get the board back. To top it off, they returned it without the AM4 heat sink bracket. I just ignored that and bought a new one. This is the second Gigabyte board that failed during warranty in a row for me. I won't be buying their products again anytime soon!lipscomb88 - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
I really liked the dtx form factor of the crosshair viii impact board they released with ryzen 5000.the extra space was nice, but it was still cramped for things like fans and fp audio. Maybe this is the sweet spot?NextGen_Gamer - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
@AnandTech (or someone else): can you explain why ASUS would want to use AMD's X670E chipset, versus the X670? Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the difference between them was the X670E doubled up on the "South Bridge" (or however you want to refer to it) chipsets, therefore doubling all the I/O for PCIe, USB, SATA expansion. But - on a microATX board, with a single PCIe x16 and another single x1, and limited room for SATA, I don't see the point? And again, I thought the vanilla X670 could still do a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics, and M.2 PCIe 5.0 as well. It was only once you dropped to the B650 that you started losing things like that.racermd - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
@NextGen_Gamer - I would think it's due to the PCIe lanes dedicated to the m.2 DIMM slot thing eating up 8 more lanes on the chipset all by itself.meacupla - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
The PCIe 5.0 lanes are used in the 16x slot, and two m.2 slots on a riser, next to the RAM. Presumably, this uses up all 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes off of the Zen4 APU.I would guess the PCIe x1 4.0 slot comes off of one of the chipsets.
I don't know the full specs of the chipset, but if this board is running USB3.2 Gen2x2, or USB4 on all of its USB ports, then it just might have to utilize the X670E chipset, instead of only X670.
The pictures from Asus are blurry, and they only provide one angle, so it's kinda hard to see how it's configured.
NextGen_Gamer - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
@ meacupia: Thank you for the detailed answer. I guess the USB4 thing could be true. But even so, I gotta assume going with X670E over X670 is a huge cost increase, and is it really worth it just for the USB ports haha? Since as you said, all of the PCIe I/O seems like it could be done the same way on vanilla X670.erotomania - Monday, August 29, 2022 - link
Honestly, I don't think we have enough info to say that X670E will be a huge cost increase. It may just be a regular cost increase, with Asus bumping that up considerably beyond regular. Usually ROG Strix - features and semi-affordable, pricier than Prime. Then Crosshair, then Maximus, although it's difficult to say with certainty if Maximus would slot in above this Crosshair, since Gene has been used across both.BMNify - Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - link
what the hell, x2 ram slots are bad enough, But only having a Single x16 & a single x1 in what appears to be a day one price is ridiculous for any day one am5.where do I put my generic 5Gbit/s x4 pcie ethernet card + 3050
Dug - Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - link
Ummm... in a different mb that has things you want that others don't need.DanaGoyette - Sunday, September 18, 2022 - link
Heck, at least make the bottom slot an X4, so we can use it for 10GbE or such!Dug - Monday, September 26, 2022 - link
Hey Asus. When customers are asking for better m-atx motherboards, there's a reason. You don't seem to grasp the reasons though. Basically taking the feature set on m-itx and adding 1 pcie 4 x1 slot is not what most consumers are after.Foeketijn - Tuesday, September 27, 2022 - link
I'll wait for the AsRockRack version. It's addictive to have a system that just works.Harry_Wild - Wednesday, October 5, 2022 - link
Not even $1K now! I am shocked!