In the box we find: Wi-Fi antenna for the onboard Wi-Fi 6 module 2 SATA cables IO Shield M.2 accessories TUF Gaming stickers Support DVD, TUF Certification card Manual
Moving on to the motherboard – this board is for AMD AM4 platform and more specifically for the Ryzen 3rd Gen processors. This board will also support other Ryzen CPUs including the upcoming 4th gen. For a full list please check Asus website.
This board features 8+2 DrMOS power stages with large heatsinks which should provide adequate cooling. As this is a reasonably budget board I would not expect it to handle any extreme overclock, but we will be testing that in the future.
On the right we have four DIMM slots supporting dual channel DDR4 memory with speeds up to 4400MHz and a total capacity of 128GB.
Below we have the main reason why people may choose this board over the last gen B450 boards – PCIE Gen 4 times 16 slot and also PCIE Gen4 M.2 Slot. Bear in mind – M.2 slot is a shorter variant and will only support 80mm drives.
We also have one PCIE Gen 3 times 16 and times 1 slots, with PCIE Gen 3 M.2 slot. This one supports drives up to 110mm.
On the bottom right we have 4 sata 6 Gb/s ports.
Across the board we have a total of 4 fan headers, two up top and two below, plus 3 RGB headers. Two of them are standard four pin 12V and one is addressable 3pin 5v.
In regards to front USB connectors you can have up to 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, that is 5Gb/s ones. And 4 USB 2.0 ports.
At the back we have a big range of different connections which is actually surprising at this price point.
PS2 Port 8 USB Ports (two USB 2.0, four USB 3.2 gen 1 ports and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports – one Type A and one Type C) Display port 1.2 and HDMI 2.1 Wi-Fi 6 Module 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet Port Full array of audio connections.
This board is also packed with a few neat features.
We get Q LEDs to help with troubleshooting any boot issues. M.2 Heatsink Wi-Fi 6 And 2.5 Gb/s network
Just last year some of these features would have beeen found on top tier boards – it is very nice to see budget friendly boards catching up. On paper it looks great, we will be taking this board through its paces in the next article, let us know what you would like us to focus on.