ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi Motherboard
Quick Navigation
Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing
Packaging, Accessories, and Overview
UEFI, Software and Test System
Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding
Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory latency
Benchmarks - PCMark and 3DMark
Benchmarks - Gaming
VRM and SSD Temperatures
Final Thoughts
TweakTown Rating: 92%
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Our Verdict
Don't be fooled into thinking this B-series board is lacking anywhere. The ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi is a feature-rich X870 competitor with a good price.
Pros
Value
5G LAN
USB4 port
Strong VRM
Five M.2 slots
Cons
Screw in secondary heatsink
No GPU quick-release button
Should you buy it?
AvoidConsiderShortlistBuy
Buy at Amazon for $294.99 USD
Buy at Amazon for $488.70 CAD
Buy at Amazon for £679.99
Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing
ASUS' ROG brand hardly needs an introduction. Anyone building an enthusiast PC has surely considered a ROG product. The brand is coming to its 20th anniversary and it's hard to see it going away anytime soon.
A B850 motherboard like the ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi is one of a handful of genuinely high-end B850 boards. As a "B" board, it might imply budget or business, but the ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi is anything but. It's got enough features and design flourishes to compete with X870 and a few X870E boards, though, at $309, it's competing on price, too. Is it worth considering over X870/E boards?
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Spec-wise, the answer is yes. X870 boards are required to support PCIe 5.0 for a single graphics card, SSD, and USB4. B850 boards must support a single PCIe 5.0 SSD only. USB4 and a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot are optional. The Strix B850-E includes both, blurring the line between X870 and B850. X870E is a slightly different beast, as its dual chipset design provides more general-purpose PCIe lanes, and X870E boards generally include superior USB complements or more expansion slots.
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Item Details
Model ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi
CPU Socket AM5
Chipset AMD B850
CPU Support AMD 7000, 8000 & 9000 series
Memory 4 x DDR5 DIMM slots, up to 256GB, up to 8000+ MT/s (OC)
Expansion slots 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x4
Storage 5x M.2, 4x SATA
Ethernet Realtek 5Gb
Wireless & Bluetooth WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
USB Up to 1x USB4, 1x USB 20Gbps, 7x USB 10Gbps, 2x USB 5Gbps, 8x USB 2.0
Audio Realtek ALC4080
Form Factor ATX
MSRP $309
The Strix B850-E has a genuinely high-end feature set. Alongside the aforementioned PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, it includes five M.2 slots, 5G LAN, WiFi 7, a powerful VRM solution, and a solid USB complement, including a single USB4 port. Like all ASUS 800 series motherboards, the ROG Strix B850-E brings many ease-of-use improvements, support for Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, memory speed improvements, and ongoing socket support from AMD.
The Strix B850-E looks undoubtedly like a ROG board. There are plenty of design flourishes, though it may go too far on the branding side of things. "For Those Who Dare" is a little cringey, but that part of the board will be covered by a graphics card anyway. Additionally, I believe the RGB-lit ROG logo atop the I/O heatsink looks like a blown-up 64 x 64-pixel image. It's obviously a conscious retro design choice, much like the prominent Strix label atop the large M.2 heatsink. Personally, I don't think it really works. However, aesthetics rank low in my review criteria, and looks are always in the eye of the beholder.
The ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi is currently available for $309, making it one of the most expensive B850 motherboards.
Best Deals: ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi ATX Motherboard
||||||
|Today|7 days ago|30 days ago|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||$294.99 USD|$349.99 USD|-|Buy|
||$488.70 CAD|$489.97 CAD|-|Buy|
||£679.99|£679.99|-|Buy|
||$294.99 USD|$349.99 USD|-|Buy|
|* Prices last scanned on 3/31/2025 at 12:33 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.|
Packaging, Accessories, and Overview
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The ROG brand is the most recognizable in the DIY PC market. ASUS isn't likely to change things up anytime soon, and why would it?
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The rear of the box showcases the board's key features, which are many. It highlights the ease-of-use features, VRM solution, and support for five M.2 slots.
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The Strix B850-E has a good set of accessories. The WiFi antenna is a highlight. It's adjustable and feels well-built. Aside from the expected SATA and RGB cables, M.2 bits and pieces, and front panel Q-Connector, there's an impressive set of stickers, some cable ties, and a key chain.
There's no USB drive, and it's rare to see them included with anything less than high-end motherboards. You'll have to visit the ASUS website to get the drives and utilities for the board. My fresh Windows installation detected the board's WiFi 7 controller, which made the setup process very easy.
As a bloatware hater, I try to avoid installing motherboard manufacturers' complete software suites, but in fairness to ASUS, its Armory Crate software gives you the option to install some useful extras, including AIDA64 Extreme, ASUS-themed HWINFO and CPU-Z apps, a trial for Adobe Creative Cloud, and if you really must, Norton 360. You'll also need to grab ASUS' Aura sync app for RGB control.
Motherboard Overview
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The ROG Strix B850-E is an ATX offering that makes full use of the PCB space. Of course, it's a Socket AM5 board supporting AMD Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series processors. AMD will support AM5 for a while yet, so there's every chance we'll see another CPU generation supported, too, pending confirmation from AMD.
The ROG RGB logo atop the rear I/O area is the only area of the board with onboard RGB lighting, but there are an additional three ARGB headers that can be controlled via ASUS' Aura Sync app.
The Strix B850-E includes a comprehensive set of onboard headers and buttons. You get eight fan 4-pin headers, a power button, a debug LED readout, and a thermal sensor header for connecting to an external digital thermometer. There's also a CPU over voltage jumper should you be interested in some heavy overclocking.
The USB header complement will provide up to four additional USB 2.0 ports, two 5Gbps ports, and a Type-C 10Gbps port.
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Four DIMM slots support speeds of up to DDR5-8000+. That is a little conservative, but given the performance sweet spot for Ryzen processors remains in the DDR5-6000-6400 range, that won't be an issue for anyone other than those chasing OC records. Up to 256GB of memory is supported.
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Storage-wise, the Strix B850-E includes five M.2 slots, three of which support PCIe 5.0. Should you use either or both of the secondary M.2_2 or M.2_3 slots, the primary PCIe x16 slot will drop to x8. The other two M.2 slots are connected to the chipset and support PCIe 4.0. The M.2_4 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIe 4.0 x4 slot. Four SATA ports join the five M.2 slots.
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The primary M2_1 PCIe 5.0 slot above the topmost expansion slot has its own screwless heatsink, while the other four are cooled by a plate attached with screws. I would prefer to see some kind of screwless mechanism for the plate, but with up to four SSDs to cool, at least complete contact with the drives is assured. Thankfully, the screws remain attached to the plate, even if you tip it upside down.
It's worth noting there is no GPU quick-release mechanism, so installing SSDs in slots 2-5 will be more difficult than it should be.
There are two expansion slots. The primary slot supports PCIe 5.0 x16, while the second PCIe 4.0 x16 slot is connected to the chipset and electrically supports x4.
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The Strix B850-E features a powerful VRM, which is a match for more than a few X870 boards. It's a 16+2+2 design with 90A stages. Even if you use a heavily overclocked Ryzen 9 9950X or 9950X3D, your CPU cooling will limit you before the VRM does.
The Strix B850-E's VRM cooling is perfectly adequate. The large sections are connected via a heatpipe. They do a good enough job, though they don't have the surface area of true finned heatsink designs.
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The Strix B850-E's I/O panel is very well-equipped. The USB complement begins with a single USB4 Type-C port with DP 1.4a support. A 20Gbps Type-C port with 30W PD capability joins it. There are also six Type-A 10Gbps ports and four USB 2.0 ports, for a total of twelve ports.
The single 5G LAN port is controlled by a Realtek RTL8126 controller, which is a very welcome inclusion. There's also WiFi 7, but the Strix B850-E supports faster 320MHz connections, delivering up to 6.5Gbps of bandwidth. ASUS also included Bluetooth 5.4 support.
Next are the audio ports, which consist of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports and S/PDIF. A Realtek ALC4080 codec drives these.
Finally, we have DP 1.4a and HDMI 2.1 ports, a CMOS clear button, and a BIOS flashback button. The latter means you'll likely be able to install a Zen 6 CPU without updating the BIOS with a currently available chip.
UEFI, Software and Test System
UEFI
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ASUS ROG BIOSes are typically jam-packed with features, and the Strix B850-E is no different. The advanced pages have a steeper learning curve than some, but a general user will find most of what they need without navigating to the advanced section.
ASUS' fan control page is top-notch, and we're impressed by the Q-Dashboard page, which lists the important headers and ports and whether they've been populated. It's an easy way to troubleshoot a problematic component or peripheral.
Test System
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - Buy from Amazon
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon
Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding
Cinebench 2024
Cinebench 2024 is the latest version of Maxon's reliable and frequently used benchmark that measures single and multi-threaded performance.
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The X870E Hero performed as expected, with a result of 2,280 in the nT test and 138 in the 1T test. That's exactly what we expect from a Ryzen 9 9950X.
Blender
A rendering application like Blender is just one of many reasons a user will consider a high-core-count CPU like a Ryzen 9 9950X. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.
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A time of 431 seconds for this test puts the ASUS at the top of the pile, though the difference from top to bottom is nothing.
Handbrake
Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, where a higher result means the task will take less time to complete.
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The Strix B850-E sits mid-pack, but there's nothing to complain about when a 2% gap covers the field.
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Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory latency
7Zip
7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's influenced by memory speed and latency changes and scales with the number of CPU threads.
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A result of 229.47 BIPS is strong!
AIDA64 Memory Latency
Memory latency is an area that currently favors Intel. AMD's chiplet architecture and the Infinity Fabric link inevitably add some latency compared to Intel's monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.
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The differences between the tested boards are within a margin of error.
Benchmarks - PCMark and 3DMark
PCMark 10 Productivity
We'd love to use our PCs purely for leisure, but some of us have to work, too! The PCMark 10 productivity test performs a series of tests using office productivity applications.
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Ultimately, all the test boards are within a fraction of each other.
3DMark Storage
UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game. This test is the same as running the actual game without the inconsistencies inherent in application testing.
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It's another good result for the Strix B850-E, leading all of the 800 series boards I've tested so far.
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3DMark Time Spy Extreme
Time Spy Extreme is losing favor as a graphics benchmark in favor of Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.
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The differences between the boards are minor, though the Strix B850-E returned the highest CPU score I've seen from a 9950X processor.
Benchmarks - Gaming
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.
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The RTX 4070 Ti Super, as used in our test system, is not the best for highlighting gaming performance differences, so the results between the tested boards are close.
Horizon Zero Dawn
When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.
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Again, the differences here are small. When all other components are equal, the motherboard makes little difference in gaming performance.
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.
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All the tested motherboards performed essentially identically.
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VRM and SSD Temperatures
These tests are performed to show off the differences between each motherboard's cooling assemblies. In the case of VRM testing, each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature recorded during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.
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The Strix B850-E returned the highest VRM temperature of the tested bunch, but some of the tested boards have larger or finned heatsinks (and cost more), so it's not much of a surprise. A loaded temperature of 62 degrees is no cause for concern.
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This is an interesting result, as the Strix B850-E easily outperformed the much more expensive X870E Hero.
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Final Thoughts
Fans of ASUS ROG motherboards won't be disappointed by the ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi. With very few exceptions, ROG boards have a premium aesthetic, are rich in features, and have mature BIOS with plenty of esoteric OC functionality.
One thing about ROG boards, though, is that they'll never be called cheap. $309 puts it right into X870 territory. But do the differences between a high-end B850 board and a mid-range X870 one really matter? I would say no. You'd hardly notice a difference if you are a user with a single graphics card and an SSD or two.
The Strix B850-E has a feature set that puts nearly every other B850 board to shame. It includes a single USB4 port and 320MHz WiFi 7, but you can add to that 5G LAN, a solid VRM capable of powering any overclocked AM5 processor, a good-quality audio solution, and five M.2 slots. Suddenly, that $309 price doesn't look too bad. To put it in context, the ROG Crosshair X870E Hero is more than double that price!
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ASUS' ROG BIOS hardly needs an introduction. The layout and functionality will be familiar to long-time ROG fans. Its EZ-Mode will suit novice users, while the advanced pages include comprehensive tweaking options for those looking to extract everything from their system.
There aren't any weaknesses to speak of. The peak VRM temperature was on the high side compared to the other boards we've tested with a 9950X, but it's still well within tolerances. Like any system with high-end components, good case airflow is a must.
The ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi is a powerful board that won't disappoint. Don't be put off because it's got a B instead of an X in its name. Should you opt to install god-tier components, including an overclocked 9950X3D, RTX 5090, and a couple of PCIe 5.0 SSDs into your system, the Strix B850-E will happily oblige.
Performance 90%
Quality 95%
Features 93%
Value 91%
Overall 92%
Our Verdict
Don't be fooled into thinking this B-series board is lacking anywhere. The ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi is a feature-rich X870 competitor with a good price.
Best Deals: ASUS ROG Strix B850-E Gaming WiFi ATX Motherboard
||||||
|Today|7 days ago|30 days ago|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||$294.99 USD|$349.99 USD|-|Buy|
||$488.70 CAD|$489.97 CAD|-|Buy|
||£679.99|£679.99|-|Buy|
||$294.99 USD|$349.99 USD|-|Buy|
|* Prices last scanned on 3/31/2025 at 12:33 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.|