ASUS ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi II Motherboard Overview
The ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi II is an ATX motherboard with a mostly all black colorway. There are some silver accents throughout the board, most notably on the rear I/O cover and on the PCH heatsink. You’ll of course get some RGB lighting on the board, which we’ll show you a little later on in the review.
Starting at the CPU socket we have Intel’s LGA1700 socket which will support 12th, 13th, and 14th generation Intel Core processors. Surrounding the CPU socket is our power delivery components and ASUS is making use of a 18+1+2 power phase design. The DIGI+ power stages here are 110A so with 18 for the CPU we have a total of 1980A available for the CPU. ASUS is also making use of premium alloy chokes and ultra durable capacitors. Right below the CPU socket are two 4-pin fan headers.
Covering the power delivery components are two quite large and chunky heatsinks which are connected together by a heatpipe. These have strategic airflow channels cut into them for increased heat dissipation. The larger two of the heatsink is covered by a rear I/O cover that really brings the top section of the board together. It has the ROG logo on it and it will light up when you have your system powered on.
Hiding in the top corner of the board are two 8-pin EPS connectors and a 4-pin optional CPU fan header. Moving across the top of the board we have our CPU fan header, AIO pump header, 3-pin addressable RGB header, and a standard 4-pin RGB header. The two CPU fan headers and the AIO pump header have covers on them, which is nice to see. The two EPS connectors are metal reinforced.
Moving to our memory slots we have four DDR5 DIMM slots that will support DDR5 memory up to 8000 MHz. These slots do not have the locks on the bottom edge, which makes swapping out memory much easier, especially if you have a longer graphics card. Right next to the DDR5 slots is your Q-Release button. This releases the first PCI-Express slot on the board. All of us know the pain of trying to press that release latch on a motherboard, this makes the process so much easier.
Coming over to the edge of the board you’ll find a POST code display, power button, 24-pin ATX power connection, USB 3.2 gen 2×2 header, USB 3.2 gen 1 header, four SATA 6GB/s ports, and another USB 3.2 gen 1 header. The top two USB headers are metal reinforced.
At the bottom of the board you’ll find the rest of your headers and connections. From left to right you have your HD audio header, Thunderbolt 4 header, two 3-pin addressable RGB headers, 4-pin fan header, three USB 2.0 headerrs, two more 4-pin fan headers, and your front panel headers.
The bottom section of the board is characterized by heatsinks, which is pretty common for boards these days. There are a total of four removable heatinks here. The top one is taller as it is made for a PCI-Express 5.0 drive, while the other three are your normal height. Removing these heatsinks we can get a look at the five M.2 slots on the board and that each of these heatsinks have pre-applied thermal tape on them. As I mentioned the top M.2 slot is a PCI-Express 5.0 slot, while the bottom three slots are all PCI-Express 4.0. Every slot has a tool-less design with a little latch that will lock your M.2 slot in place, no more dealing with those tiny screws!
When it comes to expansion slots we have three PCI-Express x16 slots. The top slot is PCI-Express 5.0 and is a true x16 electrical slot, it is also metal reinforced. The bottom two slots are PCI-Express 4.0 and a only x4 electrical and are not metal reinforced.
Moving over to the rear I/O we do have an integrated I/O shield, which is pretty standard these days. When it comes to ports and connections we have DisplayPort, HDMI, clear CMOS and BIOS flashback buttons, 10 USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-C port, a USB 3.2 gen 2×2 Type-C port, 2.5G Ethernet, WiFi 7 antenna connections and our audio connections.
