Page 3 - Physical Look - Hardware, Board Layout
The ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi is a standard ATX board with typical measurements of 30.5cm by 24.4cm. This is a top-tier motherboard, and we can see similar visual elements between all the motherboards in the ProArt family. ASUS uses the same matte black solder mask here for a cleaner appearance. All the components are monochrome, while the VRM heatsink and back panel cover, text on the top, and the chipset heatsink have gold accents. The clean appearance is quite refreshing compared to the world of RGB LEDs and gaming vibes everywhere. In fact, there are no RGB LED elements on this motherboard, other than the boot lights that light up on every boot to help with diagnosing any issues. Obviously, aesthetics does not translate into quality necessarily, but it may affect your purchasing decision. We do know, however, that ASUS has tested these components thoroughly through a 168-hour durability test for reliability and your peace of mind.
The first thing you might notice is that the ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi has many different heatsinks. This includes the VRM heatsinks over the MOSFETs and chokes near the processor socket, which we will take a deeper look at in a moment. All the NVMe M.2 slots have a heatsink with thermal pads underneath. An acrylic-covered passive cooler sits over the X870E chipset, which has a TDP of 14W. Thankfully, gone are the days of any active fans on the chipset. All these blocks of metals should help the ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi perform well thermally, even in cases with lacking airflow, but we will do some temperature testing later in this review.
Starting at the top edge, on the left side are the CPU power connectors in the form of two EPS 8-pin, to provide the power required for your processor. This area is quite crowded, but the connector placement on the edge means you should be able to easily access this area. Clearance should not be too much of an issue here, unless you have larger hands or have components hanging over the motherboard, such as a large heatsink or radiator. Moving to the right side, we have three 4-pin fan headers, labeled CPU_FAN, CPU_OPT, and AIO_PUMP. This supports up to two cooling fans and one all-in-one cooler pump. ASUS has also included plastic covers over each of these headers for protection during transit.
Flipping the motherboard over, you can see we have a clean look at the backside of the ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi. Once again, the design is clean and there are no other components here. This makes adding aftermarket CPU cooling solutions easier, as there is nothing to interfere with. A standard AMD backplate is right behind the processor socket, which should work with all AM5 aftermarket coolers. Most of the sockets and headers use through-hole connectors, as shown in our photo above. SMT or surface-mount technology is less capable of withstanding higher mechanical stress required for certain use cases.
Here, we have the AM5 processor socket with the typical array of items in proximity. These are related to the CPU voltage regulator circuit as well as two corresponding heatsinks. The heatsinks are low profile considering their size, and I had no problems installing larger CPU coolers in this area. However, it does vary from model to model, as we have run into some compatibility issues in the past with air coolers on the ASUS ProArt Z690-Creator WiFi. ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi features a Digi+ VRM and a 16+2+2 80A power stage design for solid and precise power delivery with fast transient response to your CPU. Two more 4-pin chassis fan headers are a bit further out by the top M.2 slot near the southwest corner of the CPU socket.
Four DDR5 RAM slots are near the CPU socket. Most modern RAM should have low enough profile heatspreaders, while most modern coolers sit over adjacent memory modules, so you should not run into clearance issues. The slot closest to the CPU socket is DIMM A1, followed by A2, B1, and B2. If you are planning to use only two slots of memory, be sure to fill in A2 and B2 first, despite the naming. All of these have metal dividers to increase the strength of these slots.
On the right-side, there is an ATX 24-pin power connector on the side, which is standard placement. Above the ATX 24-pin power connector, there are four LEDs here to indicate status for CPU, memory, graphics card, and boot device to help with diagnosing problems on boot. It might have been nice to see a seven-segment display to read out specific POST codes, but this provides a cleaner and simpler way to troubleshoot immediate issues.
Continuing our way down the right side, the first connector is the USB 20Gbps header. This is compatible with Quick Charge 4+ and USB Power Delivery, and can deliver up to 30W of power. Next, there is a USB 5Gbps header, angled perpendicular to the motherboard. This makes connecting this fragile header a bit easier, since the cable does not need to protrude out as much. Finally, we have a pair of SATA 6Gb/s ports native to the chipset angled in the same way. It is a bit interesting to see less SATA headers than six on the motherboard, but this is just part of the trend towards more reliance on M.2 slots for storage rather than these older connections. The SATA ports on the ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi support RAID 0, 1, and 10. Overall, this is a pretty straightforward layout, and generally optimal in placement to ensure everything is on the edge for easier cabling.
There is a total of three PCI Express expansion slots on the ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi. The top two slots are different from the third one in several ways. For one, they are both notably reinforced for increased strength. Secondly, they both have ASUS' Q-Release Slim latches at the end, which allow you to pull off your video cards easier by pulling from the back. This is because the latches are spring loaded to open with this motion. I personally would prefer an easy access button to unlatch the mechanism, but this is an interesting solution. These two slots are PCIe 5.0 x16 provided by the CPU. Assuming you are using a Ryzen 7000 or 9000-series CPU, both share sixteen lanes. As such, if you only populate the top slot, it will have the full sixteen lanes, but if the second slot has something installed here, the bandwidth splits between the two slots so each gets eight lanes of bandwidth. If you have a Ryzen 8000-series CPU, only the top PCIe slot will work with a lower bandwidth, depending on the processor. The third and final PCI Express slot is from the X870E chipset, and this is a PCI 4.0 x16 slot with four lanes total of bandwidth.
As for storage, there are four M.2 storage slots, providing a solid amount of NVMe storage if you want to fill up your motherboard with fast SSDs. Three of them support sizes up to 2280, while the fourth one supports up to 22110. The most common size is 2280, so it is no surprise most of these slots have this as its maximum size. All of them use a tool-free mechanism to secure SSDs. However, ASUS has made these a bit easier to use with a straightforward latch or slide, depending on the physical size of your SSD. All four use an updated Q-Latch that sits in the 2280 slot. If you want to use a shorter size M.2 drive, you can use the Q-Slide, which is a plastic piece that slides over and keeps the drive in place. The top slot also has a massive heatsink that attaches with a Q-Release for an easier to install or uninstall experience. The top two slots are PCIe 5.0-based with four lanes, while the bottom two are PCIe 4.0-based with four lanes. The second M.2 PCIe 5.0 slot shares bandwidth with the PCI Express expansion slots, so when a drive is here, the top expansion slot will have eight lanes, while the second slot will have four lanes. This sort of bifurcation is a bit odd, but it is how ASUS was able to provide two PCIe 5.0 slots without sacrificing on the bandwidth of the drives. Other motherboard manufacturers have implemented this differently, such as sharing lanes with the USB ports, so it is just a matter of compromising in different areas. Otherwise, all these slots have beefy heatsinks, which is great to see.
The rest of the internal headers are at the bottom of the ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi. From left to right, we have the front panel audio, serial, a 4-pin PWM, two ARGB Gen 2, three USB 2.0, two SATA 6Gb/s, thermal sensor, test header, chassis intrusion header, another 4-pin PWM, and front panel I/O. A CMOS battery is in the bottom right corner. I really appreciate the placement and layout of all these internal headers, making them easily accessible, although I might have wanted to see the ARGB headers spread out a bit more.
At the back, there is a dedicated audio zone electrically separated and physically shielded from the rest of the components to reduce noise. A thick line for the audio guard path is on the solder mask to give the user a visual cue of this design. We have a Realtek ALC1220P 7.1 32-bit/192 kHz audio codec. Further sound quality optimizations include a de-pop circuit, audio-grade capacitors, and audio shielding.
The back panel uses an integrated rear I/O shield and offers a generous array of modern external connectors. There is a total of seven USB 10Gbps Type-A ports. Nearby, there are two USB 40Gbps with support for USB Type-C display outputs. Next, there is a USB 20Gbps Type-C port. Finally, there is a single USB 2.0 header which is for BIOS flashing. A Marvell AQtion-based 10G Ethernet and Intel I226-V controlled 2.5G Ethernet are nearby. There are two buttons on this back shield with both marked clearly. One is to clear the CMOS, which makes it quite accessible to do so. The other is the BIOS flashback, which means you can update the BIOS without even needing a CPU installed.
We have two video connections in addition to the USB Type-C ports. This includes an HDMI output and a DisplayPort input. The HDMI 2.1 output supports 4K resolutions at 60Hz. The DisplayPort input can connect to your video card's output, so users can connect to the USB Type-C ports for display. The two USB Type-C ports support up to 8K resolutions at 60Hz.
The rest of the connections are at the bottom. First, we have two WiFi antenna jacks to use with the included antenna. This uses ASUS' Q-Antenna that does not screw in, but directly plugs in. This is much preferable, as these thin cables are too fragile for frequent twisting. Internally, this connects to a MediaTek MT7927 WiFi 7 Wireless LAN card that provides connectivity for both WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. At the bottom, there are three standard 3.5mm analog jacks for microphone in, line out, and line in. Interestingly, there is no optical audio port, which I would have liked.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Bundle and Chipset
3. Physical Look - Hardware, Board Layout
4. BIOS and Test System
5. Benchmark: AIDA64
6. Benchmark: Cinebench 2024
7. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 11
8. Benchmark: PCMark 10
9. Benchmark: 3DMark
10. Onboard Sound Frequency Analysis
11. Thermal Measurements and Overclocking
12. Conclusion
