The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming is the first AMD X470 chipset based motherboard to land on our doorsteps.
The motherboard we used on our review of the Ryzen 7 2700 and the Ryzen 5 2600X. We’ve had a good amount of time testing the board and that said, we’d like to share what we think about it.
Table of Contents
Technical Specifications
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming has a lot going on it; being one of the first ASUS motherboards to grace the X470 chipset. It has an updated design which is a facelift compared to their recent AMD boards and also comes with full support for both Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire. The board also conveniently features a pre-mounted I/O shield and the SupremeFX audio with the S1220A codec. That’s on top of the latest technologies that the AMD X470 chipset has to offer.
| ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming | |
| CPU Support | AMD Ryzen 2nd Generation/Ryzen with Radeon Vega Graphics/Ryzen 1st Generation/7th Generation A-series/Athlon X4 Processors |
| Chipset | AMD X470 Chipset |
| Form Factor | ATX |
| Power Phase | 10+1 |
| Memory | |
| Frequency | 3466MHz (Max) |
| Slots | 4x DIMM (Non-ECC) |
| Capacity | 64GB |
| Channel | Dual |
| Connectivity | |
| Slots | 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16
2 x PCIe 3.0 x8 3 x PCIe 2.0 x1 |
| Onboard Graphics | AMD Ryzen with Radeon Vega Graphics/ 7th Generation A-Series APU |
| Multi-GPU | NVIDIA 2-Way SLI Technology
AMD 3-Way CrossFireX Technology |
| Storage | AMD X470 Chipset
|
| USB | AMD X470 Express Chipset
|
| Audio | SupremeFX 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC S1220A
|
| Network | Intel I211-AT Gigabit LAN Controller
|
| Miscellaneous | |
| Fan Connectors | 1 x CPU Fan connector(s)
1 x CPU OPT Fan connector(s) 3 x Chassis Fan connector(s) 1 x AIO_PUMP connector 1 x W_PUMP+ connector |
| 1 x Aura Addressable Strip Header(s)
2 x RGB Header(s) |
|
Packaging and Accessories
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming comes in a simple packaging which is a similar trend if compared to their other midrange offerings.
The board comes with four SATA cables, a proper HB SLI bridge, RGB extension cables and even a set of zipties.
Paper works are lavish. There’s that obligatory thank you pamplet, the manual, a door hanger and a set of decals.
Design, Build and Connectivity
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming is a clean looking motherboard infused with ASUS’ gaming DNA. We have 7 properly placed fan headers and 10+1 phase VRM to boot. There’s also a shielded M.2 slot at the top that complements the PHC’s stylish heatsink.
Layout wise, we are looking at a good one, especially if we’re talking about the PCI-E area. From top to bottom, we have a x16, x1, x1, x8, x1 and another x8 slot. That’s a total of 6 slots for your expansion cards.
Headers are a plenty below the board without going claustrophobic. We also get to see the isolated SupremeFX audio solution that should be enough even for the budding audio enthusiast.
The audio components are separated from the rest, so we’re expecting good levels there as far as noise is concerned. As for the other side of the board, we have 6 SATA ports along with a USB Type-C header.
Back panel options are excellent. USB 3.0 are plenty and we’ve got PS/2 ports for legacy devices as well. ASUS did a great job by offering a pre-mounted backplate for the ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming motherboard. This should be an industry standard.
Firmware
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming motherboard shares the same UEFI layout with the rest of the company’s latest motherboard releases. EZ mode will greet you first hand with simplified popular motherboard options.
The Advanced mode is where you could toggle EZ mode off; allowing the user to fully utilize what the board has to offer. Ai Tweaker is your best friend here, although we don’t find tweaking the higher end 2nd generation Ryzen CPUs all too useful. At least, that’s what we experienced with the retail parts.
The LED effects of the motherboard could be turned off via the UEFI which is a godsent to those who do not require flashy stuff. There is also a convenient search button if you know what you are looking for yet do not exactly know where it is.
Software
ASUS had the ROG Strix X470-F Gaming bundled with tons of applications that should help you optimize your system’s performance. That includes the following software tools:
- ROG RAMCache II
- ROG CPU-Z
- Overwolf
- GameFirst IV
- Sonic Radar III
- Sonic Studio III
- Sonic Studio Link
Test Setup
The system performance shall be evaluated by various benchmarking tools and applications. We are testing this system with the high-performance settings enabled at the OS, with the default UEFI configuration. Background processes such as anti-viruses and third-party applications are disabled as well. Outlined below are the applications and benchmark tools for reference:
Power
The AIDA64 System Stability Test uses a 64-bit multi-threaded stress testing module to drive the system to its limits. Power readings are recorded with a watt-meter.
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming is an energy efficient motherboard for its size featuring even less power requirements compared to the mATX board we tested.
Arithmetic
Super PI is a single-threaded program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point. It is a widely used benchmark within the industry.
WPrime is a multi-threaded program that calculates a set number of square roots. It verifies the results by squaring them, then compares it with the original numbers.
Memory
The AIDA64 Memory Benchmark measure the data transfer bandwidth and latency of the system memory. We are measuring the latency on this benchmark.
Excellent performance output we got from the ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming motherboard.
Productivity
GIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a free and open-source image editing tool. A 7 MB worth of images is be processed and converted to gauge the system performance.
HandBrake is a free video encoding tool that supports a wide variety of media codecs. A 150MB worth MP4 video is converted using the H.264 codec to gauge the system performance.
WinRAR is a file archive utility that can create, view and unpack numerous archive file formats. The software’s built in benchmark tool is utilized to gauge the system performance.
The productivity application performance clearly resembles the motherboard’s synthetic performance. Good stuff right here from ASUS.
Storage
AS SSD is a storage benchmarking software widely used throughout the industry. On this test, we are using its scoring system to evaluate our Crucial BX200 SSD’s performance using the system’s native SATA controller.
The SATA III performance is excellent, with a small nudge in performance using our 2nd generation Ryzen CPU.
Audio
The RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) is a tool designed to test the quality of audio devices. We used a sampling rate of 24-bit at 48000Hz for the loopback test. We are essentially testing the quality of the line-in and line-out of the audio solution.
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming motherboard with the SupremeFX audio solution features the best noise level performance we’ve seen yet from any motherboards.
Network
The NetIO-GUI is a good application to test any network’s performance. The LAN round trip time is our concern here, checking out latency anomalies if there are any. The client and server are connected on the network via Cat5 cables using a 100Mbps router.
RTT performance is nothing to worry about with <1ms of latency on any packet sizes tested.
Conclusion
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming is the real deal if you are looking for a proper Ryzen insertion this side of the year. It comes equipped with the latest ASUS has to offer, without sacrificing anything else in the process. That includes a performance apt for its chipset’s capabilities as well.
Connectivity options perfectly utilized what the AMD X470 chipset has to offer. That of course includes the AMD SenseMI technology that should work well with the M.2 slots located within the motherboard. Gaming oriented features on the other hand is just lavish. That’s for both the hardware and software solutions.
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming is priced at 13950 Pesos and for an X470 motherboard with excellent set of features, that’s perfectly acceptable.
ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming Motherboard
Summary
The ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming is the real deal if you are looking for a proper Ryzen insertion this side of the year. It comes equipped with the latest ASUS has to offer, without sacrificing anything else in the process. That includes a performance apt for its chipset’s capabilities as well.
5