A "kitchen sink" motherboard with everything most gamers will want

The Asus Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi is a well-done Intel LGA1700 motherboard with top-notch power delivery and copious storage support. It includes the premium features most users will want, without shooting the price into the upper atmosphere. Wire Connector

Republic of Gamers gaming PC components from Asus tend to be some of the fanciest, and priciest, in their respective market segments. While most mainstream motherboards try to walk the razor’s edge of high performance for a modest retail price, Asus with its $469.99 ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi motherboard took the kitchen-sink approach and added in as many features as possible on a crowded printed circuit board (PCB). The Asus ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi is in the lower half of the ROG motherboard hierarchy, but its price is hardly low-end. So, this relatively "affordable" entry into the land of premium motherboards earns a high rating, but it doesn't topple our current Editors' Choice holder for high-end Intel motherboards, the MSI MPG Z690 Carbon Wi-Fi.

Say what you will about the value or practicality of ROG boards, Asus sure knows how to make them visually stand out. Massive heatsinks and a few heat pipes dominate more than half of the surface area on the front of the board. The black-on-black of the PCB and heatsinks is broken up by silver and nickel accents. It’s an excellent example of form meeting function.

A few spots on the Strix are strictly for show. Stretching over the voltage regulator module (VRM) heatsink, from the rear I/O panel to the CPU socket, is a wide decorative strip. An iridescent underlayer with Republic of Gamers graphics is flanked by hidden RGB lighting at the edges. Covering the blue-fuchsia color strip is a layer of etched acrylic, adding refracting elements to the RGB. Decorative silk-screening adorns the back of the board.

Packaging is another area in which ROG motherboards never disappoint. Asus understands that product first impressions start when you open that cardboard lid. Inside the double-layered cardboard box, the motherboard gets its own inner protective cardboard tray, while the many extras are placed in boxes and cutouts of their own in the bottom layer.

Apart from the normal SATA cables and extra M.2 mounting hardware (replacement M.2 latches, in this case), the Strix also comes with a keychain, a GPU support mount, a magnetic-mount external Wi-Fi antenna, and an ROG Hyper M.2 Card (more about the Hyper Card below).

The Strix uses every available millimeter around the CPU socket to stack a VRM heatsink as high as possible while still leaving required space for mounting CPU coolers. The heatsink is a multi-piece assembly that bolts together, and a heat pipe runs between the pieces to ensure minimal thermal buildup in any one area. Beneath the heatsink is a robust 18+1 power design for stable power CPU power, even in heavily overclocked systems. Feeding the VRM are two eight-pin power connectors. As with most Intel 600-series boards made by Asus, the Strix is drilled for both LGA1200 and LGA1700 cooler mounting.

As fitting for a high-performance board, the Strix uses DDR5 memory modules with a maximum 128GB capacity. Asus officially says the board will support RAM at rates up to DDR5-6400, though as a dedicated overclocking board, higher may be possible.

This Strix can hold four PCI Express expansion cards, with three full-length slots and one single-lane open-end slot. The top slot, of course, is meant for GPUs. It's reinforced, and connects to the CPU over a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface. The Strix also shares the GPU Q-Release feature of the company's Maximus Z690 Hero board. It’s a button on the leading edge of the board that releases the locking tab on the top PCIe slot. As the lock tab is right up against an M.2 heatsink on the Strix, and since GPU backplates often block the top of the tab, as well, this is a nifty and necessary feature for the Strix.

Slots two, three, and four connect through the chipset at PCIe 3.0 x1, 3.0 x4, and 4.0 x4 speeds, respectively. Despite the second slot being open-ended, it can’t use a card with more than a four-lane connector, as it would run into the chipset heatsink. The bottom slot supports PCIe bifurcation, covered in more detail below.

This Strix board can handle up to five M.2 drives for PCIe storage. The motherboard itself has three M.2 slots, all with thick heat shields. The primary slot up top even has a heat pipe curling out of the board to an additional heatsink. As this is a gaming-focused board and this area will usually be crammed between the GPU backplate and large CPU heatsink, getting some extra cooling surface area is a nice touch.

The first and second M.2 slots, on the left half of the board, have thermal pads top and bottom and support 42mm, 60mm, 80mm, and 110mm drives. The third slot, just below the chipset, only has a top thermal pad and fits up to 80mm drives, and it is the lone M.2 slot that can operate in SATA mode. All of them use a quick-latch system to mount drives, rather than tiny screws that always seem to get lost. The first and second slots connect through the CPU at PCIe 5.0 x4 and PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds, respectively, and the third slot has a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection through the chipset. The board also has very clear labels for the three M.2 slots and what modes they support.

Packaged with the Strix is a PCIe M.2 breakout card, called the ROG Hyper Card, which allows two additional M.2 drives to be used...

Under the heavy aluminum heatsink are two M.2 slots, both with top and bottom thermal pads and capable of hosting up to 110mm drives. Unfortunately, these two slots use regular screws for mounting drives instead of the helpful Q-latch system. Its first slot is labeled “GEN5,” but there's no way to get either drive on the Hyper Card running at PCIe 5.0. Though the Hyper Card can be installed in any of the three x16 slots, the second Hyper M.2 drive is enabled only when using the bottom card slot since it’s the one that supports PCIe bifurcation. In this setup, both drives on the Hyper Card will run in 4.0 x4 mode, and all of the onboard M.2 drives will also operate normally.

If five M.2 drives aren’t enough for your storage needs, or if you’re a mere mortal that still uses SATA drives, six forward-facing 6Gbps ports are also available. This is up from the typical four because ports 5 and 6 use a different controller to prevent connectivity-lane sharing. This also means that only ports 1 through 4 will support boot drives and RAID setups.

The rear I/O panel is stuffed with connectors and ports covered by an integrated panel shield. Though few consumers of this board will use onboard video, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 are still on hand. A whopping 12 USB ports are available for peripherals and external drives, all clearly marked and color-coded for easy identification. The four black ports are USB 2.0, the four blue ports are 5Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1, and the two red ports are 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2. There are also two USB Type-C ports, one of which is USB 3.2 Gen 2 and operates at 10Gbps, the other a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port that operates at 20Gbps.

Clear CMOS and BIOS flashback buttons are alongside the USB ports, adding more utility. Networking options are a 2.5Gbps wired jack and an 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 controller.

As for the audio solution, the normal five 3.5mm analog jacks, with one S/PDIF output, are present. However, Asus isn’t content to use a regular audio chip in a ROG board. Asus uses its normal SupremeFX technology with premium capacitors and PCB trace isolation and pairs it with a Realtek ALC4080 codec. Asus says it’s enough for 32-bit 384kHz playback with a 120dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) during stereo playback and 113dB SNR for line-in recording. The front-panel-audio header is also routed through an integrated Savitech amplifier, allowing it to drive higher-impedance headphones.

With large heatsinks covering so much of the board real estate, most additional connectors and headers are pushed to the edges. Across the top, in addition to the two EPS connectors, are three fan headers, a CPU overvolt jumper (for specialty overclocking setups), and two RGB headers (one for Asus Aura Sync, one for generic addressable devices). An invaluable debug readout is in the top corner, though it still has color-coded sub-system error LEDs just above it.

Down the leading edge is the 24-pin ATX power connector, a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 header, and a USB 3.1 header. Tucked below the SATA ports and between the numerous heatsinks are two fan headers. Along the bottom is the front audio header, a Thunderbolt header, two more addressable RGB headers, two USB 2.0 headers, a thermal sensor, a fan, and the front-panel-control cluster. Two additional fan headers are just below the CPU socket. One of these is compatible with Asus’ Hydranode system, and the other is intended for all-in-one cooler water pumps. Oddly, the water-pump header is rated for only 1-amp current, the same as all the other headers. Many competing boards, even some in Asus’ own lineup, allow up to 3 amps specifically for a water pump.

Though the board is full-ATX size, using it in a build feels cramped. The VRM heatsink leaves enough room for large CPU coolers, but it acts like a high wall around the socket. There isn’t a lot of room for turning thumbscrews when mounting a cooler bracket. Interestingly, despite the tall heatsink, connecting the EPS and fan cables at the top of the board isn’t difficult as the sink is more of an overhang than a straight wall up on the outer edge.

The two fan headers squished between the SATA ports, the chipset, and the secondary M.2 heatsink can be quite the finger-pinchers, though. And while the fan layout is better on this board than on the Z690 Prime, since it doesn’t waste a fan header on the bottom rear corner of the board, it would still be nice to have a chassis fan header somewhere on the top-right quarter of the board. The only ones in the area are the two CPU fan headers along the top edge, but they’re tied to the same speed control.

Heat shields over the M.2 slots come off easily, and installing drives is a breeze, thanks to the Q-latch clips. Strangely, while the main M.2 cover uses full captive screws, the secondary cover does not. The screws are undercut, so they’re unlikely to fall out of the cover mounting holes, but it’s odd that Asus would put c-clips on only half the screws.

All the various connectors and headers are clearly labeled with a larger-than-average font, making it that much easier to finish all the bits and bobs. Sadly, the labeling for the front-panel cluster is not the most intuitive, so you’ll still need to refer to the manual diagrams to make sure your leads and front buttons are connected correctly. The rather thick heatsink on the ROG Hyper Card also has plenty of clearance above the motherboard, so it won’t block off the many bottom-edge headers.

BIOS flashback on the Strix doesn’t require a CPU or RAM to be installed. This is exciting news for anyone considering a new build with the freshly released 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs. As you’re never sure which BIOS version a board has when you buy it, and since all 600 series motherboards will need a BIOS update to be compatible with the new CPUs, this means you’ll be able to use the board without needing an older-gen CPU to make possible the BIOS update in the first place. The board only needs to be connected to a power source with the BIOS update file on a compatible USB drive in the properly marked USB port on the back. Hit the flashback button, and it will update on its own.

The first boot after fully assembling the system takes a fair time to complete. The board goes through some more extensive testing on components, particularly the RAM, to make sure everything is in proper order.

As this is a ROG product, the UEFI defaults to Advanced Mode when you enter it, though you can switch to the EZ Mode if you like. If you don’t plan to do a lot of in-depth tweaking and overclocking, the EZ page has nearly all the tools you’d need to manage the motherboard. Then again, if you're paying for a Republic of Gamers motherboard, chances are you want to get your hands dirty in the guts of the UEFI.

Menu and control organization stays the same as we’ve seen on Asus boards. Advanced users will need to navigate menus and sub-menus finding what they want, and with so many settings exposed to the user, finding a way to organize them to please everyone is impossible. Those spending lots of time bouncing between tabs and sub-menus tweaking and re-tweaking would be wise to utilize the customizable My Favorites page.

For those who like to play with settings, the Strix has almost endless voltage controls. Frequency and multiplier settings for CPU and base clock (BCLK) also abound, letting you choose between a locked multiplier for all cores or a tiered approach on a per-core basis. You can also enable/disable individual performance and efficiency cores. The included debug display helps troubleshoot bad configurations, and the rear clear CMOS button acts as a quick reset if things go really awry. However, the lack of onboard power and reset buttons means this isn’t the most bench-test-friendly board.

Expected features like temperature monitoring, fan auto-tuning, and configuration save profiles are included, though fan curves are still limited to three points. Asus also adds a a memory-test utility and an SSD secure-erase function. To speed up initial builds, an Ethernet driver is pre-loaded on the board, giving you immediate internet access after booting to an OS. You can also configure the board to automatically download Asus’ Armoury Crate utility, which makes it quick to get other drivers and updates. Aura Sync and RGB controls are rather limited in the UEFI.

Armoury Crate continues to be a one-stop shop for managing and configuring the motherboard. You can download and update drivers for the board’s individual components, find extra utilities for stress and stability testing, monitor motherboard status, and create overclocking profiles for individual programs and games.

To go along with overclocking, you can also create custom fan and cooling profiles. Options here far surpass those available in the UEFI, with fans able to utilize five-point curves. Fans can be set to monitor the temperature of the CPU, motherboard, VRM, chipset, and RAM, or any combination of them.

Armoury Crate also has integrated RGB control for setting up and customizing lighting schemes for the board and all connected components. Typical patterns like rainbow, pulsing, and color cycling are available, and you can create completely custom sets.

“Value” is a hard thing to define in the premium motherboard space. Prices tend to rise quickly as more and more features and functions are added to a motherboard. The added hardware components and materials have a price tag, but mostly it’s the extra R&D time in optimizing layout for circuitry components and PCB trace routes within the limits of the board form factor.

As one would expect with an Asus ROG board, there’s quite a lot to like here. The VRM is bulletproof and will stably support any CPU you can throw at it. Memory performance is also splendid. Storage options are wide-ranging and generous. You get enough USB ports to probably connect every peripheral in your house, if you wanted. The Strix even embraces the chipset’s embedded Wi-Fi, something many mainstream and even premium boards that have rolled through here opted to ignore. The extra touches like the M.2 Q-latches and PCIe Q-release set it apart from many others. So, where is the problem?

First and obvious is the price. The MSRP of more than $400 may be "low" by top-shelf board standards, but it’s still steep for many people and budgets. Then there’s the issue of the recently launched Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake platform and the new Z790 chipset, which without a price cut make this board less attractive when you can buy a new Z790 motherboard instead.

Pedantically, that’s always the case. The near-instant you buy anything, it’s outdated because technology always marches on. The important question to ask yourself is whether a given Z790 board has features you need or want that aren’t or can’t be provided by Z690. The sockets remain the same. If Z790 doesn’t have that killer feature for you, and if prices fall on Z690 in reaction to Z790’s launch, it could significantly improve the value proposition for your particular situation. The BIOS flashback feature on the Strix doesn’t require a CPU, so you don’t need to worry about getting a board with an incompatible BIOS, either.

In the case of the Strix, the street price could drop well under $400. If that happens, when compared with the more "normal" boards around the $300 mark, the Z690 Strix’s extra features start looking like a great bargain.

The Asus Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi is a well-done Intel LGA1700 motherboard with top-notch power delivery and copious storage support. It includes the premium features most users will want, without shooting the price into the upper atmosphere.

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From an early age I was destined for a career in technology and testing. As a young child, my mother worked as the administrative assistant to the Senior VP of Hardware and Peripherals at a little startup called Microsoft, long before they went public. The test and design engineers invited me often to the office, because if anything can break a computer peripheral, it's a 3-year-old toddler. They let me use a heavily modified IBM PCjr running MS Flight Simulator, that could also run Pac-Man at near superluminal speeds.

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