ASUS ROG X670E Crosshair Extreme Motherboard Review

TweakTown's Rating: 93%

The Bottom Line

The ASUS ROG X670E Crosshair Extreme AM5 motherboard comes packed with technology, but it does come at a hefty cost.

Pros

• + DDR5/PCIe 5.0
• + USB4/Thunderbolt 4
• + 10Gbe
• + Performance
• + Gen5 m.2

Cons

• - No DisplayPort outputs
• - Cost

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

ASUS has been a premier motherboard partner with AMD for many years, and at the forefront has been the ROG Crosshair platform. We say platform here because, in the last 15+ years, this lineup has grown from one motherboard to now a full stable that includes Hero, Extreme, and Gene. Gen over Gen, the new X670E Extreme is a sizable upgrade. Of course, we now have DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, but ASUS too has added 40Gbps USB4, which doubles as display outputs via the new JHL8540 controller from Intel.

Further specifications start with the basics: these include the AMD X670E chipset. ASUS has chosen to use two on this board to expand connectivity while keeping down the heat. We then have the LGA1718 socket, or "AM5", as many know it. And this is paired with four DDR5 memory slots, with a max capacity of 128GB. Memory speeds run up to 6400MHz for those wanting to overclock, while JEDEC 4400MHz is the standard.

The expansion includes three PCIe slots, two of which are PCIe 5.0 and can operate at x16 or x8x8 if both are populated. This moves us into storage where this board shines; five Gen 5 M.2 slots are available, split between the board itself and the Genz.2 module. Legacy storage is available via six SATA ports.

Connectivity is vast; this includes both 2.5Gbe and 10Gbe LAN. USB connectivity includes twelve ports on the rear I/O and another ten available via internal headers.

Pricing

The ASUS ROG X670E Crosshair Extreme is priced at $999.99 with a three-year warranty.

ASUS ROG X670E Crosshair Extreme Motherboard

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$899.95	$899.95	$899.95	$1517.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 2/19/2024 at 3:00 pm CST - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Packaging, Accessories, and Overview

Packaging and Accessories

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Board packaging for the Extreme is much different than any other Crosshair motherboard, and we have ROG branding and the supported chipset along the bottom.

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On the back, we have an image of the board to the left with a port breakdown underneath.

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Included with the Extreme, we have the DIMM.2 module alongside the fan controller and Wi-Fi antenna.

Motherboard Overview

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The aesthetic of this board has changed slightly. Large Crosshair branding along the I/O plate covers some of the VRM heatsink. We then move into the socket and four memory slots. Down below, the board includes an OLED screen and underneath board armor that hides the m.2 slots.

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On the backside, we have a full backplate complete with Extreme branding.

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The rear I/O is packed, starting with the BIOS flashback and clear CMOS buttons. This runs us into our first set of USB 3.2 ports and then into our two LAN ports. Further down, you will find the analog audio outputs and Wi-Fi 6e antenna connections.

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Starting along the bottom of the board, we have manual overclocking controls, including bclk buttons, alt mode switches, and slow mode.

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On the far end, we run into two USB headers, a Gen2x2 header, and additional switches for overclocking.

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Around the corner, the board's heatsink tucks away all the SATA ports, a fan header, and two USB 3.2 headers.

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Further up the side, we have 6-pin and 24-pin power tucked away alongside fan headers and RGB.

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Across the top of the board, we find fan headers above the memory slots and, far right, both 8-pin CPU power connections.

UEFI, Software and Test System

UEFI

Like past boards, the EFI hasn't changed apart from a few new features with the new platform. The main menu gives an overview of the CPU, memory, and BIOS version. Extreme tweaker is where all the work is done, setting EXPO for memory and overclocking. The advanced menu offers options for configuring system devices, including SATA and NVMe storage.

The Monitor tab allows you to set up your fans automatically or manually, while the tool menu gives you options for updating BIOS, erasing your storage devices, and setting up profiles.

Motherboard Software

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Armoury Crate offers monitoring software that integrates Ai Suite. This allows the configuration of Aura Sync and tuning for the motherboard and CPU.

Motherboard Testing Supporters

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Sabrent supports our storage testing with the Rocket 4 Plus.

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We crank up a set of Sabrent DDR5 for our testing, running DDR5 6000MHz at CL30 with 1.4v.

AMD Motherboard Test System

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
• RAM: Sabrent Rocket DDR5 4800MHz 32GB CL30 (buy from Amazon)
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090Ti (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: AORUS P1200W PSU (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 (buy from Amazon)

Cinebench R23,Crossmark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to highlight their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload utilizing one thread or 1T and a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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The Extreme was tested on BIOS 0604. This netted us a single core score of 1978 and multithread of 15197, both in line with expectations.

CrossMark

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CrossMark landed us an overall of 2198.

AIDA64 Memory

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In AES, we picked up 147302 with the Extreme; this was slightly better than the Ace and Taichi but not quite as good as the AORUS Master.

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SHA3 tapped in at 4046.

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Memory latency was a bit high on the Extreme, 68.7ns.

UL Procyon,3DMark, and CrossMark Benchmarks

UL Procyon Suite

The UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark uses Microsoft Office apps to measure PC performance for office productivity work.

The Photo Editing benchmark uses Adobe Lightroom to import, process, and modify a selection of images. In the second part of the test, multiple edits and layer effects are applied to a photograph in Adobe Photoshop.

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We begin with Procyon Office. In this setup, we landed a score of 9148, the same result found with previous boards.

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Photo Editing came in at 10689.

3DMark

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Starting with CPU Profile, the Extreme offered a score of 1121 in single thread and 9447 at sixteen threads.

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Flipping over to storage, we see a 3DMark score of 3390 from the ROG Extreme.

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During our storage benchmark testing above, we monitor the temperatures of the Rocket 4 Plus to see how well the motherboard handles the heat load. This will be a crucial part of these boards after Gen5 drives are released with increased heat output.

In testing, the Extreme was quite good holding our drive steady at 50c for the duration of the test.

Gaming Benchmarks and Final Thoughts

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Timespy landed at 18453 for the Extreme.

Gaming tests include both Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk 2077. We evaluate both 1080p and 1440p resolutions.

Starting with Cyberpunk, the Taichi picked up a solid 188.2 FPS at 1080p. This moved to 155.8 FPS at 1440p. For Forza, we saw 201 FPS at 1080p and 180 FPS at 1440p.

Final Thoughts

The Crosshair Extreme is one of the most feature-packed boards that has come to market on X670E. To start, this board not only gives you multiple full-length PCIe slots for your GPU and other AICs, but it offers a full slate of m.2 storage that is also supported by Gen5.

Adding to this, it offers a full slate of USB connectivity, including 22 ports, two of which are USB4/Thunderbolt 4 supported. The network stack on this board is top of the line, with the Marvell AQC113 for 10Gbe and Intel i225 for 2.5Gbe.

Testing went off without issue, though we did note higher than normal memory latency that seemed to track into storage performance, making us think X670E ROG boards have an overall higher board latency, perhaps due to the dual chipsets.

Putting this in the past, the Extreme offered solid performance across the board, including our real-world testing with UL Procyon, where the board matched previously tested samples with scores of 9148 in office and 10689 in Photo workloads. Peaking at our gaming results, the Extreme had no problem with our 3090 Ti producing a peak of 188 FPS in Cyberpunk and 201 FPS in Forza.

On to pricing, where the Extreme as tested, lands as the most expensive board to date with its impressive $999.99 MSRP, which puts it firmly in enthusiast territory alongside the MSI X670E GODLIKE and AORUS XTREME.