ASUS ROG Strix B850-I Gaming WiFi AMD AM5 B850 Mini-ITX mITX Motherboard 10+2+1 Stages, DDR5, 2.5G LAN, WiFi 7, 2X M.2, PCIe® 5.0 x16, USB 20Gbps Type-C®, AI Overclocking, AI Networking II, Aura Sync

Booted on the first attempt and going on and strong. Never had to fiddle with anything. Transferring drive with windows 11 from my older x570 rig was a bit of a hassle. But that’s part of DIY PC hobby.Tons of usb ports(8nos), great quality aluminum heat sinks for the VRMs and onboard connectivity options, PCIe 5.0 X16 slot and M.2, wifi7. This thing is future proof till 2030.At $300 it’s the cheapest I’ve seen this board go on sale. I think it’s a steal in this economy.Highly recommended.

I’m not taking off a star since this is on me but I just noticed it when reviewing my purchase to check off the part in my part list; but I got a Used - Like New board.Check the details of purchase and shipping before buying peeps. I’d rather have spent another $70 on a new part.But it’s on its way, so we will see how it looks when it gets here.

Solid ITX MB with most features a full MB has. No issues when OC Ram sticks and offers LEDs compared to other ITX boards. Currently using with a 9800x3d and would still recommend the newer b850. Only reason for getting a b650 is if it’s heavily discounted.

I won’t go into detail about ASUS the company, there is more than enough details online, but I will go into detail in regards to the B650E-I.The first problem that I got was the fact that there are no Internet drivers preinstalled onto the motherboard meaning that you have to save your Internet drivers onto a separate USB before you actually get even LAN working. This is a problem because if you are like most people, you will be reusing part from your previous build and will not have a computer to actually download the drivers until it is already too late. I was fortunate enough to have actually done this however it shouldn’t even be a problem, yet it is.The second issue is the boot times last substantially longer than any other motherboard that I’ve used before.The third issue is going to be the fact that there is coil wine on my unit. It’s not entirely audible, only noticeable if I have my fans at a low speed and the case panels off, however, based on previous reviews, it is likely that this will get worse overtime and I have purchased motherboards for 1/3 of the price that had no coil line.The fourth and final problem, which is the most important for me is that the audio solution on this motherboard is absolutely horrible. For whatever reason the audio signal that comes out of the rear is incredibly loud, it distorts my headphones even at 50% system volume on windows. There is a lot of distortion and the audio sounds tinny, installing the drivers from the ASUS website does not help. This is not an issue that I have seen substantially covered at all except for one Reddit thread, this in my opinion, makes the board unusable and even though you can compensate by reducing your system volume it is common for volume to reset on startup and it shouldn’t even be an issue in the first place.Yes, the motherboard does have many good features and the rear Io is best in class and there are no extra daughter boards that you have to use to get full features like other manufacturers, but it is not worth the price nor the quality.EDIT: Some extra info.- Coil whine can be “solved” by keeping your CPU above 1.2V at all times. Should not have to do this for $300.- Long boot times are a problem with AM5 in general apparently. Go into your BIOS and turn on BOTH Memory Context Restore AND Memory Power Down. ASUS BIOS should do both automatically when one is enabled. Fast boot helps as well, 13second boot times.- Audio is done by Realtek ALC4080 which does audio over USB and has “impedance detection”. This does not work. It detects 80ohm headphones as over 1000ohms, massively over amplifying the signal. Realtek audio drivers (not Microsoft defaults) and Realtek Audio Console must be installed to manually change amplifying level, but ohm detection is still wrong. This fixes sound level, but ALC4080 implementation and noise isolation is still bad. Get constant crackles during any bass notes above 50% volume. Especially when CPU utilization or Ethernet utilization is high due to bad isolation. Stick to motherboards that use ALC 800/1200.I will be returning this when the ASRock B850 boards come out.

There are at least two other ITX B850-sized boards; in my case, I am not able to detail full ITX usage, as I bought this board for a combination of stability and RAM overclocking.First and foremost, this motherboard does not support an Arctic Liquid Freezer III; the tubes will be hitting the NVMe heatsink block, as well as even the NVMe when the block is off. You may be able to install the pump NORTH; however, you may cause your cooler to develop bubbles or deteriorate.When it comes to overclocking RAM, this was on beta BIOS 1001 and 1002; it is able to go to its supported rate; however, it seems to be unstable, and this will depend on your CPU IMC (9800x3D here) and the RAM you are installing. I would recommend if you are buying this board for a new board, to look into 2x24 GB M-Die, which will be less intensive on the memory controller (less SoC voltage as well) and should be easier to stabilize at 8000 MHz.The features this board has does indeed beat the Gigabyte alternative and are comparable to the Asrock version, in my opinion. Due to the above issues, I cannot fully recommend the board in my use case, but I can recommend it for those who want a nice and feature-heavy board.When it comes to BIOS, ASUS is still cleaning up their AMD board's BIOS, and so my recommendation goes to the other company, Asrock. Memory training and bootup times have been faster on the competitor, while on this board they have been fairly long. Assuming you place in numbers, Asus can take up to 3 minutes even then.Unfortunately, we don't have much ITX or dual DIMM boards that are both cheap and good, but I wish anyone reading luck on their SFF builds or RAM overclocking!The build in image:9800x3dCopper Thermal Paste Guard (There is a Japanese review noting a few C lower in temps)This Board2x24gb TeamGroup Expert 7200 (@7800mhz stable, Y-cruncher, Karhu, TM5, 3h+)MSI RTX 4070 Super Gaming X SlimArctic Liquid Freezer IIIPhanteks Enthoo Pro IIDue to the motherboard and case constraint, I am also unable to install the "VRM FAN" for the AIO. It doesn't affect much other than some VRM temperatures (which are fine even without).This board is extremely powerful, and can be good if you are looking for a plug'n play!In my use case, I will most likely be returning this board.