Introduction
Considering there’s not much you can do with a B860 motherboard in terms of overclocking, even lacking Intel’s 200S Boost option in the EFI, not getting change from $400 and being tied to Intel’s LGA1851 platform is perhaps not as attractive as AMD B850 chipset options. Still, the ASUS ROG Strix B860-F Gaming Wi-Fi represents a solid specification for Core Ultra CPU owners.
It ticks boxes such as PCIe Gen 5 SSD and GPU support, has Wi-Fi 7, features an impressive four M.2 ports paired with four SATA ports as well for flexible storage options, and of course being a modern Intel motherboard we get Thunderbolt 4 too.
As well as being attractive and offering its own RGB lighting for some additional eye candy, ASUS usually ranks highly in other areas too, such as EFI, software, audio, and cooling. If you’re looking to build a Core Ultra system and perhaps picked up a CPU in recent sales, we’ll be seeing whether the ROG Strix B860-F Gaming Wi-Fi is worth the cash for those not looking to overclock.
Specifications
| Specifications | |
|---|---|
| CPU Support: | Intel Core Ultra Series 2 (Arrow Lake) |
| Power Design: | CPU Power: 16-phase iGPU Power: 1-phase VCCSA Power: 2-phase VNNAON Power: 1-phase |
| Chipset: | Intel B860 |
| Integrated Graphics: | Supported 1× HDMI 1× DisplayPort 2× DisplayPort via USB-C |
| Memory: | 4× DIMM, Support up to 256 GB 2× Single Rank DDR5-9066 (OC) |
| BIOS: | 256 Mbit AMI UEFI |
| Expansion Slots: | 1× PCIe Gen 5 x16 slot (x16, x8/x8, x8/x4/x4) 1× PCIe Gen 4 x16 (x4) |
| Storage: | 1× M.2 (PCIe Gen 5 x4) 3× M.2 (PCIe Gen 4 x4) 4× SATA 6 Gb/s |
| Networking: | 1× 2.5 Gbps Ethernet 1× Wi-Fi 7 |
| Rear Ports: | USB BIOS Flashback button 1× 2.5 Gbps Ethernet 1× Thunderbolt 4 40 Gbps (Type-C) 1× USB 3.2 Gen 2 2×2 20 Gbps (Type-C) 1× USB 3.2 Gen 2 10 Gbps (Type-A) 6× USB 3.0 (Type-A) 1× Wi-Fi antenna connectors 2× Audio jacks 1× Optical S/PDIF Out port |
| Audio: | 1× Realtek ALC4080 Codec |
| Fan / Thermistor headers: | 7× 4-pin/1× 2-pin |
| Form Factor: | ATX Form Factor 9.6 × 6.7 in./30.5 × 24.4 cm |
| Exclusive Features: |
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