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

Great MB, works as expected. My only complaint is that sometimes memory training on startup takes a long while (up to a minute) vs my previous AM4 build that would boot under 10 seconds.The white looks GREAT as well.The no-tools m.2 slots are fantastic and a snap to install a drive. They look kinda cool as well.

This is a great MOBO. The modern Type-C buses are super nice to have, multiple NVME slots. If you plan to run multiple GPUs make sure your case is large enough. Only beef I have with ASUS is that the Armory Crate software is hot garbage. Seriously. They moved Aura Sync into Armory Crate so just to run the LED drivers you need almost 3 GB of SDKs and frameworks to use it with the native app. It requests multiple admin permissions on startup. Why? The software hogs resources during runtime. Needs updates otherwise it breaks. Won’t download and apply updates correctly due to tight system permissions, no debugging. Utterly ridiculous. I guess they spent the entire budget on UI R&D

Great board. BIOS loads fast, especially compared to my previous Gigabyte AM5 board. Rock-solid stability, no coil whine or buzzing noises under load. Installation and setup were straightforward—haven't run into any issues. Definitely recommend for anyone building a compact AM5 rig.

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.

First off — yeah, it’s marketed as a white motherboard, and mostly it is… but you do get some black undertones in the PCB and components. Not a dealbreaker, still looks slick, but if you’re going for that full white-out build, just know it’s not pure white like the newer revision that came out later (where even the base PCB is fully white).That said, it feels premium. RGB zones are fully customizable, tons of headers and connectors, CPU socket install was smooth, and everything from unboxing to setup felt like handling a high-end product. What you see in the listing photos is exactly what you get.Now the cons — and this is why I’m knocking off a star:1. The included Wi-Fi antenna is black. It just… clashes. For a board that leans into the white aesthetic, I was honestly surprised they didn’t throw in a matching white or at least gray antenna. Tiny detail? Sure. But if you’re building a color-themed rig, it stands out.2. No optical audio out. That really threw me. I get that digital audio is moving to USB and HDMI, but come on — this is a top-tier gaming board. If you’re running high-end speakers or older AV gear with optical input, you’re out of luck. And yeah, maybe I should’ve caught that in the specs, but still — feels like a strange omission at this level.Overall: it’s powerful, it’s pretty, it performs. But for a board this expensive, missing basics like color-matched accessories and optical out kinda takes away from the experience.