ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi Review: Built For Creators, Priced For Everyone

After testing the B860 Steel Legend WiFi motherboard, it is time to test the B860 LiveMixer from ASRock. The LiveMixer series aims towards content creators in particular where the focus is more on the connectivity hence you may see a less beefy power delivery design compared to the Steel Legend motherboard.

The B860 LiveMixer WiFi motherboard retails at a USD 190 price tag. This motherboard also consists of WiFi 6E, a single Thunderbolt 4 port, and an ALC1220 audio solution. However, ASRock has employed SPS MOSFETs on this motherboard.

The salient features include:

• Support for Intel Core Ultra series 2 Processors.
• DDR5 Memory support up to 8666 MHz (OC)
• ASRock has used 12+1+1+1+1 Power phases for VRM/MOSFET
• Provision of 1x M.2 Gen5 and 2x M.2 Gen 4 Slots
• Support for PCIe Gen5 x16 slot for graphics card
• Graphics Card Lite Release Mechanism

---

Key Takeaways

• The ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi is a decent spec motherboard with PCIe 5 and Thunderbolt 4.
• You should buy the ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi if you’re a content creator who needs lots of fast connectivity with good value for money.
• You should not buy the if you require WiFi 7, but this is not that big of a deal.

---

These are the key specs:

Form Factor	ATX
CPU Support	Intel Core Ultra Series 2
CPU Socket	LGA1851
Memory Support	4x DDR5 DIMM Slots
PCIe Support	1x PCIe Gen5 x16 slot 1x PCIe Gen4 x16 slot [Supports x4 mode]
On-board Graphics	Intel UHD Graphics Intel X LPG Graphics 1x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL
Storage	4x SATA ports 1x Gen5 NVMe M.2 port 3x Gen4 NVMe M.2 ports
USB Ports	22x USB Ports
LAN	2.5 Gbps Dragon RTL8125
WiFi	Intel WiFi 6E

What Makes The ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi Different?

ASRock B860 LiveMixer costs a tad less than the B860 Steel Legend and its main focus is on connectivity for the content creators. This motherboard harbors 22 USB ports and is compatible with a wide variety of video capture cards. More or less it has the same feature set as on B860 Steel Legend but uses SPS MOSFETs.

Packaging And Unboxing

The main packing box is made of cardboard material. It has a black and purple color scheme. The motherboard is placed inside an anti-static container. The salient specifications and features are listed on the packing box. ASRock has included the following in the box:

• 1x ATX-sized Motherboard
• 2x SATA Data Cables
• 2x ASRock WiFi 2.4/5/6 GHz Antennas
• 1x Thermistor Cable
• 1x Regulatory Notice
• 1x Quick Installation Guide

Design Overview

ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi motherboard is driven by an Intel LGA1851 socket and B860 chipset. The socket powers the 4x DIMM slots, 1x HDMI 2.1 port, M.2 and PCIe Gen5 slots, and a Thunderbolt port. This motherboard’s PCB is a 6-layer design using 2 oz thickened copper.

The DMI link operates at x4 PCIe between the socket and chipset. The rest of the connectivity comes from the B860 chipset including 2x Gen4x4 M.2 slots, WiFi 6E solution, Intel NUC, SATA, USB ports, Serial IO, Fan control, and Audio solution. Let’s start with the power delivery circuit of this motherboard.

Power Delivery To Socket

Intel 1851 socket can be found on this motherboard powering Ultra Core Series 2 CPUs. Intel has used narrow ILM mounting on this socket and aims to provide better and even pressure compared to the Intel LGA1700 socket.

The power delivery circuit has two enlarged heatsink covers. They are light gray and have cutouts on aluminum. This design does not use heat pipe and it makes sense since the power design is not that beefy to warrant extra spending. There is no LED backlighting on these covers.

This motherboard has 12+1+1+1 power phases. The main controller is SPS MPS2427 PWM. The power stages are SPS MPS2414. The upgraded 20K Black capacitor not only extends the lifespan to 20,000 hours but also increases the capacitance value from 560uF to 1000uF

DIMM Slots

ASRock has provided 4x DDR5 UDIMM slots that are on different PCB layers. This motherboard supports a maximum of 256GB memory capacity. These support Intel XMP 3.0 with dual-channel and dual-controller modes. It supports CUDIMM as well.

This motherboard supports frequencies up to 8666MHz (OC). The memory overclocking is also supported on this motherboard in addition to XMP. It supports Intel POR speed and JEDEC speed.

Storage Options

This motherboard has a total of 3x M.2 NVMe ports. These ports have a form factor of 2280/2260. All ports have heatsink covers for effective heat transfer to avoid throttling.

You can see that all heatsink covers have thermal pads. The cover on the top port uses a tool-less design. The enlarged heatsink has an anti-drop screw design.

The top slot (Blazing) is PCIe Gen5x4 M.2 NVMe wired to the CPU and has a 128GB/s bandwidth rating. It has dual thermal pads. The remaining two ports are wired to the chipset and are PCIe Gen4x4.

Speaking of SATA ports, this motherboard has a total of 4x ports wired to the chipset.

PCIe Connectivity

This motherboard has a total of 3x PCIe slots. The first slot is full x16 slotted and wired to the CPU socket. It can’t be bifurcated or split. The other two are wired to the chipset. The top slot is PCIe Gen5x16 rated. The last slot is PCIe 4.0 x16 but operates in x4 mode. The middle slot is PCIe 4×1 and it is used for the WiFi module.

This motherboard features the Graphics Card Lite Release feature. The locker has an extended clip for convenient removal of the graphics card.

USB Connectivity

This motherboard is packed with USB ports on the front, rear, and mid-board. It has:

• 1x Thunderbolt™ 4 Type-C (Rear)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C (Front)
• 10x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (6 Rear, 4 Front)
• 10x USB 2.0 (6 Rear, 4 Front)

ASRock has used several USB hubs and controllers including multiple GL852G and ASM1074. All ports support ESD protection.

Networking Solution

Like the B860 Steel Legend WiFi, this motherboard also comes equipped with a Dragon 2.5 Gbps LAN port powered by an RTL8125 controller. The wireless solution is from Intel WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 (Intel AX211NGW WiFi Module).

Audio Solution

This motherboard also uses the RealTek ALC1220 codec like the B860 Steel Legend WiFi. This is a  7.1 Channel audio solution that has S/PDIF output as well.

Internal Connectors

There are:

• 1x Thermistor Cable Header
• 1x SPI TPM Header
• 1x Power LED and Speaker Header
• 1x RGB LED Header*
• 3x Addressable LED Headers
• 2x CPU Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)
• 5x Chassis Fan Connectors (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)
• 1x AIO Pump Fan Connector (4-pin) (Smart Fan Speed Control)
• 1x 24-pin ATX Power Connector
• 2x 8-pin 12V Power Connectors (Hi-Density Power Connector)
• 1x Front Panel Audio Connector
• 2x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 4 USB 2.0 ports)
• 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Headers (Support 4 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports)
• 1x Front Panel Type C USB 3.2 Gen1 Header

Each fan header is powered and controlled by nuvoTon 3961SP. The Pump Header is rated for 3A. The CPU Fan header is rated for 1A. The other fan headers are rated at 3A each. This motherboard also has 4x LEDs to troubleshoot the system. These LEDs correspond to the CPU, RAM, VGA, and Boot.

Rear IO Panel

There are:

• 2x Antenna Ports
• 1x HDMI Port
• 1x Optical SPDIF Out Port
• 1x Thunderbolt™ 4 Type-C Port (40 Gb/s for USB4 protocol; 40Gb/s for Thunderbolt™ protocol)*
• 6x USB 3.2 Gen1 Ports**
• 6x USB 2.0 Ports
• 1x RJ-45 LAN Port
• 1x BIOS Flashback Button
• 1x Line Out Jack (Gold Audio Jack)
• 1x Microphone Input Jack (Gold Audio Jack)

* Supports USB PD 3.0 up to 5V@3A (15W) charging

** USB32_45 support Ultra USB Power

The rear IO cover is pre-installed on this motherboard. ASRock has reserved more tolerance space and allows the IO shield to be adjustable when installed, thus fitting the chassis perfectly without any mechanical issues.

Let’s go over the chipset and other chips.

ASRock has mentioned that they have tested multiple video capture devices with this motherboard. List is:

• GC553
• GC573
• Bu113
• GC311
• GC570D
• GC570
• HD60 S+

BIOS

ASRock has provided a black interface in the BIOS. The interface layout is the same as I have seen on other ASRock motherboards including B860 Steel Legend WiFi with no difference as such. This is why I am not going into the details here.

Software

If you enable (enabled by default) the System Drivers Installer in the BIOS, you will be prompted to use the Auto Driver installer on the Windows startup. This is an automated utility. It will look for available drivers and updates on the server and download/install them as per the user selection.

Test Build

I have used the following configuration to test the motherboard:

• ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi
• MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio 24G
• Intel Core Ultra 7 265k [Stock, Auto]
• My_Valkyrie A360 White
• XPG Lancer RGB 32GB 7200MHz CAS34 DDR5 kit
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For OS]
• Sabrent Rocket Q XTRM 2TB Thunderbolt Drive
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For Games]
• Fractal Design ION+2 860 Platinum PSU
• Thermaltake Core P6 TG Snow Edition in an open frame layout

The above is a picture showing a run of CPU-Z. We can see that the CPU is reported at almost 5400.49MHz (Bus speed was at 100.1MHz to show this value). The RAM was operating at its tested speed of 7200MT/s after loading the XMP.

Test Result

The testing was done on stock settings with XMP loaded. Intel’s default power profile is used.

CPU And Memory Benchmarks

The overall performance of the CPU and memory on this motherboard is satisfactory and competitive. The higher latencies are platform wide which is coming from Intel design. I have no observation to report here.

Storage Test

I have used a PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe drive and a Thunderbolt 4 drive which is the Sabrent Rocket Q-XTRM 2TB portable drive. The storage performance is satisfactory as well.

Gaming Test

The overall gaming performance is satisfactory.

System Performance Test

The overall system performance is excellent as well.

Core Clock Behavior

The system was left idle for 10 minutes under the Balanced Power Profile. The idle clocks were 1795MHz on the P-Cores whereas these were 3192MHz on E-Cores more or less. The clocks were peaking at 5.5GHz under a 1T load. All cores load put these clocks to 5.2GHz. These figures confirm Intel’s clock ratings for Core Ultra 265k.

Power Draw

I am reporting the system-wide power draw here. This power draw is not comparable with any other system and it only tells you the relevant power usage given this particular configuration. The four categories are:

• System Idle Power
• System Gaming Load Power
• System Power with Single-Core Load
• System Power with Multi-Core Load

I did not observe any power peak or abnormal behavior from this motherboard.

Thermals

Testing was done at an ambient temperature of 27ᵒC. The CPU was idling at 35ᵒC and the graphics card was idling at 41ᵒC. Under load, the CPU was doing 81ᵒC whereas the GPU was doing 80ᵒC.

Should You Buy It?

Buy It If

✅You plan to upgrade to Intel’s latest platform: B860 LiveMixer is a budget-oriented motherboard that still provides good enough features for your daily needs.

✅You want a good gaming experience: The ASRock B860 LiveMixer packs a PCIE Gen5-based expansion slot and M.2 slot to cover your gaming needs.

✅You are a content creator: This motherboard is equipped with 22 USB ports including a Thunderbolt 4 port and is compatible with a wide variety of video capture devices.

✅You want good value for money: This motherboard retails at USD 190 giving you a better value for your money.

Buy It If

❌You already have a Z690/Z790 motherboard: I would not upgrade if I am on Intel 13th or 14th gen platform.

Final Words

ASRock B860 LiveMixer WiFi is another mainstream/budget-oriented motherboard that is aimed toward the content creation. This motherboard is also powered by an Intel LGA1851 socket and a B860 Chipset. This motherboard comes with 3x PCIe Slots out of which one is already used for the WiFi module. It has PCIe Gen5 connectivity as well.

The storage solution consists of 4x SATA ports and 3x M.2 ports. This motherboard has one less M.2 port compared to the B860 Steel Legend WiFi. The topmost M.2 port operates at PCIe Gen5x4 whereas two slots are PCIe Gen4x4. Only the top slot has a tool-less cover.

The motherboard packs 22 USB ports (3 more than B860 Steel Legend WiFi) including a Thunderbolt port. However, this motherboard does not have a USB 3.2 20Gbps port. The Thunderbolt 4 port on the rear panel uses USB 4 tunneling and it provides PD charging of 15W.

This motherboard features a 12+1+1+1 power delivery mechanism which is less beefier than the B860 Steel Legend WiFi. The cooling provision is quite good with 8x fan headers, adequate heatsink covers, and thermal pads.

ASRock has dropped WiFi 7 in favor of WiFi 6E hence bringing the cost down. This board has a 2.5Gbps LAN port. This motherboard has the same network connectivity as on B860 Steel Legend WiFi.

The BIOS interface is the same as I have seen on other ASRock motherboards. ASRock has used RealTek ALC1220 codec which is better than ALC897 on MSI. Overall performance of this motherboard is good.

ASRock has managed to provide a better feature set in a reduced price bracket without much of a compromise compared to the MSI counterpart. The DDR5 frequency of up to 8666MHz (OC) is quite good. ASRock offers a 3-year warranty on this motherboard.