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Ali

I intitally started by writing CPU comparisons and since then have written articles of all kinds, from Wikis and How-Tos to dedicated CPU reviews. Currently, I test and review CPUs, motherboards, and sometimes, RAM.

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We have tested a lot of B850 motherboards. Now, we’re almost in the Q4 of 2025, and ASRock has just dropped two new motherboards for its Challenger series. One of them is called ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White, and this is exactly what we’re going to review today. 

Key Takeaways

• The ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi is designed for gamers and users with white-themed builds in mind. The board looks great with plenty of ports and performance to make the experience worth it.
• It’s a great choice for gamers with a strict budget in mind, as the gaming performance is favorable on this board.
• It’s better to stay away if you wish to use the PC for synthetic workloads, since the board doesn’t perform that well.

These are the motherboard’s on-paper specifications:

As evident from the chart, the motherboard offers a total of 19 USB ports as well as two M.2 slots for storage. Moreover, the board also comes with two PCIe slots for a graphics card, with a dedicated four-slot GPU space in between.

Packaging & Unboxing

We get a pretty simple-looking packaging for the ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White motherboard. It has the motherboard itself printed right along the name of the motherboard. Moreover, there’s nothing extraordinary drawn onto the board except triangle-like shapes in white, blue, and gray colors. 

The front side of the box also has a few certified tags on its bottom area, which include ASRock’s very own RGB software “Polychrome Sync”. Other than that, you can see the HDMI, WiFi 7, and AMD Ryzen 9000 Desktop Ready branding as well. 

Here’s all the stuff that you get inside the box besides the motherboard:

• 2x SATA Data Cables
• 2x WiFi Antennas 
• 1x Sticker Sheet
• 1x ASRock Badge
• 1x Regulatory Notice
• 1x Quick Installation Guide

While there aren’t many accessories bundled with the motherboard, ASRock did, however, include a few extras that serve no functional purpose, but certainly add to the customer experience.

Design

After unwrapping everything, you can see a white-themed motherboard with gray accents in a metallic finish on heat spreaders. The board looks absolutely breathtaking, with the branding of various features and its name over the heatsinks further enhancing its appearance. To be honest, I’d give it a solid 9/10 for the looks.

Close up Pictures of Its Design

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Moreover, the board is built on the same structure as the other similarly priced motherboards, which is an 8-layer PCB design. It is more than sufficient for mild overclocking without experiencing major instability issues, as voltages would pass through normally. Similarly, the abundance of heat sinks will also ensure that the VRMs don’t go too high in terms of temperature levels during OC tweaking. 

As per the block diagram provided by ASRock, the chipset provides power to the SATA ports, M.2_2 slot, 2.5G Ethernet port, Key E WiFi, PCIe2 & 3 x1 slots, front USB 2.0 & 3.2 Gen1 ports, and rear USB 3.2 Gen1 port. Meanwhile, the CPU powers the PCIe1 x16 Gen5, PCIe4 x4 Gen4 slot, Flash ROM, SIO NCT6796D-S I/O controller, DDR5 RAM slots, HDMI port, audio codec, and the rest of the rear and front USB ports.

Power Delivery System

Taking a look at the power delivery on this ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White reveals that it incorporates a 12+2+1 phase VRM design with Dr.MOS for VCore, SOC, and MISC. So, according to the spec sheet and our testing, this power delivery system is enough to let you overclock almost any AMD processor to a certain level. Don’t expect extreme overclocking, though, as it can only do so much being an entry-level board.

Unlike the ASRock B850 LiveMixer WiFi, which has an 8+4-pin CPU connector design. This board has 2x 8-pin 12V connectors that come with ASRock’s Hi-Density Power design to help them withstand higher-than-usual voltages during overclocking without any issue.

The heatsink features the vertically stacked fin design that serves its purpose of cooling down the VRMs quite well. The main heatsink also has the “Challenger series” branding on top of it. However, there’s no heat pipe in sight to connect both heatsinks and further improve the cooling capabilities.

DIMM Slots

The motherboard offers four DDR5 DIMM slots same as other ATX boards, and can support up to 256 GB of memory running at 8000 MT/s. Moreover, support for both Intel XMP and AMD EXPO is available to use pretty much any DDR5 memory on the market.

PCIe Slots

PCIe Slot Pictures

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We get two PCIe x16 slots on this motherboard, where the PCIe1 is Gen5 in x16 mode, while the PCIe4 is Gen4 in x4 mode. The PCIe1 slot has four-slot GPU space, so you can install even the beefiest graphics card models. Moreover, the PCIe1 slot also has an EZ latch system in place, as well as the reinforced steel standard for better reliability.

Other than these, there are two more PCIe x1 slots with open ends, meaning that you can install any full-sized x16 expansion card if it can perform decently on PCIe 4.0 x1 mode.

Storage

As far as the storage side is concerned, the motherboard comes with two M.2 slots, where the M.2_1 is PCIe Gen5x4, while the M.2_2 is PCIe Gen4x4. Both of these M.2 slots have heatsinks with thermal pads to dissipate the heat, so that’s great to see here. Another thing that’s worth mentioning is that the M.2_1 slot has thermals on both sides, while the M.2_2 has one. Here’s an image of heatsinks removed so you can take a look at the double-sided thermal pads of the M.2_1 slot.

Besides the M.2 drives, there are 4x SATA3 6 Gb/s connectors as well. Two at the bottom and two under the chipset heatsink. Not to forget, the M.2_1 will be limited to Gen4x4 speeds if you decide to use any Ryzen 8000 series processor.

USB Connectivity

The ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White motherboards come with a total of 19 USB ports:

• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C (Rear)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear)
• 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (Rear)
• 4x USB 2.0 (Rear)
• 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (Front)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C (Front)
• 4x USB 2.0 (Front)

All the USB ports come with ESD protection, so none of the connected devices receive any damage due to a sudden flow of power. Though, it would have been great if any of the Type-C ports had PD charging support. 

Network & Connectivity

The motherboard doesn’t have any 5G LAN port; however, it does have the standard 2.5G LAN, which is fine enough. Nevertheless, the board does have a WiFi 7 & Bluetooth 5.4 module installed, which is great, and the addition of the MLO (Multi-link Operation) feature is even better. Simply because it helps in reducing the latency with the use of multiple bands and channels. Also, the module is installed right where you can see it and has no cover or anything, so you can easily swap it for an upgrade later on if needed.

Audio Solution

The ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White boasts the Realtek ALC897 audio codec with Nahimic enhancements on top. This specific audio codec is common in entry-level and mid-range motherboards and serves its purpose quite well if you’re a casual user or gamer. The codec doesn’t have any DAC features in it, so professional-level stuff won’t be possible.  

Internal Connectors

I’ve listed all the connectors that you can find on this ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White below:

• 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)
• 3x 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

Connectors & PSC LEDs Pictures

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The motherboard has support for up to three addressable RGB strips and can provide up to 15W of power. Besides that, you can obviously see the 24-pin motherboard power connector, and right with that, there’s the USB 3.2 Type-C header. Similar to the 8+8-pin 12V connectors, the 24-pin ATX connector also features the ASRock Hi-Density Power design.

Additionally, the board does have a Post Status Checker that proves to be useful while troubleshooting your way through, in case you encounter any problem. The PSC includes four distinctive small LEDs with different colors that, if they stay solid, mean there’s an issue with that specific component. Like, the solid red is for CPU, solid white for GPU, solid yellow-green for boot drives, and solid yellow for DRAM.

With so many connectors and headers all over the motherboard, it requires an equally capable I/O controller to handle everything swiftly. So for that, the Nuvoton NCT6796D-S I/O is in place here, which controls and monitors everything just fine.

Rear I/O Panel

• 2x Antenna Ports
• 1x HDMI Port
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Port (10 Gb/s)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C Port (10 Gb/s)
• 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 Ports
• 4x USB 2.0 Ports
• 1x 2.5G LAN Port
• 1x BIOS Flashback Button
• HD Audio Jacks: Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

The rear I/O on this isn’t too flashy, but it has all the required ports. Features include a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, two USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports, and a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port. Moreover, there’s also a BIOS flashback button located near the audio jacks, which can be used to update the BIOS using only a USB drive containing the latest BIOS files. 

Here’s a quick and last look at the motherboard before we move forward to benchmarking without all the covers that keep the motherboard aesthetically pleasing and cool. 

Test Bench

Here’s the test bench I used to test the motherboard on:

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 16C/32T
• ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420 Liquid CPU Cooler
• G. Skill Trident Z5 Royal NEO DDR5-8000 CL36 EXPO Kit (2×16 = 32GB)
• XPG Lancer RGB 32GB 7200MHz DDR5 RAM
• Nvidia GeForce Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
• Western Digital SN850 Black 500GB NVMe SSD [For OS]
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For Software]
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For Games]
• Sabrent Rocket NANO V2 4TB Portable SSD
• Corsair HX1200i Platinum PSU
• Windows 11 Pro Build 23H2

Synthetic Benchmarks

Let’s start with synthetic benchmarks and see how the motherboard stacks up:

The ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White takes about 53 seconds to complete a Blender run. The result is the same as the ASRock B850 LiveMixer WiFi, which is better than the ASRock B850I Lightning WiFi and ASRock B850M Pro RS WiFi.

During the Cinebench 2024 run, the result wasn’t that impressive as the board fell behind all other competitors. Although that doesn’t mean the difference is huge, however, it’s worth mentioning. As for actual numbers, it managed 138 scores on single-core and 2285 in multicore, right behind the LiveMixer model by 3 scores.

The Corona render test isn’t that great either, but it’s surely better than Cinebench, as the ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White is performing better than LiveMixer and Pro RS WiFi by a small margin of 0.1 and 0.6 seconds.

This time around, the motherboard is going head-to-head with the ASRock B850 LiveMixer WiFi as both scored 21,684 points. However, it’s not anything great as they both are still at the end of the result list of Geekbench 6.

The board was able to save itself from being last in the last one again, as it scored 48,715 points in the V-Ray benchmark. The overall result isn’t too impressive when it comes to synthetic benchmarks, but then again, they’re not too terrible either.

Gaming Benchmarks

Now is the time to see how the motherboard fares in the gaming benchmarks against the other boards:

We’re off to a great start here as the motherboard performs similarly to the majority of other boards, with 108 minimum and 143 average FPS.

The story is slightly different when it comes to Starfield, as here we saw the ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White to actually perform better than many of the boards, with 79 as the minimum and 110 as the average FPS.

Lastly, we picked Far Cry 6 to test out the motherboards. Here, the story is pretty much the same as it performed the same as almost every other board except for only one. The ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White and many other boards did 139 as a minimum and 183 as an average FPS. 

So, in conclusion, the gaming results are pretty solid on this motherboard, whether it’s the 0.1% lows or average frames.

Power Consumption And VRM Temperatures

We collected these power consumption and temperature results after stressing out the system using Cinebench 2024:

The motherboard has one of the highest power consumptions when it comes to the 100% load, where it’s consuming 378W. Whereas, it idles out at 105W and consumes around 118W while gaming.

The board runs slightly on the warmer side as the VRM temperatures were recorded at 67°C, which isn’t too bad for an entry-level board. 

Boot Times

The boot times are also not terrible and certainly not last in the result sheet. With the 22-second boot time, it places itself among the majority of other boards.

Should You Buy It?

Here’s how you can decide whether this board is for you or not:

Buy It If

✅ You need an affordable white motherboard: If you’re building a white-themed PC, and also don’t have the budget to pay the premium to just get a white edition. Then this board is a great fit with white aesthetics for an affordable price.

✅ You need to install a beefy graphics card: One of the key highlights of this board is its space for a four-slot graphics card. Meaning that you install a chunky GPU without overshadowing the 2nd PCIe slot.

✅ You want a gaming-centric board: This motherboard performs impressively when it comes to gaming, so if you’re only building a PC to do gaming. Then this could be your pick.

Don’t Buy It If

❌ You can’t compromise on synthetic performance: The motherboard falls short when it comes to synthetic performance, so if you’re going to use your PC for that purpose. Then this board isn’t for you.

My Thoughts

Coming to the end of our review, let’s go through everything for the last time to actually give you my honest opinion of the motherboard. The board, first of all, has all the bells and whistles that make it an aesthetically pleasing option, especially for those who prefer white aesthetics. Not only that, the board is also impressive when it comes to offering competitive performance in games.

The one thing that I found lacking was the support for PD charging, which isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s nice to have when the board already has Type-C ports. On top of that, the synthetic performance was quite lackluster as well. So, in conclusion, I would recommend this board to the budget-oriented gamers and casual users, as only they can benefit the most from this ASRock B850 Challenger WiFi White motherboard.

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Dr. Usman Saleem

At Tech4Gamers, I’m the PC Hardware Specialist, primarily contributing to the “Best-Ofs” section. I provide thoughtful buying advice based on thorough testing and personal expertise. I also review hardware products and games to keep things fresh.

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If you’ve followed the ASRock motherboard reviews we’ve covered for the current generation, you probably know that we’ve been very happy with them. Well, we’ve got another one in store today: the ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi. While the PG X870E Nova WiFi was released last year, ASRock took its time with this one.

Now, if you’re familiar with the difference between X870 and X870E, you’ll know that the X870 chipset has fewer usable PCIe lanes. This will be represented in the lane sharing among the M.2 slots and the USB4 ports, something we’ll get to in the review. There’s a $50 price difference between the X870 and X870E models. 

Key Takeaways

• The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi is an excellent mid-range motherboard, offering a great design, a wealth of features, and good performance. 
• You should buy this motherboard if you want the best I/O, prefer flashy designs, and/or want some overclocking headroom.
• Don’t buy this motherboard if you don’t want to deal with the potential lane-sharing hassle between the M.2 slots and the other I/O.

Let’s start with the specifications:

Packaging and Unboxing

The motherboard comes in a cardboard box with a futuristic design. On the front of the box, you get some of the key features and the motherboard model.

As for accessories, this is all that we found inside: 

• 2x SATA data cables
• 2x WiFi antennas
• 1x ARGB splitter cable
• 1x thermistor cable
• A quick installation guide

Nothing out of the ordinary here. We saw the addition of a thermistor connector in many other motherboards of this generation. 

Design

The PG X870 Nova WiFi has a fairly flashy, gaming-inspired design. A large part of the motherboard is covered with heatsinks, on which we see several shapes and designs. The Phantom Gaming branding can be seen on the rear I/O cover and M.2 heatsinks. We also have holographic streaks running through them, giving off a futuristic look. Integrated RGB is found under the large M.2 heatsink, providing a fair bit of illuminance. 

The motherboard has an 8-layered PCB with 2oz copper. 

The CPU provides the DDR5 memory, PCIe Gen 5, USB4, and some of the USB connections. Meanwhile, the chipset adds the remaining USB ports, M.2 slots, and PCIe 4.0, as well as audio, WiFi, and LAN. 

CPU Socket and Power Delivery

The X870 Nova WiFi uses the AM5 (LGA1718) socket, with support for Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series CPUs. Power is provided by an 18+2+1 phase VRM system, including 18x 80A SPS for the VCore. The total current for the CPU is 1440A, plenty for any supporting Ryzen CPU, even if you overclock. 

A closer look at the VRMs reveals that the VCore is using MPS’ MPS2425 MOSFETs, managed by the MPS2434/MP2857 PWM controller. ASRock is using “upgraded” capacitors with a 20,000-hour lifespan and 1000μF capacitance. 

Power to the CPU comes from 2x 8-pin EPS “Hi-density” connectors, capable of providing up to 300W in total. 

The heatsinks tasked with cooling the VRMs have a stacked fin design and thermal pads. There’s no heatpipe connecting the heatsinks.

DIMM Slots

The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi can run up to 256 GB of DDR5 RAM across the four DIMM slots. For speed, the maximum support is 8400+ MT/s. (OC)

Editor`s Note

As always, it’s important to note that the recommended memory speed for Ryzen 9000 CPUs is 6400 MT/s. Beyond this, the memory controller can’t sync with the RAM anymore and switches to a 1:2 mode. If you really want to push beyond 6400 MT/s, you’ll need speeds upwards of 8000 MT/s to see any notable results.

– Dr. Usman Saleem

PCIe Slots

The motherboard has two PCIe slots, with the main slot offering full PCIe 5.0 x16 bandwidth. While the secondary slot is also 16 lanes, it only supports x4 mode. The slot downgrades to x2 mode if the M2_5 slot is occupied. There is also a vertical M.2 slot, which runs the WiFi antenna provided in the package.

The PCIe 5.0 slot is surface-mounted by SMT and steel-reinforced. This should allow it to withstand the weight of bulky cards without damage, but we still recommend using a support bracket with high-end cards.

Removing your graphics card is easy thanks to the EZ Release mechanism on the Gen 5 slot. Simply pull the latch away from the card’s direction and remove the card.

Storage

Storage options on the board include a whopping five M.2 slots (two PCIe 5, two PCIe 4, one PCIe 3×2) and two SATA 6 GB/s ports. However, due to the limited number of usable PCIe lanes, there is bandwidth between the M.2 slots, PCIe slots, SATA ports, and the USB4 ports. Specifically, occupying M2_2 mode disables both USB4 ports (you can set it to x2 (64 Gbps), and that will mean USB4 will run at half the bandwidth, too). Occupying M2_3 disables both SATA ports, and using M2_5 means the second PCIe slot downgrades to x2 mode.

It’s great that ASRock decided to provide this many M.2 options, but the bandwidth sharing complications don’t help casual users. Make sure you evaluate your needs, considering how many M.2 slots you need and whether or not you’re willing to sacrifice USB4, SATA ports, and PCIe 2 for the extra M.2 slots. All M.2 slots support type 2280 SSDs, and the third M.2 slot (M2_3) can also run SATA SSDs.

Cooling the Gen 5 slot is its own large heatsink. The three M.2 slots directly below it share another heatsink, and M2_5 has a separate heatsink. Above M2_5 lies the chipset heatsink. All the heatsinks come off easily owing to toolless removal mechanisms.

Removing the heatsinks, we are greeted with double-sided thermal pads (thermal pads on the base of the slot as well as on the heatsink itself) for the Gen 5 slots. The remaining slots are single-sided. (thermal pads only on the heatsink)

The M2_1 slot uses a toolless mechanism for drive installation and removal. For the remaining slots, we have the latch mechanism, which is also straightforward to work with.

USB connectivity

There are 20 USB ports on the ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi:

• 2x USB4 Type-C (Rear)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C (20Gbps)(Front)
• 2x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear)
• 7x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (3x Rear, 4x Front)
• 8x USB 2.0 (4 Rear, 4 Front)

All the ports have ESD protection. The 20Gbps port supports 36W charging, while the USB4 ports support 15W charging through PD 3.0. USB4 supports up to 8K 30Hz output through HDCP 2.3. 

ASRock gives special mention to “Lightning Gaming Ports,” which use separate interfaces so that there’s no interference between the mouse and keyboard connections. We also have the “Ultra USB Power” ports that provide stable 5V power by converting the PSU’s 12V power, instead of using the 5V line. This could be helpful for those using external DACs and USB audio devices. 

Network and Connectivity 

The motherboard sports 5G LAN, WiFi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 is enabled through the provided antenna and are only supported on Windows 11 24H2 and above.

Audio Solution

The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi uses Realtek’s ALC4082 chip, which supports 7.1 surround sound. With the left and right audio tracks present on different PCB layers, interference is minimized. 

ASRock provides Nahimic audio drivers in collaboration with Steelseries, which provide features like echo cancellation and stationary noise suppression. 

Internal Connectors and Components

Here’s what we get on the motherboard in terms of connectors:

• 1x Thermistor Cable Header
• 1x Power LED and Speaker Header
• 1x RGB LED Header
• 1x Addressable LED Headers
• 2x CPU Fan Connector (4-pin)
• 3x Chassis Fan Connectors (4-pin)
• 1x AIO Pump Fan Connector (4-pin)
• 1x Water Pump Fan Connector (4-pin)
• 1x 24-pin ATX Power Connector
• 2x 8 pin 12V Power Connectors
• 1x Front Panel Audio Connector
• 2x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 4x USB 2.0 ports)
• 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Headers (Support 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 ports)
• 1x Front Panel Type C USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Header (20 Gb/s)
• 1x Dr. Debug with LED
• 1x Power Button with LED
• 1x Reset Button with LED

The RGB leader header provides up to 12V/3A (36W), while the LED headers provide 5V/3A (15W). The CPU fan has a 1A/12W output, while the remaining fan connectors and pump connectors output 3A/12W. 

We have a debug code LED panel on the top-right side for troubleshooting booting problems. This is not accompanied by debug LEDs, though. Below that are Power and Reset buttons, which will function once you connect to the bottom right-hand corner of the board. 

The board uses Nuvoton’s NCT6796D-S controller for fan control and temperature monitoring.

Rear I/O Panel

Here’s what we have on the back:

• 2x Antenna Ports
• 1x HDMI Port
• 1x Optical SPDIF Out Port
• 2x USB4 Type-C Ports (40 Gbps)
• 2x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A Ports (10 Gbps)
• 3x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A Ports (5 Gbps)
• 4x USB 2.0 Ports
• 1x RJ-45 LAN Port
• 1x Clear CMOS Button
• 1x BIOS Flashback Button
• 1x Line Out Jack
• 1x Microphone Input Jack

The I/O shield comes pre-installed. A standard set of rear I/O connections is on display. The yellow colored USB ports (5 Gbps) are the Lightning Gaming ports, while the dark blue ones (10 Gbps) are the Ultra USB Power ports. 

Heatsinks Removed

Above is a look at the board with all the heatsinks (except the chipset heatsink) removed. Under the VRM heatsink, we spot another heatsink that is dedicated to cooling the USB4 controller. 

Backside

The backplate is a nice addition in this price segment. It’s a plus one for the build quality and sturdiness. 

Test Setup 

Here’s what our test bench looks like:

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 16C/32T
• ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420 Liquid CPU Cooler
• G. Skill Trident Z5 Royal NEO DDR5-8000 CL36 EXPO Kit (2×16 = 32GB)
• XPG Lancer RGB 32GB 7200MHz DDR5 RAM
• Nvidia GeForce Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
• Western Digital SN850 Black 500GB NVMe SSD [For OS]
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For Software]
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB Gen4x4 NVMe SSD [For Games]
• Sabrent Rocket NANO V2 4TB Portable SSD
• Corsair HX1200i Platinum PSU
• Windows 11 Pro Build 23H2
• AGESA 1.2.0.2 firmware

Synthetic Benchmarks

As always, we start with the synthetic tests.

The ASRock PG X870 Nova WiFi managed a 50-second render time. 

We managed a score of 2305 and 140 in the multi-core and single-core tests, respectively. 

The Corona 11 render time for the board was 63.7 seconds. 

CPU-Z’s multi-core and single-core tests put the board just above MSI’s MAG X870E Tomahawk WiFi. 

The Geekbench 6 multi-core test saw the PG X870 Nova WiFi score 21718 points. 

Finally, the V-Ray render test ended with a score of 48905 for our ASRock board. 

Gaming Benchmarks

We’re testing two AAA titles next. 

The board showed par numbers in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080P.

In Starfield, we saw an average FPS of 112 with a minimum of 82. 

Power Consumption and VRM Temperatures

Let’s look at the board + CPU power consumption numbers. Note that we’re using the Cinbench 2024 multi-core test for the “Load” testing. 

Only the ASRock X870 Steel Legend WiFi consumed less power than the PG X870 Nova WiFi under load. The gaming and idle power consumption were 114W and 108W, respectively. 

The board’s VRM setup does an excellent job, just like we saw with the X870E counterpart. It maxed out at 52°C, a degree cooler than the X870E model. 

Boot Times

Finally, the boot time in Windows 11 was 22 seconds with the WD SN850 SSD.

Should You Buy It?

Buy It If: 

✅You want more for less: The board combines the features of costlier competitor boards for a lower price. This includes features like 5G LAN, 5x M.2 slots, and a debug code LED panel. 

✅A flashy design is important: With its gaming-inspired design and integrated RGB, the board has a distinct, flashy aesthetic. 

✅You want to overclock: Its VRM setup with 18x 80A SPS for the VCore and excellent VRM cooling means at least a fair bit of overclocking is possible with any Ryzen CPU. 

Don’t Buy It If: 

❌You don’t want to deal with M.2 bandwidth sharing complications: Depending on which and how many M.2 slots you occupy, you may have to share bandwidth with the SATA or USB ports, or the PCIe_2 slot.

Final Thoughts

The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WiFi is another excellent value offering by the Taiwanese manufacturer. It starts with a nice gaming-inspired design with integrated RGB. The VRM setup is quite good for the price, and the heatsink keeps things cool (well, warm) under load. Overclocking is possible, even with the 170W Ryzen counterparts. 

Other than these, the board has some other great features: we get 5x PCIe slots (including 2x Gen 5), 5G LAN, 20 USB ports (including dual USB4), and DDR5 support up to 8400 MT/s. The board uses Realtek’s ALC4082 audio chip. WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 are also part of the connectivity setup. The main M.2 slot uses a toolless mechanism for both the SSD and the heatsink. All the M.2 slots are adequately cooled with thermal pads and heatsinks. 

Some other features include the debug code LED panel, 36W charging through the 20Gbps port, and the thermistor header (thermistor cable included). Our only complaint, really, is the lane sharing between the M.2 slots and the other components of the board. The bandwidth is limited, we get it, but it’s not great for users who don’t understand how lane sharing works (though we tried to break it down in simple terms). If you do understand how it works and can work out your requirements, great!

The board is priced around the $300 mark, which is quite good for what’s on offer.