Impressive as Intel’s LGA1851 platform can be, motherboards flying its flagship Z890 chipset often carry a surprisingly high price. Team Blue’s relatively new B860 alternative hopes to make building a system with a Core Ultra 200S processor more affordable, but models like Asus ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi have taken a different path.
Asus ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi
£328
Pros
- Good USB connectivity
- Excellent build quality
- NPU Boost delivers big perf. gains
- Speedy memory
- WiFi 7
Cons
- Pricey RRP
- No Q-Code display
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How we test and review products.
A £328 RRP doesn’t exactly make LGA1851 more affordable, as this price is comparable to many middle-of-the-range Z890 motherboards. It seems to me that Asus paradoxically intends to position ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi as a high-end B860 option. This is a difficult task that the board itself handles well but its cost really does weigh it down.
Specs & Features
ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi’s lineage traces back to ROG Strix Z890-F Gaming WiFi – the clue’s in the name. Both boards naturally share many similarities with one another but Asus trims back some of the more fanciful features in order to hit a lower price point this time around. Thankfully, the manufacturer is fairly sparing with its cuts.
| ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi | ROG Strix Z890-F Gaming WiFi | |
|---|---|---|
| VRM | 16+1+2+1, 80A | 16+1+2+2, 110A |
| RAM support | Slots: 4 Capacity: 256GB Speed: 9,066+MT/s | Slots: 4 Capacity: 256GB Speed: 8,600+MT/s |
| Onboard graphics | DisplayPort 1.4 (x1) HDMI 2.1 (x1) Thunderbolt 4 (x1) | DisplayPort 1.4 (x1) HDMI 2.1 (x1) Thunderbolt 4 (x2) |
| PCIe expansion slots | PCIe 5.0 x16 (x1) PCIe 4.0 x16 (x1) | PCIe 5.0 x16 (x1) PCIe 4.0 x16 (x1) |
| Audio | Realtek ALC4080 | Realtek ALC4080 |
| Storage | PCIe 5.0 x4 (x1) PCIe 4.0 x4 (x3) SATA 6Gb/s (x4) | PCIe 5.0 x4 (x1) PCIe 4.0 x4 (x4) SATA 6Gb/s (x4) |
| Rear USB | 40Gb/s Type-C (x1) 20Gb/s Type-C (x1) 10Gb/s Type-A (x1) 5Gb/s Type-A (x6) | 40Gb/s Type-C (x2) 10Gb/s Type-C (x2) 10Gb/s Type-A (x4) 5Gb/s Type-A (x4) 480Mb/s (x2) |
| Front USB | 10Gb/s Type-C (x1) 5Gb/s Type-A (x2) 480Mb/s Type-A (x3) | 20Gb/s Type-C (x1) 5Gb/s Type-A (x4) 480Mb/s Type-A (x4) |
| LAN | Intel 2.5Gb/s (x1) | Intel 2.5Gb/s (x1) |
| Wireless | Bluetooth 5.4 WiFi 7 | Bluetooth 5.4 WiFi 7 |
Though its VRM isn’t as robust as its Z890 sibling, ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi doesn’t sacrifice much in this department. In fact, all that’s on the chopping block is one of the power stages for auxiliary components and a reduction in SPS amperage from 110A to 80A. This is still plenty strong to support the likes of Core Ultra 9 285K and the rest of Intel’s current generation processor stack.
Despite its less-powerful chipset, this B860 motherboard matches the 256GB memory capacity of its forebear. It also supports faster speeds out of the box at 9,066MT+/s. While not explicitly stated on Asus’ specs sheets, I’m confident that a BIOS update or two on the Z890 model would have them matching.
Similarities continue between both boards while examining their Ethernet and wireless connectivity. ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi features the exact same configuration of a single 2.5Gb port in addition to support for Bluetooth 5.4 and WiFi 7. Don’t worry if your network infrastructure isn’t quite as modern as these standards as they bake in backwards compatibility.
USB bandwidth remains healthy despite cutbacks, as Asus sets 5Gb/s as the baseline speed for the motherboard over six Type-A ports. I do wish more manufacturers would follow this example and leave the 480Mb/s speeds of USB 2.0 in the past given the demands of modern devices.
Rounding off ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi’s USB connectivity is a single 10Gb/s Type-A port, alongside a 20Gb/s Type-C header and a 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 4 header. With nine ports in total under its belt, all of a decent speed or faster, it’s difficult to ask more of a mainstream motherboard.
Unfortunately, the value of Asus’ B860 offering unravels slightly when held up to similarly-priced Z890 motherboards, such as ASRock PG Z890 Lightning. While ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi stands tall with a higher base bandwidth, its sibling offers an additional Thunderbolt 4 port and more robust overclocking. It becomes a choice of speedy memory or making the most of connectivity, at least until Asus updates Z890 accordingly.
Briefly, I’m glad to see Clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons on the back of the board. They’re invaluable troubleshooting tools that frankly should be standard on all designs as far as I’m concerned.
There’s plenty of room for NVMe storage on ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi, spread across three PCIe 4.0 x4 connections and a single PCIe 5.0 x4. The more-modern standard understandably takes prime placement on the board, complete with Asus’ toolless M.2 ‘Q-Release’ and M.2 ‘Q-Latch’ mechanisms for convenient installation. You’ll need a screwdriver for the ports on the board’s bottom half but they are welcomingly flush with heatsinks.
Expansion slots include a PCIe 5.0 x16 header running at full-speed in addition to a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot which supports up to x4 speeds (read PCIe 3.0 x8). The faster of the two should be first port of call for any graphics card, with enough bandwidth to sate everything from GeForce RTX 5090 and below. Slotting pixel pushers in and out of the board is easy thanks to Asus’ ‘Q-Release Slim’ mechanism but it will take a moment to wrap your head around at first.
Features and specifications on ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi are strong across the board (pun intended). The one thing I wish Asus had the heart to include though is a Q-Code display. While the included Q-LED array is helpful in identifying issues relating to CPU, RAM, or VGA, having that extra nuance can make the difference between a quick fix or hours of troubleshooting.
Firmware
Intel’s B860 chipset hasn’t prompted any major changes in Asus’ firmware but there’s little reason to fix what ain’t broke.
The default ‘EZMode’ view provides an overview of ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi and any connected components. From here, you can quickly discern your BIOS version as well as other useful surface-level information, such as the motherboard’s temperature and if the likes of storage and RAM are all accounted for.
Enabling XMP via this GUI takes two clicks, and the firmware also provides a readout of speed and timings so you can make sure you’ve enabled the correct profile. From here you can also engage different ‘EZ System Tuning’ profiles which serve as one-click OCs in lieu of Asus’ more-advanced ‘AI OC’ feature.
There’s naturally more settings to tinker with via the firmware’s ‘Advanced View’. From here, I’m able to engage the likes of ‘NPU Boost’, manually tune memory overclocks to my preference, and more.
Easily accessible from either view, Q-Dashboard serves as a welcome helping hand. Finding particular headers and differentiating between M.2 slots can prove difficult, even with printed labels to-hand on the board, so having this guide readily available is much appreciated.
Performance
Common components for the test suite below include Core Ultra 9 285K, Radeon RX 7800 XT, Crucial T700, Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black, be quiet! Dark Power 13 1,000W and 32GB of Kingston Fury Renegade DDR5-6,400 RAM.
| ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi | ROG Strix Z890-F Gaming WiFi | |
|---|---|---|
| AIDA Read | 99,600MB/s | 99,170 MB/s |
| AIDA Write | 88,274MB/s | 88,392MB/s |
| AIDA Copy | 91,727MB/s | 92,448MB/s |
| AIDA Latency | 87.1ns | 85.9ns |
| Cinebench 2024 1T | 144 points | 145 points |
| Cinebench 2024 MT | 2,405 points | 2,436 points |
| PCMark 10 | 10,434 points | 10,691 points |
| 3DMark Speed Way | 4,180 points | – |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 4,168 points | 4,155 points |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 19,833 points | 19,829 points |
| CrystalDiskMark seq. write | 12,264MB/s | 12,399MB/s |
| CrystalDiskMark seq. read | 11,758MB/s | 11,817MB/s |
| Geekbench AI Single Point Precision | 10,100 points | 8,060 points |
| Geekbench AI Half Precision | 10,164 points | 9,799 points |
| Geekbench AI Quantized | 15,636 points | 13,981 points |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Min. / Avg.) | 68fps / 79fps | 66fps / 76fps |
| FFXIV: Dawntrail (Min. / Avg.) | 83fps / 180fps | 88fps / 185fps |
| VRM temperature | 32.7°C | 42.9°C |
| Power consumption (Idle / Load) | 48W / 308W | 55W / 323W |
ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi holds its own against its Z890 sibling, delivering broadly similar performance. While Intel’s Arrow Lake patches seemingly haven’t pushed the performance needle much at all in most benchmark categories, there is a sizeable difference in single point and quantized scores in Geekbench AI in favour of the budget board.
In lieu of Asus’ ‘AI Overclocking’ feature, ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi instead has two tuning profiles that serve as one-click performance boosts. However, neither deliver substantially higher performance amounting to a mere 1.6% boost Cinebench 2024 MT scores while ST points fall by 1.3%. All the while, power consumption rises slightly to a 321W peak.
NPU Boost makes a return and once again provides a sizeable bump in half-precision and quantized Geekbench AI scores, rising by 27% in each category. You’ll still want to reach for a graphics card for most deep learning tasks, but all gains are welcome.
Conclusion
There’s little room to fault ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi on in terms of specs, features, or performance. It’s a stone’s throw from its Z890 sibling in these regards, and manages to hold its own against many similarly-priced alternatives using the flagship chipset.
The only major problem with the board is its price. At its £329 RRP, it’s one of (if not the) most expensive B860 motherboard on the market. Thankfully, a few months out from its release you’ll now often find it around £280-£300, making it far more palatable a purchase. Strangely, it doesn’t appear to be available for purchase in the US.
Those seeking the very-best B860 can offer should seek out ROG Strix B860-F Gaming WiFi. Much as you’ll find more affordable, higher-value motherboards using the same chipset there’s no denying the quality of Asus’ offering here.
