Introduction

In today’s review, we will be looking at the ASRock B650E Steel Legend WiFi, aimed at PC gamers who may dabble in overclocking. ASRock comes prepared with multiple AMD motherboard product lines, from the flagship X670E Taichi Carrara to the budget-orientated B650 Phantom Gaming (PG) and Steel Legend series, to meet the needs of every type of consumer.

Some time has passed since the launch of AMD’s AM5 platform and Ryzen processors. Being in fierce competition with Intel, AMD brings forth PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5 support to this new platform. Waiting a additional year after Intel gives AMD the benefit of a more mature product readily available to the consumer. With the new Ryzen processor series comes a number of changes that may upset some long time AMD fans, shaking up the market. The first noteworthy change is the socket. All previous desktop Ryzen processors (1000, 2000, 3000, 5000 series, minus Threadripper) used the AM4 PGA (Pin Grid Array) socket. AMD has made the transition to LGA (Land Grid Array) for this new AM5 (LGA 1718) socket. AMD has historically proven it uses the same CPU socket for multiple generations, starting a fresh cycle with the Ryzen 7000 series and beyond. What this means for consumers is that there is no Zen 4 upgrade path for AM4 based platforms. If you want these new processors, they require a brand new motherboard. The platform change also requires new memory too, since the AM5 socket exclusively uses DDR5 for its system memory.

This new AM5 socket carries a host of options for connecting high speed devices that just weren’t previously available to AMD customers. As mentioned above, going forward, AMD Ryzen CPUs on this new platform will now support DDR5 memory, PCIe Gen 5.0 and M.2 Gen 5. With 24 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes from the CPU available, motherboard manufacturers now have an opportunity to innovate and create products catered towards users with high bandwidth needs. Along with more PCIe lanes provided by the processors, are four different chipset configurations; B650, B650E, X670 and X670E. The “E” stands for Extreme, and any motherboard carrying this title will have PCIe Gen 5 support. The ones without will forgo PCIe Gen 5 support in favor of the current PCIe Gen 4 standard. Moreover, the B series, like the previous AM4 iterations, feature fewer connections for USB, M.2 and PCIe lanes, designed to be more budget friendly. The X670 and X670E use the same chipset, with two X670 chips daisy-chained together, sharing a PCIe 4.0 x4 link to the CPU. X670E will offer the most high bandwidth lanes, storage options and external connections out of the available AM5 platform chipsets. With that, make sure to read TechPowerUp’s AMD Ryzen 7600X, 7700X, 7900X and 7950X reviews, for more in depth coverage.

ASRock B650E Steel Legend WiFi is configured with a 16+2+1 VRM with a PCIe Gen 5 ready solution for future graphics cards that will take advantage of the additional bandwidth. ASRock is keeping the price point in check, but still strives for quality with a 8-Layer PCB and loads of USB ports. To round out everything out, it also features great connectivity with WiFi 6E and 2.5G LAN for those who need to transfer data quickly, and a unique GPU support bracket for those heavy saggy graphics cards. There is a lot to cover in this review, so let’s take a closer look at the ASRock B650E Steel Legend WiFi.

Specifications