Intel announced last month the 13th generation of Core i processors and it was also the starting signal for the various manufacturers in the ecosystem to launch a host of new hardware products related to these processors. Asus itself has announced no less than 17 new motherboards, one of which is the ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi D4. This is a motherboard based on the new Z790 chipset, but also suitable for those who are not yet in a hurry to adopt the latest memory technologies and wish to stay with DDR4, utilize the existing resources, but still advance to a new generation of processors.
White is the best, bro
At Asus, they make sure to differentiate the Republic of Games series from the other series. It focuses on the upper end of the gamer market and is characterized by black and red colors. But every year it surprises with some unusual looking models and in the case of ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi 4D it even got a quite different look: the heatsinks were painted in white tones while the board itself is black, which is especially suitable for the white cases.
Beyond that, the ROG owl’s eye logo and the Strix inscription of the series is found on almost every element of the board: from the various heatsinks that have received intriguing textures, the sticker on the processor lid and also a large print of the logo on the back combined with Pacman characters. Yes, it doesn’t really affect anything, but it is definitely part of building the brand.
The size of the board, type ATX, is standard and that means 9.6×12 inches adapted to a large case and this is not really a coincidence since the goal is to connect a large video card to it, if not two. Beyond that, it is a heavy board that reaches about 2.25 kg, with the reason for this being the many heat sinks, the main one of which is on the back panel and is intended to cool the VRM system for those who plan to overclock.
It comes with some notable advantages such as the Q-Led, a system of lights that provides an indication in a friendly way about a possible malfunction of the memory, video card or the processor. In addition to this, there is also the PCIe Slot Q-Release that allows for quick release of the video card as well as the Q-Latch that allows for quick removal and connection of the M.2 components. Finally, there is also a BIOS Flashback button that allows a quick restoration of the BIOS via a USB drive in case of a serious malfunction.
If we have already mentioned the M.2, the ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFI D4 has no less than 4 such slots. Two of them are full size 110 mm and another pair 80 mm. All in the PCIe 4.0 interface and all have passive heatsinks connected with screws. These also come with 4 more SATA connections for those who want to connect large drives with support for building RAID arrays.
Going up to Raptor Lake
In terms of specifications, ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi 4D is of course based on the new Z790 chipset. It supports both 12th and 13th generation Core i processors. Although DDR5 could already be expected, as mentioned this particular board supports DDR4 memory up to a speed of 5,333 MHz in rush, and there are 4 slots for a total capacity of 128 GB.
The main expansion slot is PCIe x16 Gen 5 designed for a double-sized graphics card. It is also the single slot that is adapted to the video card and works with this technology, when another pair of slots that come with the chipset are a pair of PCIe x16 generation 4 but they work electronically at x4 and a single PCIe x1 generation 3 slot suitable for basic expansion cards.
The rear panel concentrates the multitude of external connections that the board offers, and there are quite a few of them: 8 USB connections of which 4 are USB 3.2 Gen 1, another 3 USB 3.2 Gen 2 and one at the current maximum rate of USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 in USB-C. There is an HDMI port and a DisplayPort for graphics, a 2.5 gigabit network connection with an Intel chip, audio ports for 5.1 support, a microphone and an optical connection.
As its name more than implies, ROG Z790 Strix-A Gaming WiFi D4 comes with built-in WiFi connectivity in the WiFi 6E standard with support for MU-MIMO 2×2 networks at a frequency of 5/6/2.4 GHz, with an antenna that connects to the back panel included. There’s also Bluetooth v5.3 connectivity and a SupremeFX 7.1 audio system that supports 7.1 channels up to 32-bit/384kHz encoding quality. The company is also proud of the AI Noise system that reduces ambient noise when using headphones.
There are more built-in connections on the board such as 7 USB ports for the front of the case of which 3 are USB 3.2 and the rest USB 2.0 in a pin connector, and it also includes a USB-C connection that supports fast charging in the PD standard which means 30 watts which is really nice. There is also a dedicated connector for use for a water pump, 5 connectors for fans as well as RGB lighting that synchronizes with Asus’s AURA.
At the software level, Asus attaches a relatively large variety to the ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming. In a built-in way, the BIOS already comes with the Memtest86 software for checking the depth of the memory, or ROG CPU-Z for the full details on the board. There is also the AI Suite package for Windows which provides an easy way for those who want to speed up and change values and beyond that it provides full control over the fans, version updates and more.