ASUS Unveils Crosshair X670E Gene, Premium Micro-ATX AM5 Motherboard for Ryzen 7000
by Gavin Bonshor on August 23, 2022 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- ROG
- Zen 4
- AM5
- Ryzen 7000
- X670
- Crosshair X670E Gene
- Gene
Over the years, multiple motherboards have captivated the market at various price points. Models like the Hero and the Formula are staples of ASUS's premium but popular ROG-themed offerings. One such series that was once the staple of ASUS's Intel models based on the micro-ATX form factor was the Gene, last seen in the days of Intel's 8th and 9th Gen Core series (2019). In what looks to be a resurrection of the Gene series for the release of AMD's Ryzen 7000 processors based on its latest 5nm Zen 4 microarchitecture, ASUS has announced that the Gene is back via the ROG Crosshair X670E Gene.
Throughout the years, the ROG Gene series has been synonymous with highly premium micro-ATX offerings, and it looks as though the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Gene is no different this time. Some of the ROG Crosshair X670E Gene's main features include a full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x1 slot, and a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot. ASUS includes another expansion slot next to the two DDR5 memory slots for an included ROG Gen-Z.2 M.2 add-in card with support for up to two PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 drives.
The ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Gene will also feature a 16+2 phase power delivery with premium 110 A power stages, an Intel-based 2.5 GbE, and Wi-Fi 6E networking pairing, as well as support for USB 3.2 G2x2 with Quick Charge 4+ (60 W) capability. ASUS also states that it will also have rear panel USB4 support, although ASUS hasn't provided full specifications to us at this time.
At the time of writing, ASUS hasn't revealed much for the ROG Crosshair X670E Gene, nor how much it is expected to cost or when it might hit retail shelves.
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Techie2 - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
IME in recent years Asus mobos have been a lot of marketing but nothing special in terms of performance. They tend to offer a lot of "knobs to turn" but don't deliver any better performance than far less expensive mobos such as Gigabyte before they lost their way and Asrock who seems to still be on the ball.For those of you old enough to remember when Asus was a single manufacturer supplier of OEM and ODM mobos - which had to be a proper, reliable design or they'd eat the costs of returns - their mobos were top notch. Since they went Hollywood and jumped into the consumer market their product performance and quality has been disappointing. I've have been building performance PCs for decades and the only two mobos I ever had fail were Asus. When I tried to warranty a less than one year old Asus mobo they sent me a used mobo that had some components manually replaced and looked like it sat on the ground by the side of a roadway for a couple years as it was covered in dirt silt. I tossed it in the trash as I wasn't about to install that POS in any PC.
Based on my experience with Asus I can't in good conscience recommend their current mobo products to anyone. I certainly would not buy them for the PCs that I build for customers or myself.
YMMV.
Silver5urfer - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
ASUS Apex Z590 went through over 10 mobos, all of them had pisspoor QC in board. Like so many boards have their paint chipped off at the edges, some of them have DRAM slots with poor plastics causing hazy issues. The I/O shield holder rattling, finally I settled on one board, and it failed to POST on both BIOS slots.Next is their Board software. I think 99.9% of all board vendors (Except EVGA but more on them below) have complete pile of trash UWP feces with mega bloatware. ASUS's Armory Crate is one fine example of that cancer. I heard others also mention their CPUs being dead by their board or some power failure etc. Also ASUS charges a ton despite their boards having 6 layer PCB while GB and MSI ship 8 layer, idk about new Z690.
Gigabyte has solid electronics but their major issue is absolute trash BIOS. And DRAM is very poor on their boards. EVGA has no UWP cancer but their boards have very short life. Ever since TiN left them, it became a fanboy store for that Kingpin rip off BS. Their boards have absolute nightmare Support in terms of BIOS updates. ASUS kept on updating their BIOS for Z590 platform MSI also but man EVGA barely updated and their Z590 doesn't work on 10900K properly. Pure trash company, the worst ? Their entire X299, Z490, Z590, X570 all of them have their Q-Code type BIOS code indicator LEDs blown off in a mere months there's no fix, they sourced crap components and caused that issue. No manual in the box either. They do some things well, BIOS is solid but what's the use when it lacks updates. Design wise ok. Software no UWP trash which is good, price is very high as well.
Shame how PC DIY has been plagued by these practices. ASUS ROG newer boards look very very bad. Too much in the face of that ROG logo and matrix nonsense display crap tech.
Samus - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
They've definitely gotten boring. Gone are the days of clean workstation-class products like the P6T and P9X79, 10 year old motherboards that still sell for $100-$200 used for a reason.When Asus absorbed QDI engineers in the mid 2000's, it immediately showed as they started focusing on high end retail\server instead of just mainstream\OEM. All of their boards are above average, but they are no longer consistently great, even in the HEDT space where previous jokers like MSI and specialty vendors like Supermicro are highly competitive.
rmfx - Tuesday, August 23, 2022 - link
If the gossip prices are true, I will certainly not buy an Asus motherboard this time. They really use their (overhyped) brand too take people for fools and ask way too much.lipscomb88 - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
They have good rma though. Gigabyte is a nightmare for any rma in my experience but asus has been great.Einy0 - Friday, August 26, 2022 - link
Honestly, nightmare is a massive understatement. My x570 RMA request took six weeks for them to process, then it took three months to get the board back. To top it off, they returned it without the AM4 heat sink bracket. I just ignored that and bought a new one. This is the second Gigabyte board that failed during warranty in a row for me. I won't be buying their products again anytime soon!lipscomb88 - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
I really liked the dtx form factor of the crosshair viii impact board they released with ryzen 5000.the extra space was nice, but it was still cramped for things like fans and fp audio. Maybe this is the sweet spot?NextGen_Gamer - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
@AnandTech (or someone else): can you explain why ASUS would want to use AMD's X670E chipset, versus the X670? Maybe I am wrong, but I thought the difference between them was the X670E doubled up on the "South Bridge" (or however you want to refer to it) chipsets, therefore doubling all the I/O for PCIe, USB, SATA expansion. But - on a microATX board, with a single PCIe x16 and another single x1, and limited room for SATA, I don't see the point? And again, I thought the vanilla X670 could still do a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics, and M.2 PCIe 5.0 as well. It was only once you dropped to the B650 that you started losing things like that.racermd - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
@NextGen_Gamer - I would think it's due to the PCIe lanes dedicated to the m.2 DIMM slot thing eating up 8 more lanes on the chipset all by itself.meacupla - Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - link
The PCIe 5.0 lanes are used in the 16x slot, and two m.2 slots on a riser, next to the RAM. Presumably, this uses up all 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes off of the Zen4 APU.I would guess the PCIe x1 4.0 slot comes off of one of the chipsets.
I don't know the full specs of the chipset, but if this board is running USB3.2 Gen2x2, or USB4 on all of its USB ports, then it just might have to utilize the X670E chipset, instead of only X670.
The pictures from Asus are blurry, and they only provide one angle, so it's kinda hard to see how it's configured.