ASRock Phantom Gaming X870 Nova WIFI Motherboard Review – 20 USB Ports, 8400 MT/s Memory, Dual Gen5 M.2 For Around $300

Conclusion - Fantastic & Loaded AM5 Option Around $300

AMD's Ryzen CPUs, especially the cost-effective X3D options, are currently selling like hotcakes. This huge demand has led motherboard makers to offer new, cost-optimized, and feature-rich options based on the X870 chipset since that is the most popular choice for mainstream builders. ASRock, seeing this demand, is introducing a new set of X870 motherboards which were initially shown at Computex 2025. Today, we got to test and evaluate their latest X870 Nova WIFI offering, a toned-down variant of its X870E brother.

In terms of VRM and performance, the X870 Nova WIFI is very similar to the X870E Nova WIFI, featuring a similar 21 Phase VRM versus the 23 phase design on the X870E model. It retains similar performance to the more premium X870E options that we had tested and overclocking was a breeze, pushing memory speeds close to its max 8400 MT/s limit. The 110A SPS power stages and the entirety of the VRM solution ran cool under the two sets of heatsinks. The X870E Nova did have an active cooler, allowing for much lower temperatures but even without that, the X870 Nova's heatsink do a great job on keeping things in check.

Things I liked about the ASRock PG X870 Nova WIFI motherboard:

• Pricing expected in the sub $300 range
• Gaming aesthetic and design looks awesome
• Solid 18+2+1 VRM with 80A power stages
• Solid BIOS, and update program
• 256 GB DDR5 support & up To 8400 MT/s Speeds
• 256 MB BIOS (Ready For Current / Next-Gen Ryzen CPUs)
• Top-notch layout with XXL heatsinks on VRMs & M.2 heatsinks
• Dual Gen5 M.2 Slots
• EZ Release Mechanism on M.2 Gen5 and PCIe Gen5 slots
• 20 USB ports including two USB40 Type-C
• 5 GbE LAN + WIFI 7 + BT 5.4 for connectivity
• Debugging options, Power On/Off buttons
• Lots of Fan headers, ARGB+RGB headers

Things to be concerned about:

• Just 2 SATA III ports
• 160MHz WIFI7 (320Mhz full bandwidth)

In terms of features, the motherboard has five M.2 slots, all of which are cooled by heatsinks, including two Gen5 slots . WIFI7+BT5.4, along with 5GbE LAN, is also great, while the full list of USB (20 in total) options includes:

• 4x USB 2.0 (Rear)
• 4x USB 2.0 (Front)
• 3x USB 3.2 5 Gbps Type-A (Rear)
• 4x USB 3.2 5 Gbps Type-A (Front)
• 2x USB 3.2 10 Gbps Type-A (Rear)
• 1x USB 3.2 20 Gbps Type-C (Front)
• 2x USB 4 40 Gbps Type-C (Rear)

The motherboard comes with a 256M BIOS, support for up to 256 GB capacities, and up to 8200 MT/s DDR5 speeds. The Phantom Gaming motherboards are known for their iconic "Gaming" aesthetic, look great, and even support built-in RGB lighting and external RGB support through 3 ARGB & 1 RGB header (all controllable through the Polychrome Sync) software. WIFI 7, ALC 4082 7.1 channel audio, and DEBUG features are also included on the motherboard.

Finally, the ASRock PG X870 NOVA WIFI is a fresh motherboard. The pricing is not known at the moment but we expect it to be priced close to or below the $300 US mark which will be lower than the X870E model. This puts the X870 Nova in a well-priced segment, offering users with a huge set of features, both on the CPU/Memory support side, and also in terms of IO. The NOVA series is a supercharged and price-effective offering which is going to be a strong motherboard in the $250-$300 US range.

Note: As of writing this post (8/11/2025), the latest BIOS (v3.30) is based on the AGESA 1.2.0.3e patch, and includes support upcoming CPU, likely the Ryzen 7 9700F. It should also be pointed that while ASRock's AM5 motherboards have seen issues with Ryzen CPUs, the company has went an extra mile in tuning its BIOS to ensure that these issues are fixed. Always check the latest BIOS support for your ASRock boards for fixes, and patches.

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