ASRock B860I Lightning Wifi Motherboard Review: Is Wi-Fi 7 important to you?

Sub-$220 B860I Lightning Wifi strikes a pose for budget Mini-ITX shoppers

Reviews
By published
ASRock B860I Lightning Wifi
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Firmware

ASRock’s BIOS for the B860I Lightning WiFi features a black background and the familiar purple and blue accent colors associated with the Phantom Gaming theme. It includes an informative and functional Easy Mode alongside a more conventional Advanced section. While the BIOS is user-friendly with numerous options to customize your system, it feels somewhat dated compared to the refreshed BIOS options from MSI and Gigabyte. It still looks appealing, and at the end of the day, it’s a BIOS. It simply needs to function well, and it does.

Image 1 of 34
ASRock B860I Lightning Wifi
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Software

ASRock offers several different software options. These include the App Shop, which allows users to install drivers and software, the Nahimic 3 audio control panel, the A-Tuning application (for overclocking and controlling fans), the flexible Polychrome RGB software, and more. A convenient pop-up to install drivers appears when the system is first booted (you can disable it from the BIOS). ASRock’s software provides everything users need to manage and tweak their systems.

Image 1 of 10
ASRock B860I Lightning Wifi
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (24H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of mid-September 2024, which includes all OS optimizations. Hardware-wise, we’ve updated the RAM kits to match the AMD system, as well as cooling, storage, and our video card. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public. Thanks to Asus for providing the RTX 4080 TUF graphics card and Crucial for the 2TB T705 SSDs. The hardware we used is as follows:

Test System Components

Swipe to scroll horizontally

CPU

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

Cooling

Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420

Storage

Crucial 2TB T705 M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD

RAM

Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEAK2-32)

RAM

GSkill Trident Z5 CK (F5-8200C4052G24GX2)

RAM

Klevv Cras XR5 RGB DDR5-8000 (KD5AGUA80-80R380S)

RAM

Kingston Renegade Fury DDR5-8200 CU-DIMM (KF582C40RS-24)

GPU

Asus TUF RTX 4080 16G

PSU

EVGA Supernova 850W P6

Software

Windows 11 64-bit (24H2)

Graphics

NVIDIA Driver 561.09

Sound

Integrated HD audio

Network

Integrated Networking (GbE to 10 GbE)

ASRock B860I Lightning Wifi

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Benchmark Settings

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings

Row 0 - Cell 1

Procyon

Version 2.8.1352 64

Row 2 - Cell 0

Office 365, Video Editing (Premiere Pro 24.6.1), Photo Editing (Photoshop 25.1.2, Lightroom Classic 13.5.1)

3DMark

Version 2.29.8294.0 64

Row 4 - Cell 0

Speed Way and Steel Nomad (Default)

Cinebench R24

Version 2024.1.0

Row 6 - Cell 0

Open GL Rendering Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded

Blender

Version 4.2.0

Row 8 - Cell 0

Full benchmark (all 3 tests)

Application Tests and Settings

Row 9 - Cell 1

LAME MP3

Version SSE2_2019

Row 11 - Cell 0

Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)

HandBrake CLI

Version: 1.8.2

Row 13 - Cell 0

Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX)

Corona 1.4

Version 1.4

Row 15 - Cell 0

Custom benchmark

7-Zip

Version 24.08

Row 17 - Cell 0

Integrated benchmark (Command Line)

Game Tests and Settings

Row 18 - Cell 1

Cyberpunk 2077

Ultra RT: - 1920 x 1080,  DLSS - Balanced

F1 2024

Ultra High Preset - 1920 x 1080, 16xAF/TAA, Great Britain (Clear/Dry), FPS Counter ON

MORE: Best Motherboards

MORE: How To Choose A Motherboard

MORE: All Motherboard Content

Joe Shields
Joe Shields
Motherboard Reviewer

Joe Shields is a Freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He reviews motherboards.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • HideOut
    Although the audio codec on this board is not the most up-to-date, it's still far better than the 8xx codex the many more budget friendly boards use. It has thunderbolt 4 and 2.5 gig ethernet. It also seems to be pretty well built and it's built by a company that should still be here 6 months from now. This is probably one of the best budget-friendly itx boards we've seen in recent memory.
    Reply
  • SonoraTechnical
    HideOut said:
    Although the audio codec on this board is not the most up-to-date, it's still far better than the 8xx codex the many more budget friendly boards use. It has thunderbolt 4 and 2.5 gig ethernet. It also seems to be pretty well built and it's built by a company that should still be here 6 months from now. This is probably one of the best budget-friendly itx boards we've seen in recent memory.
    I agree.... ACS1200 is decent enough... Thunderbolt and 2.5 gig Ethernet are a surpise in a budget board too (though how budget is $200?) I'd would have liked to have seen 2x PCIe 5.0 nVME M.2 slots, but it don't think it's a show stopper for the 2nd HD in a system that is more long time file storage, rather than OS and Application launching. I'd have this direct wired, so the WiFi 6 would go unused anyway, so no issue that it's not the greatest WiFi 7 standard (my current stuff, modem, router, access point, don't even support Wifi 6 either).

    If I decide to go Ryzen R9 9950X3D and Radeon RX 9070XT on my Summer build as opposed to Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 w/ Radeonn 8060S iGPU , this might be a good board to purchase to offset some costs...
    Reply
  • LaminarFlow
    Last year I was trying to self-build a NAS and was torn between cheap Zen 3 (A520) vs Zen 4 (A620) ITX boards. Zen 3 ones tend to have 4 SATA ports but only Gb Ethernet, whereas Zen 4 ones come with 2.5GbE yet only 2 SATAs. Either way I have to use an adapter/PCI-E card of some sort. Eventually I went for A620 and a 8500G. It works but still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

    This thing has 3 SATA ports...what kind of monstrosity is this?o_O
    Reply
  • thestryker
    I'd really like to see SATA ports dropped in the ITX format (honestly ditch them period) and replaced with SlimSAS ports because those can be dual use (SATA or NVMe). In the case of this board having just 2 SlimSAS ports would allow for one hybrid (4x SATA or 1x NVMe) and one NVMe giving more storage capability with less physical board space than the existing 3x SATA ports.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    SonoraTechnical said:
    I'd would have liked to have seen 2x PCIe 5.0 nVME M.2 slots, but it don't think it's a show stopper for the 2nd HD in a system that is more long time file storage, rather than OS and Application launching.
    You're not going to see 2x (or more) PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots on the vast majority of ARL motherboards because the CPUs support 16x PCIe 5.0 lanes for slots, 4x PCIe 5.0 lanes for M.2, and 4x PCIe 4.0 lanes for M.2. That means the only way you're getting a second PCIe 5.0 M.2 is halving the lanes off the primary slot.
    Reply
  • SonoraTechnical
    thestryker said:
    You're not going to see 2x (or more) PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots on the vast majority of ARL motherboards because the CPUs support 16x PCIe 5.0 lanes for slots, 4x PCIe 5.0 lanes for M.2, and 4x PCIe 4.0 lanes for M.2. That means the only way you're getting a second PCIe 5.0 M.2 is halving the lanes off the primary slot.

    Yeah, I know it's a limit with the current Ryzen architecture.... Threadripper would be different. LOL... Just speaking my mind.. Wish we had more PCIe 5.0 lanes available on the consumer grade CPUs..
    Reply
  • thestryker
    SonoraTechnical said:
    Yeah, I know it's a limit with the current Ryzen architecture.... Threadripper would be different. LOL... Just speaking my mind.. Wish we had more PCIe 5.0 lanes available on the consumer grade CPUs..
    Well AMD has enough lanes for 2x PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slots and some of the 600 series chipset boards have just that. When AMD mandated USB 4 support in the 800 series chipsets that took one of those away. Given that Intel has a PCIe 5.0/4.0 split on their CPU M.2 lanes now perhaps that'll change to 2x PCIe 5.0 x4 down the road.
    Reply
  • ocer9999
    Honestly, Wi-Fi 6E is still plenty fast for most setups. Unless you're living in a Wi-Fi 7-enabled world, the B860i Lightning board offers a solid mix of features without breaking the bank.
    Reply