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
Asus’ ROG Strix B660-A Gaming BIOS sports a familiar black-and-red theme. The BIOS is loaded with options and menus and the most frequently accessed items are easily accessible and not buried several layers down. There’s also an Easy Mode that’s more of a dashboard with limited functionality. We're fans of the Asus BIOS and its logical layout. It has everything you need, and then some, to tweak your motherboard and component settings. And if you want to know how to access your BIOS (from any system), we can help!
Software
Asus has applications designed to control the motherboard's various functions, ranging from RGB lighting control to audio, system monitoring, overclocking and more. Instead of plodding through each application as if it changes for each review, we’ll capture several screenshots of a few major utilities. In this case, here’s a look at Ai Suite 3, Armoury Crate, Sonic Studio and the Realtek Audio application.
Test System / Comparison Products
We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of October 2021. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver to version 496.13. Additionally, our game selection was updated, as noted in the table below. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:
Test System Components
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12900K |
| Memory | Kingston Fury DDR5 5200 CL40 (9KF552C40BBK2-32) |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | GSkill Trident Z DDR5 5600 CL36 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | ADATA XPG DDR5 6000 CL40 (AX5U6000C4016G-FCLARBK) |
| GPU | Asus TUF RTX 3070 |
| Cooling | MSI MEG Coreliquid S360 |
| PSU | EVGA Supernova 850W P6 |
| Software | Windows 11 64-bit (21H2, Build 22000.282) |
| Graphics Driver | Nvidia Driver 496.13 |
| Sound | Integrated HD audio |
| Network | Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE) |
EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the outgoing 1.2KW monster we used) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for testing.
Benchmark Settings
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
| Procyon | Version 2.0.249 64 |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Office Suite, Video Editing (Premiere Pro), Photo Editing (Photoshop, Lightroom Classic) |
| 3DMark | Version 2.20.7290 64 |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets |
| Cinebench R23 | Version RBBENCHMARK330542 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded |
| Blender | Version 3.0.1 |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Full benchmark (three sub-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: 1.2.2 |
| 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 21.03-beta |
| Row 17 - Cell 0 | Integrated benchmark (Command Line) |
| Game Tests and Settings | Row 18 - Cell 1 |
| Far Cry 6 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HD Textures ON |
| F1 2021 | Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HBAO+, RT Med, TAA + 16xAF, Bahrain, FPS Counter ON |
MORE: Best Motherboards
MORE: How To Choose A Motherboard
MORE: All Motherboard Content
Aoostar AG02 eGPU dock with OCuLink support and 500W PSU announced for $219
China levels anti-trust charges against Nvidia – country accuses chipmaker of violating anti-monopoly regulations, examining the $7 billion Mellanox acquisition
Fanless audiophile PC sells for close to $30,000 — music server features dual Xeon 10-core CPUs, 48GB RAM, 280GB Optane SSD, and 2TB secondary storage expandable to 24TB
