Along the bottom edge of the board you'll spot several headers, including additional USB 2.0 ports, fan headers, front-panel audio, ARGB and RGB headers, two USB 2.0 ports, and four 4-pin fan headers. Also down here are a Clear CMOS jumper, a Dr. Debug LED, power and reset buttons, and, finally, the front-panel connectors' header cluster. Well, I actually have this MB running a Ryzen 9-7900, Gskill 32gb memory at 6K mhz, Samsung 980 Pro and a Samsung 970 EVO. Graphics card is a Gigabyte 3080 with a 1200 watt Power Supply. I have some issues with the board. It's not about gaming here, of course, but displaying images on better monitors for whatever productivity workloads. I prefer to have a better HDMI port than worse one. After all, 99% of GPUs have only one HDMI 2.1 FRL port, and that one is often used for 4K TV and other display. So, having another capable HDMI 2.1 port for on-board graphics is always welcomed rather than not having it. This board provides five additional USB headers. Midway down the front edge, below the ATX power connector, are a 5Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 header and a 20Gbps USB Type-C header. A second USB 3.2 Gen 1 header and two USB 2.0 headers are along the bottom edge, along with a 5-pin Thunderbolt header that requires a separate Thunderbolt add-in card. the closer to the cpu, the less latency in getting data to and from the cpu. that's why ram slots are as close as possible to minimize how far the data has to go thus lowering latency as much as possible.

For connectivity, it comes with the Killer E3100G 2.5 Gigabit LAN and Wi-Fi 6E, which is more than enough for today’s needs. Whether you are using headphones, a headset, external or internal speakers, via USB, Wi-Fi, analog output or even HDMI, Nahimic Audio offers you the most engaging listening experience, vibrant and rich with details. next, if you wish to add sound card, Thunderbolt card or capture card, in addition to GPU, don't buy ITX board, as those have only one PCIe slotRAID 0 and 1 are supported for NVMe and SATA drives. The NVMe drives can run in RAID 10 mode if you use an NVMe expansion card to mount a fourth drive, but that requires giving up the graphics slot or using the much slower 3.0 x4 slot. You should consult the MB (ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E) manual: AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series Desktop Processors M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 5.0 x4 mode) M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode) M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 5.0 x4 mode) AMD B650 Chipset M.2_4 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode) 4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports. An usual mid-tower would leave little to no room at the bottom slot for proper air ventilation. So it doesn't seem much of a mainstream solution to ask everyone to use the bottom slot (even aside of the mentioned issue of latency).

The same with M.2_3 drive. Connecting this drive will drop PCIe x16_1 to x8, and this will drop PCIe x16_2 slot to x4 speed. There are only 16 lanes to play with.I have nothing against Asus board per se, but for proposed workflows I suggested two boards that seem the best fit. I explained why and I will not ping-pong anymore about one or two features. I firmly stand by my choice of boards for this member and it's up to him to decide. Simple. You can try to convince him to buy Asus. But, please, do not try to convince me that Asus board us "better". AMD Ryzen series APUs (Renoir) support DDR4 4733+(OC) / 4666(OC) / 4600(OC) / 4533(OC) / 4466(OC) / 4400(OC) / 4333(OC) / 4266(OC) / 4200(OC) / 4133(OC) / 4000(OC) / 3866(OC) / 3800(OC) / 3733(OC) / 3600(OC) / 3466(OC) / 3200 / 2933 / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory *

four NVMe drives in M.2 slots, all four Gen5 (drives B and C share lanes with x16 slot and drop it to x8 for GPU, as mentioned above)if HDD, buy 7200 rpm and not 5400 rpm. 7200 disks are faster. WD Gold 12TB get you speeds up to 255 MB/s for large video files and renders. 12TB capacity is better than 10TB HDD - 12TB disk uses less power and it's more quiet due to HelioSeal tech. The OC Tweaker section holds the keys to tweaking your system. Here you can adjust voltages, RAM, and the CPU, and save profiles for recall later. H/W Monitor displays relevant system information ranging from CPU and motherboard temperatures to fan speeds and voltages. Within this section, you can adjust the fan speeds of all the onboard 4-pin fan headers.

The Killer Ethernet controller is designed specially for competitive gamers and performance-hungry users, this motherboard comes with both Killer E3100 2.5G Ethernet & WiFi 6E solution, the enhanced detection and prioritization engine provides the ultimate networking experience for gaming and multimedia applications. Focusing on the top of the board, we get a good look at the oversize VRM heatsinks, reinforced DRAM slots, and more. Starting in the upper-left corner, we spy a vented shroud that reaches over the VRM heatsink to allow cool air to pass through the fan hidden below and onto the heatpipe-connected heatsinks. The fan is barely audible at load and blends in with other fan noise coming from the case, so no worries there. Above the VRM heatsinks are two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) to power the CPU. with "speed" also comes latency to deal with. remember the x16 pcie slot and fastest m.2 slots get their lanes direct from the cpu. secondly, if you do not specifically need 7950X for those workloads, don't overpay and buy 7900X. Only buy 7950X if time is a critical factor and if you run those workloads everyday for several hours. In this case, 7950X will do the job faster, if workloads are CPU bound. If GPU bound, 7900X is enough.Taichi - best VRM for OC, video port with HDMI 2.1 at 32 Gbps, best data transmission with Thunderbolt 4 at 40 Gbps and front USB 20 Gbps, two non-shared NVMe drives and two PCIe slots A lot of video workflows and renderings suggest you might want to consider a board with wide bandwidth video outputs and fast data connectivity ports, to move a lot of data around, and fast, right? If so, I'd suggest motherboards with USB4/Thunderbolt 4 ports at 40 Gbps for speedy transfer and HDMI 2.1 FRL ports for up to 32 Gbps video signal to better monitors. Yes, Thunderbolt does need external compliant devices. That's exactly why I recommended this board. Video workloads mentioned in the OP include possibility of working with Thunderbolt and USB4 devices. Such host port is hugely beneficial as it can be attached to TB hub and then several devices can be attached to hub or daisy chained. You can't underestimate benefits of Thunderbolt ecosystem for creative workflows. Plus, such TB port can also serve as VLAN 10 Gbps port for large file transfers over internal network, which is exactly what many creative do between PCs or PC and NAS devices. Hyper NVMe RAID add-in card with four NVMe drives can only be supported in PCIe x16 slot 1, as shown below. This will run in x8 Gen5 mode It'll never happen of course. The reasons are obvious. Money, profits and margins. Motherboard makers want you to buy more expensive boards. Capitalism! Yay.