The Bottom Line
Pros
- Five M.2 slots and strong VRM
- 60W USB PD
- Fully featured BIOS
- Sleek, subtle design
- SlimSAS connector
Cons
- Expensive
- Average primary SSD heatsink
Should you buy it?
AvoidConsiderShortlistBuyIntroduction, Specifications, and Pricing
If you're considering building a high-end system with a Ryzen 9000 series CPU, an ASUS ROG motherboard will undoubtedly be considered. There have been few disappointments in the 18 years since the ROG brand was launched. With premium hardware comes a premium price, though. At $699, the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero is by far the most expensive X870E motherboard to launch to date.
Like all X870 and X870E motherboards, the X870E Hero can be considered an evolutionary update over its X670E predecessor. It incorporates almost all the features you'd expect from a premium ROG board. The addition of Wi-Fi 7 and USB4 are headline X870 features, though the X670E Hero was one of the few preceding motherboards to include USB4. The ROG Crosshair X870E Hero brings many ease-of-use improvements, native support for Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, memory improvements, and ongoing socket support from AMD. If you're looking for a board for use with upcoming Ryzen 9000 X3D processors, it's hard to imagine going wrong.
Though looks are in the eye of the beholder, the X870E Hero is the best-looking X870 board we've seen to date. Its metallic finishes look amazing. It's almost a shame to have to cover the bottom half of the board with a large graphics card. The Polymo Lighting 2.0 atop the rear I/O area adds a touch of class - something that can't always be said of some RGB implementations. The looks do not make the board, though. The X870E Hero includes a powerful VRM, dual PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, four memory slots, five M.2 slots, 320MHz Wi-Fi 7, 5G, and 2.5G LAN, and loads of speedy USB ports, including dual USB4. It even has a slim SAS port and 60W USB PD.
The ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero carries a hefty recommended retail price of $699.
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Packaging, Accessories, and Overview
The ROG brand is the most recognizable in the DIY PC market. ASUS's box designs and fonts haven't changed much in many years. And ASUS isn't likely to change things up anytime soon, and why would it? Heck, there are ROG collectors out there who would surely be up in arms if ASUS were to move away from its trademark box designs.
The rear of the box showcases the board's key features, of which there are many. ASUS has always promoted its 'AI' features, and it's interesting to note the USB 20Gbps case header with 60W Power Delivery support. That's an underrated feature.
The X870E Hero's accessories are adequate, if not that impressive, for a $699 board. The Wi-Fi antenna is a highlight. It's adjustable and feels well-built. Aside from the expected SATA and RGB cables, M.2 bits and pieces, and front panel Q-Connector, there's an impressive set of stickers, a thank-you card, and a bottle opener. We're not sure about the latter's relevance, but it's there. A USB drive contains drivers and a comprehensive set of ASUS utilities.
I try to avoid installing motherboard manufacturers' complete software suites, but in fairness to ASUS, its Armory Crate software gives you the option to install some notable extras, including a full-year license for AIDA64 Extreme ($60 value). You'll probably need to grab ASUS' Aura sync app for RGB control, and the Asus-themed HWINFO and CPU-Z apps are must-haves for any PC builder.
But there's a key omission from the bundled accessories. The X670E Hero included a PCIe 5.0 M.2 expansion card, whereas the X870E flavor does not. To be fair, it only included a single slot, but it was a good way to isolate a hot-running M.2 drive as opposed to installing yet another right underneath a heat-dumping GPU.
Motherboard Overview
The Crosshair X870E Hero is unmistakably a ROG board. It's an ATX offering, meaning it is a little more case-friendly than some high-end EATX offerings. It's hard to imagine how ASUS could cram anything more into an ATX board when you factor in the space taken up by the M.2 slots, dual chipsets, the VRM, and the many additional auxiliary controllers.
The X870E Hero is a lovely-looking board. It doesn't resort to fancy silk-screened graphics. The Republic of Gamers and Hero font look subtle and classy. Aside from the ROG RGB logo atop the rear I/O area, some might say it's a little plain looking, but personally, I'll take a discrete look over snarling beasts and flaming swords any day of the week. Still, a somewhat subtle design can be blinged to the hilt with three ARGB headers and a single RGB header.
The X870E Hero includes many onboard headers, buttons, and switches. You get eight fan 4-pin headers, a power button, a debug LED readout, and what ASUS calls the FlexKey. In addition to resetting the system, it can be programmed to Safe Boot the system or turn the RGB on or off.
The USB header complement will provide up to four additional USB 2.0 ports, four 5Gbps ports, and two Type-C 20Gbps ports. One of them supports 60W PD, which will be useful for those who want to charge devices from their PC. To get 60W support, you need to connect an 8-pin PCIe power connector located right next to it.
ASUS ROG boards have a long history of being overclocking-friendly. The X870E Hero includes an LN2 mode, which helps with cold boot bugs. The retry button forces a system reboot with the same settings, and there's a thermal sensor header for connecting to an external digital thermometer.
Four DIMM slots support speeds of up to DDR5-8600+ with a monolithic Ryzen 8000 series processor. It's lower with a 9000 series chip at 8200 MT/s, but running such speeds with future CPUs might be easier. Curiously, the X870E Hero supports 192GB of memory. That will be sufficient for most users, but many competing boards support 256GB. ASUS may include support for 256GB in a future BIOS. Note that the specs on the back of the motherboard box list support for 256GB.
Storage-wise, the X870E Hero includes five M.2 slots, three of which support PCIe 5.0. Should you use all three with a Ryzen 9000 processor, the second PCIe expansion slot will be disabled. The other two M.2 slots are connected to the chipset and support PCIe 4.0. Four SATA ports join the five M.2 slots.
The X870E Hero includes a rare SlimSAS connector next to the SATA ports. It supports PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drives. Such drives are usually confined to the workstation and enterprise space and are of questionable relevance to the consumer market. Nevertheless, we're pleased to see it included, as its adoption would solve several of the issues inherent to M.2 drives. It's too bad U.2 drives never caught on. Perhaps SlimSAS will be different?
The primary M2_1 PCIe 5.0 slot above the topmost expansion slot has its own heatsink, while the other four are cooled by a plate attached with screws.
There are two expansion slots capable of PCIe 5.0 x16 or x8/x8.
The X870E Hero features a powerful VRM, which is one of the stronger implementations you will find on X870E motherboards. It's an 18+2+12 design with 110A stages. Given that this board has been used to chase extreme OC records, regular users will not be hindered in any way by more down-to-earth cooling.
The X870E Hero's VRM cooling is comprehensive. The large sections are connected via a heatpipe. They do a good job, though they don't have the surface area of true finned heatsink designs.
The rear of the board is covered by a large backplate, which adds rigidity to the board and helps to cool the rear of the VRM area. The X870E Hero is a heavy motherboard!
The X870E Hero's I/O panel is well-equipped. The USB complement begins with dual USB4 Type-C ports with DP support. These are joined by two 10Gbps Type-C ports. There are also six Type-A 10Gbps ports, giving ten high-speed ports in total.
The single 5G LAN port is controlled by a Realtek RTL8126 controller, while the 2.5G port uses an Intel controller. With the advent of faster Wi-Fi, we'd prefer to see 10G LAN instead of 2.5G and 5G, but 10G remains a flagship-only feature. A possible ROG Crosshair X870E Extreme may include it.
Like nearly all X870 boards, the X870E Hero includes Wi-Fi 7, but the Hero supports faster 320MHz connections, delivering up to 6.5Gbps of bandwidth. ASUS also included Bluetooth 5.4 support.
Next are the audio ports, which consist of 3.5mm line-in and line-out ports and S/PDIF. A Realtek ALC4082 codec drives these. A good-quality ESS 9219 Quad DAC bolsters the audio section.
Finally, we have a single HDMI 2.1 port, a CMOS clear button, and a BIOS flashback button. The latter means you'll be able to install a future X3D chip and, more than likely, a Zen 6 CPU without needing to update the BIOS with a currently available chip.
UEFI, Software and Test System
UEFI
ASUS ROG BIOSes are typically jam-packed with features, and the X870E Hero is no different. The advanced pages have a steeper learning curve than some, but a general user will find most of what they need without navigating to the advanced section.
ASUS' fan control page is top-notch, and we're really impressed by the Q-Dashboard page, which lists the important headers and ports and whether they've been populated. It's an easy way to troubleshoot a problematic component or peripheral.
If you're an overclocker, you're likely already familiar with ASUS ROG boards. They're a tweaker's paradise.
Test System
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X - Buy from Amazon
- GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
- RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
- Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
- OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
- Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
- OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon
Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding
Cinebench 2024
Cinebench 2024 is the latest version of Maxon's reliable and frequently used benchmark that measures single and multi-threaded performance. Note that all our benchmark testing used the latest available Windows updates and a BIOS that includes AGESA 1.2.0.2, which features improved inter-core latency for AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors.
The X870E Hero performed as expected, with a result of 2,278 in the nT test and 139 in the 1T test. That's bang on what we expect from a Ryzen 9 9950X.
Blender
A rendering application like Blender is just one of many reasons a user will consider a high-core-count CPU like a Ryzen 9 9950X. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.
A result of 433 Seconds for this test puts the ASUS right in the middle of the boards we've tested so far.
Handbrake
Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS, where a higher result means the task will take less time to complete.
The X870E Hero trails a tiny bit here, but when a 2% gap covers the field, it's not a cause for concern.
Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory latency
7Zip
7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's susceptible to changes in memory speed and latency and scales with the number of CPU threads.
A result of 227.30 BIPS is a strong result for the X870E Hero.
AIDA64 Memory Latency
Memory latency is an area that currently favors Intel. AMD's chiplet architecture and the Infinity Fabric link inevitably add some latency compared to Intel's monolithic chips. The real-world benefits aren't that important, though.
The differences between the tested boards are within a margin of error.
Benchmarks - PCMark and 3DMark
PCMark 10 Productivity
We'd love to use our PCs purely for leisure, but some of us have to work, too! The PCMark 10 productivity test performs a series of tests using office productivity applications.
Ultimately, all the test boards are within a fraction of each other.
3DMark Storage
UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. It is superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs of the actual game. This test is the same as running the actual game without the inconsistencies inherent in application testing.
It's interesting to note the X870E and X870 boards are a bit behind the X670E Taichi. Perhaps post-release BIOS updates can unlock that last percentage point or two of X870 SSD performance.
3DMark Time Spy Extreme
Time Spy Extreme is losing favor as a graphics benchmark in favor of Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.
The differences between the boards are minor.
Benchmarks - Gaming
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.
The RTX 4070 Ti Super, as used in our test system, is not the best for highlighting gaming performance differences, so the results between the tested boards are close. However, the minimum FPS result looks relatively good for the ASUS Hero.
Horizon Zero Dawn
When using the 'favor performance' preset, Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards.
The differences here are small, but it's better to be near the front than the rear.
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
Metro Exodus received an update that added improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing features, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.
All the tested motherboards performed essentially identically.
VRM and SSD Temperatures
These tests are performed to show off the differences between each motherboard's cooling assemblies. In the case of VRM testing, each board is subjected to a 20-minute Cinebench loop, while the SSD test records the peak temperature recorded during the lengthy 3DMark Storage test.
The ASUS boards couldn't quite match the ASRock boards, though the ASRock boards benefit from having an embedded fan, which the ASUS lacks. You don't really want a pesky little fan installed, though.
The X870E Hero returned a high SSD temperature result, which is a little surprising given its surface area. It is larger than the MSI X870E Carbon Wi-Fi yet only marginally outperformed it. There's no cause for alarm, but it'll be important to ensure good case airflow if a PCIe 5.0 SSD is to operate at acceptable temperatures under sustained loads. Having a gigantic heat-dumping GPU adjacent to an SSD heatsink is never optimal.
Final Thoughts
Fans of ASUS ROG motherboards will already have a fair idea of what to expect from the ROG Crosshair X870E Hero, even without reading any reviews. With few exceptions, ROG boards are rich in features, innovation, and BIOS maturity and have a premium aesthetic.
And they're priced accordingly. $699 is a lot to pay for a motherboard, and it's almost certainly not even ASUS' flagship, assuming it releases an X870E Extreme at some point. You can get many of the same features on boards like the ASRock X870E Taichi or MSI X870E Carbon for around $200. Is the 'ASUS premium' worth it? Brand loyalty matters, and it's a price ASUS fans will pay.
Short of true flagship features like 10G LAN or an OLED screen, it's hard to think of anything that's obviously missing. You get the common X870 features like USB4 and Wi-Fi 7 and a host of ease-of-use functionality. But you can add to that 5G LAN, 320MHz Wi-Fi support, a good-quality audio solution, and a somewhat subtle yet attractive design. ASUS goes further, though, with the inclusion of SlimSAS, three PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, and 60W Power Delivery support. Those three things certainly go some way (but not all) to explaining the high cost of the X870E Hero.
ASUS has publicly shown off the X870E Hero's overclocking prowess, which goes to its memory and CPU overclocking performance. Its robust VRM solution is more than enough to power an overclocked Ryzen 9 9950X, even with liquid nitrogen cooling. Until AMD releases the AM6 socket several years from now, it's hard to imagine this board struggling with anything AMD releases until then, and that includes X3D processors.
ASUS ROG BIOS hardly needs an introduction. The layout and functionality will be familiar to long-time ROG fans. Its EZ-Mode will suit novice users, while the advanced pages include comprehensive tweaking options for those looking to extract everything from their system. If there's a weakness, it's the primary SSD heatsink, which is a little surprising given its large surface area. We'd also like to see a 10G LAN in place of the dual 2.5G and 5G LAN. Finally, it remains to be seen if the SlimSAS port will find a foothold among mainstream consumers.
The ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero is a powerful board that won't disappoint. It's an easy recommendation, though an expensive one. If you're in the market for a top-spec X870 board but don't want to pay really silly money for true flagships, the Hero is for you.