The best motherboard for Ryzen? ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero in check!

It’s still there Ryzen 7 9800X3D not on the market. But hardly any other CPU is currently awaited with as much excitement as the latest iteration of AMD processors with 3D V-cache, which have now taken the gaming market by storm. Especially in the high-end PC sector, the focus is often on the central components of the experience: a CPU that is as fast, diverse and, ideally, highly overclockable as possible. A modern GPU of the latest generation that not only masters upscaling techniques and ray tracing, but also eats up a lot of money. RAM memory with the best possible timings and an NVME hard drive with really high write rates. That all the individual elements are only possible through this motherboard brought into harmony often falls into the background – wrongly!

The brand new Ryzen 9000 processors, three models of which have now come onto the market, are also compatible with “older” motherboards. But the brand new X870E models are exactly what you want with support for USB 4 & Wi-Fi 7 as well as clever comfort features to optimize the gaming or general PC experience as best as possible. For the release of the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero We looked at the most important innovations and changes to the mainboard and clarified whether users of older Ryzen processors should also “switch” or who the high-end board is actually suitable for.

ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E: Equipment and new features

The ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E is the new flagship AM5 board from Asus. And it becomes clear at first glance: It starts with the impressive packaging and of course continues when you see the mainboard with its gray-metallic fronts and impressive heatsinks for the first time. In terms of design, ASUS remains largely true to the previous generation, even if the heatsinks are generally a little rounder and therefore less “sharp-edged”. The apparently biggest difference to the X670E is the backplate of the mainboard, which is not only very useful, but also extremely valuable. The equipment includes many different M.2 installation sets, the obligatory Wi-Fi 7-Q antenna, cables & other accessories and, curiously, an ROG bottle opener. Our tip: It’s better to keep the bottle opener away from the mainboard, but of course feel free to use it to open a nice beer (or other cold glass drink) when your new PC build boots up for the first time.

Of course, more important than the bottle opener are the internal values ​​of the mainboard and the innovations that ASUS has installed here compared to its predecessor: As far as the connections are concerned, this time two USB-A slots have been omitted, although they are powered by a 5 GB Realtek Lan port were replaced (a feature that was often requested in the past). The Intel 2.5 GB LAN port is also still on the board. Otherwise, there are two brand new USB 4 slots with a transfer rate of 40 GB/s in the back panel I/O, which are controlled via USB-C. The remaining connections are basically the usual suspects:

• 2 x USB4® (40Gbps) ports (2 x USB Type-C®)
• 8 x USB 10Gbps ports (6 x Type-A + 2 x USB Type-C®)
• 1 x HDMI™ port
• 1 x Wi-Fi Module
• 1 x Intel® 2.5Gb Ethernet port
• 1 x Realtek 5Gb Ethernet port
• 2 x Gold Blade Audio Connector
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Port
• 1 x BIOS FlashBack™ button
• 1 x Clear CMOS Button

While the VRM layout with 18+2+2 phases has largely remained the same and offers enough power for the current and future Ryzen 9000 series processors, there is now also a Wi-Fi 7 module from MediaTek on board that has the full bandwidth of 320 MHz offers. Of course, you also need a Wi-Fi 7-capable router and at least Windows 11 24H2 to be able to use the full bandwidth of the new Wi-Fi standard, but more and more manufacturers are currently releasing exciting models with Wi-Fi 7. This is important also that there are a total of five M.2 slots: three of them already support PCIe 5.0×4 mode, two of them support PCIe 4.0×4 mode. In fact, the configuration of the M.2 modules also has an impact on whether one of the two PCIe slots is activated or whether the PCIe slot is only operated with x8 instead of x16. The effects could be a bit confusing for beginners, and for a board in this price range it would of course be ideal if the M.2 modules did not negatively affect the bandwidth of the PCIe slots.

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From Q-Tips: ASUS ROG wants to simplify building

Speaking of M.2 and PCIe Express slots, one of the most apparently “revolutionary” changes to the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero isn’t necessarily a hardware innovation, but rather the way the M.2 slots and PCIe Slot will be served in the future. I probably don’t need to explain to any PC builder that installing graphics cards and hard drives has often become a nerve-wracking task in the past. ASUS ROG wants to simplify this process significantly with its Q-Tips: NVME hard drives can now be clamped much more easily into several M.2 slots and with an additional security that can also be easily released at the push of a button. In the primary SSD slot, this also affects the large heatsink, which is secured by a Q-tip. In our tests, this worked really well and made installation on the mainboard easier, especially with large hands.

Some tweaks were also made to the BIOS and the Q-Tips were also used: A great feature is the Q-Dashboard, which clearly shows you all active connections on the dashboard. A cable is a bit loose and a component is therefore not working? No problem! The location can be easily located using the Q-Dashboard without taking apart the entire PC build. There are also options for overclocking in the BIOS, which are significantly expanded by the Armory Crate.

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Conclusion on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero

Fit for Future: It should be clear that the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero will not be an option for budget-conscious PC buyers. But the high-end board delivers maximum future-proof performance with many useful new features: In addition to Wi-Fi 7, USB4 and support for PCIe 5.0, the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero also has very clever upgrades such as the Q-Tips, significantly better options for RAM memory and a revised BIOS on board. The AMD ROG Crosshair And it is also prepared for the coming years and of course also for the next generation of graphics cards, which Nvidia, for example, is expected to release at the beginning of next year.

The mainboard was provided to us by the manufacturer for the test.