ASUS has made a robust board in the Hero, and I feel like there are compromises with every board to hit a price point, but the Hero reaches a very good balance. Here we see once the GPU reaches its peak thermals and flattens out that the system pulls 418W at the AC cable. The lower edge of the board carries various connectivity as follows: The bottom of the Hero has various connectivity and controls; one of the coolest and worth note is the retry button. In many cases, ASUS can have several controllers that all contribute to the RGB and other ROG features for the board. We use the same endpoint, but we are transferring data from the internal SanDisk Extreme Pro 1TB NVMe SSD. Also of note is that the second x16 PCIe slot is indeed wired for x8 lanes, which will pull from the top slot. Moving to the 7-Zip compression suite, we see the Hero at the lower mid-pack range, but within a second of the top spot. Here, with the MP600, we see that the Hero falls within what would be average variance for the drive and well within the other board's results. The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero (WiFi) is the most affordable ROG Maximus XII board you can get, and it is definitely quite an enticing package with most of ROG's key features baked in here, for quite a lot less money than its more premium brethren. WebXPRT is a browser-based test, and we like this test as this is one of the areas not many think to test. Loading up the CPU with a full FPU load, and the Hero jumps up to 282W at steady-state once full saturation was complete and thermals normalized under stress. Being out of the box performance. Guru3D.com » Review » ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero review » Page 8 ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero review - Hardware & Software Used by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 05/22/2020 12:41 PM [ If you run this sort of workload, all of these boards will do the job similarly. Here we give space to the motherboard manufacturer to talk about their marketing points, and we assess them and provide our point of view on the claims. An i219V Gigabit LAN from Intel backs the 5Gb Aquantia LAN. Here we get a peek at the I/O, and you can see the connectivity above. The actual voltage under load with LLC level 6 is 1.318-1.322 from a direct DMM reading at the inductors. Pulling the lower cladding form the Hero, and we find that the PCH cover is an RGB lit plastic piece covering the PCH heat sink below. Some boards have more stringent tuning on this, and the bursts are super quick and sometimes not even caught on data logging. The feature set while a bit watered down form the Formula and Extreme is still stout for the price, so let's see what the new Hero offers. Now till present day, he has established himself in the overclocking world, spending many years pushing the limits of hardware on LN2. For FPU testing, we have 32-bit single-precision first. Products certified by the Federal Communications Commission and Industry Canada will be distributed in the United States and Canada. This shows that the performance very much depends on the workload, and I think ASUS could make up some ground here by tightening up some of the underlying presets in the UEFI to get a more substantial showing here. The I/O on the Hero is quite stuffed as you can see below: As you can see, there is no shortage of high-speed connectivity on the rear panel of the Hero. Introduction The Asus ROG Maximus Hero (WiFi) line has been the bedrock of HEXUS test systems in recent years. These Power stages are teamed as ASUS does not use doublers, so they feed the same PWM signal to a pair of power stages. First up, of course, we take a peek behind the curtain of the VRM and what makes it work. It's a motherboard that packs substantial power, smart cooling and faster memory support under a stealthy skin. Another feature worth noting is the "water-cooling zone" that is a series of connectors for radiator fans, water pumps, or flow rate headers, depending on the board model. Moving to Aida64, we start with memory performance. As we move up to the top where we find the EPS connectors, we find that the Hero employs an 8+4 arrangement, which should be enough to handle even a highly clocked 10900K easily. This also happens to be a real-world usage test that can be impacted by the mitigations which have recently rolled through and were patched. 10Gb Network: This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would like to see 10Gb as that would almost fill out the entire feature stack for high-speed connectivity options. This is not something you should be using regularly as memory settings that unstable are likely going to be problematic on an everyday configuration. They are designed to be more robust and handle higher amperage, which means a CPU can be pushed harder without issues from the connector. 3-year Warranty. However, I will note that if it is anything like the Extreme, it will be massive overkill. 9 out of 10 And congrats Asus, you have done your usual finely polished job in pushing out this solid motherboard but as usual. Maximus XII Hero features a differential-sensing circuit and delicate IC that simplify overclocking and tuning by allowing you to track voltages more accurately. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload that will utilize one thread or 1T. There are a few feature icons, but you know what you are getting by just giving a peek to the rear of the packaging, which holds a board overview, spec list, and feature highlights. All of the thermal pads have solid depressions telling me that they are making good contact. Asus ROG Maximus XII Hero (Wi-Fi) is an impressive motherboard that matches Core i9-10900K superbly well. The longer tests show the Hero dropping to mid-pack, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as all of the boards are within mere seconds of each other. PCIe 4.0: While the PCIe 4 is not here, for Intel at least, we know that by the time it is, there will be even more GPUs and SSD's available that can utilize the faster interface. The standard PCB isolation layer is seen here as well, which helps isolate the audio portion from other signaling by creating almost an island on the PCB for it. Below this, we have the Aquantia 5Gb LAN controller model number AQC111C. The connectivity includes many high-speed interfaces both on the rear and on the board headers. If you have been paying attention to the numbering you’ll realize this is a new socket type however, uses the same heatsink mounting as the previous LGA 115x. The inductors are massive and familiar designs, with Japanese black 10k rated caps. Here they also show the dual-slot with Safelot metal stiffening integrated into the slots. This test is far more efficient and speed based rather than being highly threaded. We may earn an affiliate commission. The next part of network testing is a file transfer test. The Hero is blacked out until you light up the RGB, and this means if you turn the RGB off, it is a perfect board for a stealth build. All tests are run a minimum of three times, and any outliers are discarded, and a replacement test run will be completed to achieve our average results. Highlights. With that said ASUS has done a great job at grouping all of the relevant settings together so that you can quickly change all of the common options at once. This will provide good contact with the M.2 cooling plates. Do note that some platforms do not support the new PCIe gen 4, and therefore will cap out around 3400-3500MB/s. It works well with multi-threading and also can see gains from clock speed as well. The Maximus lineup typically comprises four models: the Hero, Apex, Formula, and Extreme. It's a motherboard that packs substantial power, smart cooling, and faster memory support under a stealthy skin. Now, I think it's about time we move on to the PCB and circuit analysis of the Maximus XII Hero (Wi-Fi). One of the initial boards we reviewed for Z490 was the Maximus XII Extreme, and today we have its much lesser priced sibling in the Maximus XII Hero (Wi-Fi). Lastly, we have 80-bit extended precision, and I'm sure you can guess the result or look at the chart. ASUS Maximus XII Formula (Intel Z490) Motherboard Review ASUS' Maximus XII Formula board based on Intel's Z490 chipset is one to add to your consideration list, but it will cost you. Please contact us if you wish to respond. Testing synthetic GPU stress only is an excellent way to show the overhead the CPU adds, as the GPU does not pull more power after it reaches steady state. Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to showcase their newest platforms during unveils. Here we see the actual throughput from windows reporting at a mostly uninterrupted 558MB/s. The reason for this is it will represent what the entire system pulls versus our meter, which shows power draw on each PSU cable. The Hero finds itself on the upper side of the mid-pack results. We use IPerf for network throughput testing; the server is an 8700K based DIY rig with an Aquantia 10Gb interface. Moving into the UEFI, and the very user-friendly easy mode interface greets you. Well, that is correct in theory, but the reset button is renamed to the flex key as its purpose can be changed to be a retry button, among other features, to best fit your use case. First is the addition of Intel JHL8540 and the Cypress CYPD5225-96BZXI. Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing, Clocks, Overclocking, Thermals, and Power Consumption, ASUS ProArt Z490-CREATOR 10G Motherboard Review, GIGABYTE AORUS Z490I Ultra Motherboard Review, ASUS Maximus XII Formula (Intel Z490) Motherboard Review, Next-gen PS5-powered PSVR headset announced, won't come in 2021, GPU-Z has early support for AMD's new Radeon RX 6700, RX 6600 cards, Portable AYA Neo console: fits in your hand, also plays Crysis, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 spotted for around $500, up from $329 MSRP, GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 HOF can now be pre-ordered, costs up to $3400, Inno3D GeForce RTX 3060 Ti iCHILL X3 Review, ASUS ROG Delta S USB-C Gaming Headset Review, SAPPHIRE TOXIC Radeon RX 6900 XT Limited Edition Review, MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING X TRIO Review, Best HDMI 2.1 Monitors for PC Gaming, Consoles, and Professionals. PCIe slot allocation is a single x16 or dual at x8/x8 to fit SLI cards or AIC SSD's depending upon needs. The Maximus lineup is now in its 12th instalment and carries with it the Hero, Apex, Formula and Extreme models – all of which host the new Intel Z490 chipset. In this review we will be looking at the ASUS Maximus XII Hero motherboard. By default, the flex key is set up as a reset button. CONNECTIVITY ROG Maximus XII Hero offers advanced connectivity, including WiFi 6 (AX201) and dual Ethernet with intel ® 1Gb and Marvell ® 5Gb Ethernet port to eliminate bottlenecks so you can enjoy exceptionally … Here we see that under this sort of workload, we get a bit more of a spread. Newegg shopping upgraded ™ ROG Maximus XII Hero is the perfect foundation for the Republic of Gamers. For anyone who has big hands like me, you have no idea the struggle to hookup the tiny front panel connectors. Unigine Superposition is one of our 3D gaming loads, and we test it at the 720p low preset to remove the GPU from the equation as much as possible and show the impact of the system on graphical performance. I assume as UEFI matures, we will see more performance squeezed from the Z490 based platform. The Hero has eight fan … Price. This motherboard is build on the new Intel Z490 chipset and is designed for the Intel 10 th generation LGA 1200 Processors. The name in foil highlights which board you have. Asus ROG Maximus XI Hero (Wi-Fi) Review Asus ROG Maximus XI Hero is a mid-range Z390 motherboard that's intended for building gaming rigs and workstations on. The ASUS UEFI is really quite nice but can quickly become an exercise in “spinning through the menus” when looking for a particular feature. For DX12 based systems with multi-threading and also can see the Maximus XII Hero is the one that. 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