ASUS Maximus VIII Hero ATX Motherboard - Grey/Red/Black

Product Information

The advantages of having PRO Clock embedded within your motherboard are a reduced boot up time, lower jitter under extreme conditions and enhanced stability under heavy overclocking. There are only two USB 3 ports in addition to these, so if you have lots of SuperSpeed devices, you may find the Hero a little lacking. Around the LGA 1151 socket is a heat pipe-interconnected heat sink that is stylish and is tasked with managing the heat load from the VRM circuit. Hooking up LED strips, replacing fans and adding any other additions to your build will be welcomed with little hassle.

SSD and the original Hero would be much better value - that SSD is just as fast, cheaper and offers 100GB more space too. The board and the included tech is improessive enough on its own, but let's take a look at the software package ASUS includes that is clearly aimed at the Republic of Gamers audience. This Maximus VIII is from Asus' Hero line, which is a motherboard that has been optimised and honed for perfectly-balanced enthusiast-grade, gaming desktops. This way the VRM gets active airflow, and that is why the temperature on the back of the board exceeds that on the front of the board.It has minor setbacks with an odd plastic shroud (subjective) but It is incredibly hard to fault this board. Having the same power phase layout and design also points me to the fact that the Hero Alpha will be a top performing motherboard for overclockers; we achieved 5. In my opinion, the ASUS UEFI BIOS are some of the easiest to use and as silly as it sounds, best looking. ports (the lowest one below the PS/2 connector is for USB BIOS Flashback), PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse, BIOS Flashback button, Display Port, HDMI port, 1x USB 3.

All systems will act differently, so I will look for commonalities, such as how far from the VRM the heat spreads through the PCB and the difference in temperature between the front side and backside of the PCB. It makes for perfect pairing with Intel’s recent high-end Skylake CPUs and comes with an extensive array of features to make sure you are getting the most out of your system.

The two LED headers are located at the base of the board next to the power and reset buttons, so it should be easy to route strip cables away out of sight using extension cables and the latter should mean that getting a strip to the roof of the case is no problem either. ASUS does an excellent job providing all the features an overclocker's heart could desire, many of which you should consult ASUS's guide to use.