ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z690 HERO Motherboard Preview

Motherboard Overview

Without a doubt, this is one of the best looking motherboards we’ve ever seen. It has a menacing look to it too, so while it still has a two-tone effect to it, it’s mostly black on black, with just a few hints of chrome/mirror finish to provide some accents. Even little details are well looked after, with the majority of chips, caps, connectors and buttons all finished in black, with only a few exceptions.

It’s my understanding that the board is running a 20+1 Power Stage design for the VRM, but I’ll certainly confirm this for the final review, but that would make it competitive with its similarly priced rivals from AORUS and MSI. It would also explain why this board has some beastly VRM heatsinks, and there is a lot of metal here with an even larger heatsink on the left, topped with a gorgeous mirror finish shroud that has integrated RGB. There’s also a very large heatpipe bridging the two heatsinks, ensuring maximum cooling performance throughout.

All that power comes from a pair of 8-pin PSU headers, which is good news for those wanting to push bigger overclocks, as it’ll mean more stable voltages overall. They’re also armoured/shielded rather than just stock plastic blocks, which is a nice touch.

There are four DDR5 slots on this motherboard, with a reinforced divider in the middle. Surrounding the RAM, and for that matter, everything else on this motherboard, you’ll notice those gorgeous FP10K black caps giving the board a nice premium look. There’s also a BIOS LED in the corner, as well as onboard power controls. There’s an additional 6-pin PSU header just below the 24-pin too, which will allow you to provide more stable voltages to the peripheral connectors, which is great for those wanting to push bigger overclocks.

Speaking of PCIe lanes, there are three full-size PCIe lanes on this motherboard. Amazingly, it does not say on the box what speeds they are. However, looking at the premium armour, it’s safe to assume the top two are PCIe Gen 5.0 while the bottom one is most likely a PCI Gen 3.0 port. There’s a large removable heatsink at the top, and another at the bottom too, with space to mount three additional M.2 drives below them.

There are six SATA3 ports, and don’t forget that PCIe M.2 card that came in the box too!

Audio is taken pretty seriously on this board, with the ALC4082 High-Def audio codec delivering 7.1 surround via the five gold-plated audio jacks. There’s also a powerful AMP/DAC combo built-in, thanks to the ESS SABRE 9018Q2C chipset.

The rear I/O is well equipped, with a pair of Thunderbolt 4.0 ports, as well as a Gen 3.2 Type-C, and a suite of other high-speed USB ports. There’s built-in Intel WiFi 6, as well as 2.5 GbE LAN, giving you some great networking options too.

Finally, you have RGB! While the board features a mirror finish (see below) when powered off…

There are some gorgeous LED lights hiding below the surface!

They’re a complete arse to get good photos of, though, but it looks better in person, honest!