ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero (WI-FI AC) Motherboard review

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero (WI-FI AC) Motherboard review

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero (WI-FI AC) Motherboard review

ProsX370 Chipset for Enthusiast-Level Performance
14 USB Ports on Back I/O
AM3 and AM4 Mounting Holes
Dedicated Watercooling Headers for Pumps and Sensors
RGB Lighting – On-Board and RGB Headers
CrossFire and SLI Support
Looks Amazing

Cons

A Bit Expensive
Memory Support – Will Improve With Firmware.

SPECIFICATIONS

CPU
AMD AM4 Socket for AMD Ryzen™/7th Generation A-series/Athlon™ Processors
Supports AM4 Socket 14 nm CPU
Supports CPU up to 8 cores
* Refer to www.asus.com for CPU support list

Chipset
AMD X370

Memory
AMD Ryzen™ Processors
4 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR4 3200(O.C.)/2666/2400/2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory *
AMD 7th Generation A-series/Athlon™ Processors
4 x DIMM, Max. 64GB, DDR4 2400/2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory *
Dual Channel Memory Architecture
** Refer to www.asus.com for the Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists).

Multi-GPU Support
Supports NVIDIA® 2-Way SLI™ Technology *3
Supports AMD CrossFireX™ Technology

Expansion Slots
AMD Ryzen™ Processors
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8)
AMD 7th Generation A-series/Athlon™ Processors
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x8 mode)
AMD X370 chipset
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (max at x4 mode) *1
3 x PCIe 2.0 x1

Storage
AMD Ryzen™ Processors :
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)
AMD 7th Generation A-series/Athlon™ Processors :
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (SATA mode)
AMD X370 chipset :
8 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s),
Support Raid 0, 1, 10

LAN
Intel® I211-AT, 1 x Gigabit LAN Controller(s)
Anti-surge LANGuard
ROG GameFirst IV

Audio
ROG SupremeFX 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC S1220
– Impedance sense for front and rear headphone outputs
– Supports : Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-retasking
– High quality 120 dB SNR stereo playback output and 113 dB SNR recording input
– SupremeFX Shielding Technology
– ESS® ES9023P
– Supports up to 32-Bit/192kHz playback *2
Audio Feature :
– Gold-plated jacks
– Optical S/PDIF out port(s) at back panel
– Sonic Radar III
– Sonic Studio III

USB Ports
AMD Ryzen™/7th Generation A-series/Athlon™ Processors :
4 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 port(s) (4 at back panel, blue)
AMD X370 chipset :
1 x USB 3.1 front panel connector port(s)
AMD X370 chipset :
6 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 port(s) (4 at back panel, blue, 2 at mid-board)
AMD X370 chipset :
6 x USB 2.0 port(s) (4 at back panel, black, 2 at mid-board)
ASMedia® USB 3.1 controller :
2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port(s) (2 at back panel, black+red, Type-A + USB Type-CTM)

ROG Exclusive Features
Clear CMOS button
ROG RAMCache II
ROG CPU-Z
ROG CloneDrive
Slow Mode
Overwolf
ReTry Button
Safe Boot Button
Start Button
Reset Button
LN2 Mode
GameFirst IV
ROG Aura
– Aura Lighting Control
– Aura RGB Strip Headers
Extreme Engine Digi+ :
– MicroFine Alloy Chokes
– NexFET™ Power Block MOSFET
– 10K Black Metallic Capacitors
Mem TweakIt
KeyBot II
– One-click Overclocking
– DirectKey
– ClrCMOS
– Power On
UEFI BIOS features :
– O.C. Profile
– Tweakers’ Paradise
– ROG SSD Secure Erase
– Graphic Card Information Preview
ROG RAMDisk
Extreme Tweaker
Loadline Calibration
BIOS Flashback

Special Features
ASUS Dual Intelligent Processors 5-Way Optimization by Dual Intelligent Processors 5 :
– 5-Way Optimization tuning key perfectly consolidates TPU, EPU, DIGI+ VRM, Fan Expert 4, and Turbo App
TPU
– Fan Xpert 4 featuring Fan Auto Tuning function and multiple thermistors
Gamer’s Guardian:
– SafeSlot
ASUS Exclusive Features :
– AI Suite 3
ASUS EZ DIY :
– ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
– ASUS EZ Flash 3
ASUS Q-Design :
– ASUS Q-Shield
– ASUS Q-Code
– ASUS Q-LED (CPU, DRAM, VGA, Boot Device LED)
– ASUS Q-DIMM
– ASUS Q-Connector

Back I/O Ports
1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (black)Type-CTM
1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (red)Type-A
8 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 (blue)
4 x USB 2.0 (one port can be switched to USB BIOS Flashback)
1 x Optical S/PDIF out
1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
1 x USB BIOS Flashback Button(s)
5 x Gold-plated audio jacks
1 x M.2 Wi-Fi Slot

Internal I/O Ports
2 x RGB Header(s)
1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 connector(s) support(s) additional 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 port(s)
1 x USB 2.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 2 USB 2.0 port(s)
1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support
1 x TPM header
8 x SATA 6Gb/s connector(s)
1 x CPU Fan connector(s)
1 x CPU OPT Fan connector(s)
3 x Chassis Fan connector(s)
1 x W_PUMP+ connector
1 x AIO_PUMP connector
1 x 8-pin EATX 12 V Power connector
1 x 4-pin EATX 12 V_1 Power connector(s)
1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector(s)
1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
1 x Slow Mode switch(es)
1 x Thermal sensor connector(s)
1 x Reset button(s)
1 x LN2 Mode jumper(s)
1 x ROG extension (ROG_EXT) header(s)
1 x Safe Boot button
1 x ReTry button
1 x System panel connector
2 x 3D Mount screw port(s)
1 x W_IN header
1 x W_OUT header
1 x W_FLOW header
1 x Start button
1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 front panel connector

Accessories
User’s manual
ASUS Q-Shield
4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
1 x M.2 Screw Package
1 x Supporting DVD
1 x SLI HB BRIDGE(2-WAY-M)
1 x ROG big sticker
1 x Q-Connector
1 x 10-in-1 ROG cable label
1 x Extension Cable for RGB strips (80 cm)
1 x 3D printing mount package
1 x ROG coaster(s)

BIOS
128 Mb Flash ROM, UEFI AMI BIOS, PnP, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 3.0, ACPI 6.1, Multi-language BIOS,
ASUS EZ Flash 3, CrashFree BIOS 3, F11 EZ Tuning Wizard, F6 Qfan Control, F3 My Favorites, Last Modified log,
F12 PrintScreen and ASUS DRAM SPD (Serial Presence Detect) memory information

Manageability
WfM 2.0, WOL by PME, PXE

Support Disc
Drivers
AURA
ROG GameFirst IV*3
ROG RAMDisk
ROG RAMCache II
ROG CPU-Z
ROG Mem TweakIt
ROG Keybot II
Sonic Studio III
Sonic Radar III
Overwolf
CloneDrive
Kaspersky® Anti-Virus
DAEMON Tools Software
Winzip
ASUS WebStorage
ASUS Utilities

Operating System
Windows® 10 64-bit

Form Factor
ATX Form Factor
12 inch x 9.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm )

excuse me over the crosshair six hero board it's one of the higher end a.m. form X 370 motherboard we're going to take a look at it in this review sedition around now as we're thinking about multiples that I reviewed yesterday the first thing you notice is the new a.m. for socket this is a PG a sulcus a pin grid array and as 1331 pins in it making it a few hundred pins extra over the last am-3 socket the border cell features fairly similar styling to there's there 270 hero

board was the only main difference really being that for a CPU socket in the middle and especially the mounting hardware that surrounded the holes that actually are in the motherboard are for this specific model very interesting because you actually have two holes they're right next to each other these holes are for either a m3 or a m4 modes in hardware which means if you buy this one on the board you don't have to care what your CPU cooler

supports as long as it supports a m3 or at support and for either one will work with this which is why I'm using the acosta venom a 20 on this at the moment as this one does support m3 and therefore I'm using the am three holes in this motherboard it's a very interesting design and I'm actually quite glad they went with this because it means that you know older cores can be

supported without any of the upgrade kits that might depending on who you ask cost you some money of course with this being an AM 4x 370 motherboard we do have some nice upgrades over the m3 platform boards stuff like ddr4 supports also stuff like PCIe gen3 point o as well as reinforced PCI slots and these ones are a sushis take on how to reinforce a PCI slot with just a metal built into the plastic it's quite an interesting design they claim that it's stronger than

gigabyte and MSI's add versions although I haven't tested that myself so I leave that one up to you to in a workout but either way there's some really a nice new features on here take a look on the right-hand side of the board you can see the debug LED display at the top this is really useful if you're planning an overclocking just to work out what went wrong or if you're having any other issues that they're really useful just below that you have the 3d printing they basically

include or you can download 3d printable files that allow you to do stuff like cat 24-pin covers and stuff like that you can get obviously 3d prints and more gets on the right shape ways to make it for you and then attach it using some screws included in the vault so that's quite nice just below the 24 pin you have a USB 3.1 front panel header which is one of the great new features about the board as well and obviously well cases aren't quite supporting it just yet it is

still nice that these boards come ready with that and then just below that you have your eight pad support which is actually quite happy especially being compared to the 37 C lineup which normally has somewhere in the area six then at the bottom of the board you have a whole lot of connections including the usual USB 3.0 front panel header in case your case doesn't support a USB 3.1 you also have the ROG extension a trusted partner module connector which is not it's

actually it looks a bit smaller than the usual TPM connector but either way that's fine you also have the audio section to the left of the front panel header as well and this is still a split PCB audio is the supreme effects a set up was actually sounds quite nice and there's a lot of new features to build that as well so that one's quite cool and either way there's also a few LED connectors on here as well one by the CPU socket for those new race killers with the RGB LEDs

built into them and then one down at the bottom for your usual or a sink type stuff if you want to plug in some external LEDs to your weight W case and have that sync with your motherboard one thing you should know is that this lotta board uses an 8 pin and a 4 pin for your CPU power connectors up at the top left hand corner this I believe normally speaking you can not only leave out that fourth pin just plug in the eight pin if you're not really heavily

overclocking but I generally recommend plugging them in anyway especially if you're are planning and overclocking on the topic of overclocking next to the 24 pin in fact basically on the 24 pin you have some voltage check points so if you have a multimeter you can read the voltage for your 12 volt your 5 volt your 3.3 volt and your CPU core voltage and all that sort of stuff which is really nice that's very easy to access so if you are climbing an overclocking that's a

very nice thing to do while we're on the topic I should probably mention I'm doing a full review on how to overclock things right and CP tomorrow and of course if you're watching this anytime in the future that will already go on the channel for you to proofread to take a look at that one if you want to know a sort of general look and overclock them and the rising master utility but specifically talking about this word board it's actually really easy there's also

overclocking settings available for you and you should basically just click and it'll auto overclock for you or you can load the your profiles before games profile seems like a collect stable one so that's awesome and of course you can just manually overclock yourself it seems that fairly simple fairly easy to do there's actually a lot of in-depth settings there as well as you're quite an advanced overclocker so that's really awesome an overall speaking about the

BIOS it seems like a very nice detailed fairly well laid out fairly easy to use by us I think I still prefer MSI's look and feel but this one is probably second on the list for I just you know how detailed how easy it is to use and all that sort of stuff for me aesthetics is something that is usually to pay attention to and it certainly shows on this board I do quite like the overall style of it of course we've got the RGB LEDs on the tops a tree rail cover as well as inside the chipset

you think and you do have those are headers if you want to plug in some LED strips and have that thing core of course you want to use an asus graphics card that will also sink for you to take a look at the rail you can do this is that a rather impressive setup of USB ports you have eight USB 3.1 ports you have four USB 2.0 port shows kind of a BIOS reset and a clear CMOS button as well as the audio connections Gigabit Ethernet as well as the USB type-c and USB 3.1

type-a so that's quite nice as well I think it's important to note that this board is pretty much the most expensive and forum on the board I've seen so far of course this can change over time is a really higher-end formula and extremal at sort of stuff boards but for the time being it is still fairly expensive and well you do get some really awesome overclocking things especially in the bath and those also check points it is definitely for the higher-priced fellows so that is just

something to be aware of either way this is a really impressive board I really do like the styling of it I like the BIOS I like the overclocking settings you can for this and of course if you are interested and all other stylish motherboards and this one isn't too bad one thing I would like to see is Wi-Fi support they do have an MDOT to slot up on the rear i/o that you can use for Wi-Fi even has a hole on the motherboard ready for a Wi-Fi module but they don't have little includes

that Wi-Fi module in it's an added extra you have to pay more for and you have to buy separately so I'd really like to see that especially at this relatively higher price point I'd like to see that included in terms of scoring I'm gonna go with a four five money I think there has to be a five for performance and a five for functionality with a four point five for style and a 4.5 for tech community score and think I'm going to go for a Gold Award as well it's a really impressive on the board I'm as I said very impressed is that a great board for overclocking

especially if you're in the more advanced category of that and of course if you just want a style conscious build then this is also pretty great too so let me don't you think of it in the comments down below .

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero (WI-FI AC) Motherboard review

the X 370 motherboard for AMD's rising processors in this review I'm going to be talking about who should buy this who should not buy alternatives you might consider which rise in CPUs you should put onto this board and then finally I'm going to take it out of the box and do a detailed look at all the parts and components on it so you can decide if this is the right choice

for you so who should consider buying this motherboard short answer enthusiasts overclockers if you already have a top tier system put together with a high-end processor Ram graphics card etc and you are looking for a motherboard to match this should be on your shortlist if you want to push you a rise in processor to 4.0 gigahertz or beyond and you have a good cooling solution

this motherboard is for you now what is by no means the least expensive board on the market but it is designed for overclockers one of the most convenient features on this that I've used multiple times is the clear CMOS button right on the back panel no need to open your system to reset your BIOS in the event your overclocking settings fail so you can tweak and play around with it and it's very easy to keep resetting it and then try again now if you are not

interested in top tier overclocking there is another board you can consider and that would be this one this is the asou spry m-- X 370 motherboard the crosshair six it has most of the features of the crosshair 6 and I will cover this in a separate review and this is going into a build however this is not primarily designed for overclockers but more mainstream enthusiasts now it will overclock but it's not designed for extreme and

enthusiast overclocking the crosshair 6 is so if you plan to buy a risin 7 1700 use the included race bar cooler run it at 3.7 gigahertz the prime board for a hundred and fifty dollars is the one to buy if on the other hand you plan to buy a 1700 X or an 1800 X you plan to install a 240 millimeter or larger liquid cooler then the crosshair six hero is for you because it has the features you're going to want to get the most out of your premium top-end processor now

speaking of processor let me be absolutely clear the 1700 X and the 1800 X are the only two CPUs you should consider installing in a motherboard of this magnitude any of the other CPUs simply make no sense you would be better off buying the prime board for

less and installing a faster CPU so this board is if you're already buying a top-tier processor in frankly the 1700 X is the deal now I have overclocked all three of the Rison seven CPUs the 1700 X and

the 1800 X both have no problem running at 4.0 gigahertz the 1700 however does struggle there and I've seen similar reports from other reviewers that the X chips do seem to be Bend a bit better and overclock a little faster in May of 2017 when review the price difference between the 1700 and the 1700 X if you're looking at spending on a motherboard that is not a large price difference and I highly

recommend at least the 1700 X for this board the next consideration is what system memory should you buy now this advice applies to the crosshair 6 here a motherboard not the less expensive prime motherboard I have three memory kits here from g.skill all three are ddr4 3200 megahertz the only one you should buy is this one the flare X it is certified and tested for Rison and I can tell you from personal experience this Ram runs flawlessly at ddr4 3200 out of

the box in automatic mode on this motherboard these two kits do not they both run at ddr4 2666 the 32 hundred megahertz speed on trident z and Ripjaws v were designed for Intel motherboards not AMD Rison boards they will run but not at their full speed so if you want a high-end enthusiast system which you should if you're looking at a motherboard the extra cost for the Flair X Ram is worth it and it's what I would recommend now these are all 16

gigabyte kits if you need 32 gigabytes or 64 gigabytes of RAM for video editing video production virtual machines etc you will not be able to run 32 hundred megahertz Ram it simply isn't currently an option now there are options for that g.skill does make Rison certified ram in the 32 and the 64 gigabyte sizes for the X 370 chipsets but it's not going to run at 3200 megahertz before I show you the unboxing itself I just want to draw your attention to some key

features of this motherboard here you can see a detailed look at everything now this motherboard has basically every feature you could want in a high-end motherboard I won't cover everything in detail here but I would encourage you for more information to check out the link that I'll put in the review description below to a Seuss's website if you'd like to look at this in more detail but it really does have a lot of features did I mention this motherboard was

for overclocking enthusiasts this motherboard has water cooling support built right into it there are specialty commoners and sensors for open-loop custom water coolers now that's really outside the purview of my channel I don't tend to do stuff like custom open-loop coolers it's more a js2 sense thing than it is me however if that's something you're interested in this motherboard has got you completely covered my personal recommendation is most people

probably are better off with a closed-loop cooler such as something from Corsair their h1 15i or the cooler master master liquid pro 280 the mounting holes for a m3 and m4 coolers are on this board all other ex 370 boards only have the mounting holes for a m4 compatible coolers so if you have an older style cooler that was designed for a m3 the previous generation FX series chipsets it will work on this board and no other so this is nice you don't have to worry about

having the correct bracket you can go out and buy any cooler that you want and it should work just fine on this board lighting options the RGB lighting is very nice on the or take a look you can set this to any sort of color that you want we can rotate this around we can select green and you'll see the lights on the board light up here we can select red and you'll see those light up you can choose rainbow color CPU temperature colors you can link it to the audio on your system

and what's really nice about this is there are two different RGB lighting strips so that you can add additional RGB lighting to your system and sync it up with your board to basically create Christmas on your desktop do you have other Aurora sync peripherals do you have a for example a soos republic of gamers Strix graphics card keyboard mouse they will all sync up with the asou software to allow you to basically color match all of the items in your system do

you have a high quality pair of headphones or a set of speakers on your desk do you have a 7.1 surround sound system do you want the best built-in audio you can find well you've come to the right place because it's got it now other motherboards have the same Realtek audio codec chip that this uses however this also uses an ESS saber - chip digital analog converter which is not on the prime board so there is an improved audio solution here that is not on the less expensive

boards do you have an interest in the 3d printing technology this motherboard has built-in mounts designed to accept 3d printed items now there are diagrams and mounting plates on the board and screws and mounts in the box if this is something you're interested in read up more on it I won't cover it more here but it's sort of a new thing that they're starting to do if you want to create custom covers custom connectors and other enhancements for your system this

right here is one of the reasons why suits motherboards are my favorite the BIOS the features within the BIOS are some of the best in the business I personally prefer the layout and design of this more than any of the others and I have used the others I've used Amazon as rocky gigabyte and they do the job and they're fine but from a preference point of view from a finding all the

features and having a lot of different choices the assist BIOS really is my personal favorite finally let me just say that the Republic of gamers line does include some it software programs that you can download from masseuses website and run on your board I'm not going to go into those in detail I encourage you to take a look at this page if you're interested in spending this kind of money on a motherboard it's worth thirty minutes of your time to go over all of these I

don't want to read a product spec page to you that you can certainly read yourself but there are some programs and unique utilities that are not available with the less expensive boards and you may find that they are of use to you so check the mount linked in the description below now I'm going to show you the unboxing of this motherboard I have now placed the Box on the desk so I can open this up and show you the unboxing close-up and detailed now we open the box

and the first thing you will notice it is very very nicely packed inside you can see of course the light reflection there is a plastic protective cover which I will remove and I'll just slide this forward to show this to you the attention to detail in the packaging they've got this interior cover with the logo welcome to the Republic a sous really likes their Republic of gamers

branding and if it's the sort of thing that you are interested in they certainly take it to the nth degree the motherboard itself can easily be removed from this cardboard protective case and you can see there's a little bit of plastic underneath it and I'm going to set this aside to show you what's in the rest of the box we'll take this piece of cardboard out that's actually a very nice piece of cardboard in here we have a 20 percent off cable mod coupon there's a coupon code on

the other side which I obviously won't show you but it's a 20% off any order from cable mod comm if you are interested in getting custom cables for your case we have a coaster here join the Republic if you're interested in maybe a coffee mug coaster we have the driver CD right here now ideally you will download updated drivers directly from a Seuss's website everything

on here is available for download but if you need anything in order to get online or you just have a slow internet connection and you want to start with this you certainly can we have a series of cable stickers these are the wrong cable labels you wrap these around the cables on both ends you've got five different colors here if you need help with cables and you like using cable labels there you go now we have the users guide I absolutely positively love a sous

manuals take a look at this a sous in my opinion produces the best manuals in the business take a look at that you've got there we go you have got every single item detailed in a nice motherboard layout you've got every single button in an actual paragraph in a section that explains everything now every motherboard comes with some kind of manual however this entire book is in English most manuals on most motherboards that I review they're this thick

but they've got ten different languages and it this has got every detail about everything the BIOS connecting drives setting up all the ports on the back very very very nice detailed manual so if you have any issues with setting up your machine you'll find everything answered in the manual and there is still more we still have this to lift off underneath here we have got some serial ata cables there are two in each of these containers so that is four serial ata cables many

motherboards only come with two or three so the fact that they give you four is a nice thing to have this is a extension cable for the RGB lighting system now there are RGB headers on this board if you want to put an RGB light strip around your case this is an extension cable so you don't have to start the RGB at the motherboard port you can get a cable and use this to extend where the RGB lighting starts nice that it comes with that this right here is very handy this is an assistance tool to plug in the power LED reset switch hard drive light etc on the corner of

the motherboard you don't have to use it but what it lets you do is plug those all in where you can see them it's labeled and then you just plug this in the motherboard very handy these are always nice to be included this is an nvidia sli high band width bridge even festooned with the rogue label right there of course now it's not RGB or LED but it is included which is nice now you can go out and buy these and not all motherboards include these some less expensive

boards don't have them and if you want to put two nvidia cards in you can easily pay twenty to thirty dollars for a high bandwidth bridge the new 10 series Nvidia cards the 1070 1080 and 1080 Ti will require one of these two sli here you can see our MDOT to post and screw this is for installing a MDOT two SSD on to the motherboard you will definitely need to save that don't lose that you'll need it now this right here is the 3d printing mounts now a soos is now

supporting 3d printing mounts and customizations for the board so there are several places on the board you can go to a Seuss's website if you're interested in that two of them in here actually two of them plus the screws save save that if you're interested in that here we come to the i/o shield look at that it is absolute black and it is silk screened with identifications now it does provide a cut out place if you want to pop it out for Wi-Fi the board does not come with Wi-Fi but it provides a place to put the Wi-Fi antenna if you want to add it marked for your

SuperSpeed ports your BIOS flash back port if you ever need to update the BIOS via a USB thumb drive your Gigabit Ethernet the ports for all of your HD audio are labeled here line out mic in etc and then your bias button in your clear CMOS button if you like to do a lot of heavy overclocking rather than having to worry about jumpers on the board there's a button on the back here that you can use to clear the CMOS so that you can go back to default settings and

try overclocking again Wow take a look at this we have got stickers yay stickers do you like these kind of things well there's lots of stickers here if you want to use it do not disturb there is somebody who's going to want to use that don't bother me I'm gaming that's actually really nice these are quality - they're kind of shiny so lots of stickers for you to play with that is everything in the box here you can see the motherboard close up I'm going to quickly go

around the board and talk about some of the features so you can see it in greater detail up here in the corner we have two CPU power connectors one for pin and one eight pin most modern higher-end power supplies that you would use with a motherboard will have two CPU power connectors if you have something older from a few years ago that may be an issue and you may need to replace the power supply so do check to make sure that you do have to

CPU power connectors now most of them are going to split from an 8 pin to a 4 plus 4 so you use half of one and all of the other you can see our nice high-quality screen door laser etched hero logos right here these are actually metal heat sinks that actually have a connecting metal rod between them that are cooling the power delivery that is one of the key feature the key

features of this board is the excellent power delivery system for overclocking coming across the top of the board you can see three fan and pump header connectors the middle one is the main CPU fan connector make sure you have something connected to that the motherboard is expecting at least something connected there this one is an optional port for an additional fan and then this is designed for the all-in-one pump header this is a higher amperage output for

larger 240 and 280 millimeter liquid coolers and even 360 millimeter extreme coolers here you have the LED the actual error diagnostic code panel this is really handy to have if you hook everything up plug your RAM and plug your CPU and turn the power on and it doesn't boot now what this will display various codes as its booting and if it freezes on one you can use the manual to figure out what is the problem what do you need to diagnose coming down from

there we have one of our 3d mount up 3d printing mounts I showed you a second ago one of the standoff post well this is one of the place you can add 3d custom printed items if you're interested 24-pin ATX connector the new USB 3.1 10 gigabit per second SuperSpeed front panel port still fairly rare but nice to have if you want 10 gigabit per second support in the front of your case another chassis fan header eight serial ata ports right here for eight drives SSDs hard drives etc down here we have some special cables for custom water cooling water in water out

water flow connectors most people aren't going to use this but if you're planning on doing a custom open-loop cooler this is going to be something that you'll be interested in just behind it is another one of the three-d mounts for 3d printing options coming down to the bottom in the corner here this is where your front panel connectors hard drive activity light LED light power can power switch etcetera are going to connect to next to that we have a speaker connector a

four pin speaker now many people don't use these anymore but if you want to you can certainly connect a speaker cable to it directly beneath it we have one of the to RGB headers or we're going for a Christmas tree on your desktop this is one of the to RGB headers the other one is actually over here I didn't mention it before it's directly beneath the CPU connectors so if you want to run RGB lights on the top end of your case and then also on the bottom end there are

RGB connectors on both ends of the board and then we have yet another a Dan header but this one is also labeled water pump do you have multiple water pumps are you doing an open loop custom water cooling system you've got another high amperage connector down here next to that we have a standard USB 3.0 five gigabit per second port for either back or front panel connectors and then we have a special rogue extension key now both of these combined work

for customized expansions front panel connectors ports etc specific to the Republic of gamers line an example of what you would use that for is the overclocking panel - which is something that fits into one of the front drive bays and lets you do some customized work most people aren't going to use it but if you want to there you go next to that we have our TPM port this is our trusted platform module not something that most people are going to use but it's there if

you need it finally we have a switch that almost none of you are going to use ln2 slow mode this motherboard actually recognizes if you are using liquid nitrogen to cool your CPU no you probably aren't this is for world records and other specialist things I did say at the beginning that this is an extreme overclockers motherboard if your goal is to get absolute maximum overclock and you are going for maximum speed no matter what here you go you've got a

motherboard liquid nitrogen switch on it next to that we have a safe boot mode and a retry button along with a start button if you don't have your front panel connectors set up you can start the system by using that button and you can also boot into a safe mode using these switches these are separate from the clear CMOS switches you have on the back this board is absolutely designed for maximum overclocking it is not inexpensive

but if you want the best here you go next to the start button down here we have yet another chassis fan header and then finally we have the front panel audio connectors this is for your microphone and headphone jack in the front coming around the back we have our supreme FX audio now in reality this is a real Tec ALC 12 2000 chip with a few modifications by a soos which they call supreme FX in fairness what you have is specialized traces on the board that are designed to isolate the noise it is a premium installation of it and you have one of the best

signal-to-noise ratios of any integrated audio on the market if you're a live streamer if you're a gamer if you want the best possible sound using the onboard audio and you stream on Twitch and you wanted you take that very seriously or you're a professional gamer this is the audio for you coming up the center of the board we have three x16 PCI Express slots however really the two you need to focus on are these two gray ones right here this board will handle any two

graphics cards in SLI from Nvidia or from AMD in crossfire and it will split these two slots eight lanes for the top card and eight lanes for the bottom or provide all eight lengths all 16 lanes on the top for a graphics card they're nicely split to allow some room in between the cards for subcooling we also have three 1x PCI Express slots in case you need to add an expansion card and then there's one more eight X PCI Express slot down here at the bottom it's a physically it's a 16 but electrically it's only 1/2 it's an 8 X lot in terms of the pit count coming up

from there we have yet another fan header right here in the middle of the board one other thing I want to mention next to these graphics card slots here is here is our MDOT 2 slot here for our solid-state drive this is where I'm going to be when I put this into a computer this is where we're going to be installing our nvme PCI Express solid-state drive 32 gigabits per second 4x PCI Express 3.0 as opposed to the 6 gigabits per second from the serial ata ports in the back much faster now back up here next to this chassis fan header there actually is another RGB

strip here but it's in use that's what provides the RGB control for the lighting that is up here because this crosshair logo up here actually lights up turning the board on its edge reveals the huge number of expansion options we have on the i/o panel we have 8 USB 3.0 ports we have 4 USB 2.0 ports we have 2 USB 3.1 a type A and a Type C port we have our Gigabit Ethernet networking port we have our supreme FX Realtek a LC 1220 7.1 channel HD audio with gold-plated jacks and optical out and then finally something very useful to overclockers is we have

our BIOS flash back button and we have our clear CMOS button if you can't boot because you've got configuration settings in the BIOS that will not allow the system to boot this will let you reset those settings so you don't have to open up the case and jump jumpers or remove the battery very nice setup back here and then finally that leads me to the last point the CPU socket itself now you can't see it because I've got the plastic clips in place but I will remove those when I install the board this is the only X 370 board currently available on the market in March of

2019 when I'm review this that provides holes for both a.m. 3 and a.m. 4 do you have a nice high end cooler that is designed for a.m. 3 the predecessor to the rise in setup not to worry unscrew these four screws and take these off and the holes will line up for an AM three as well as an am for cooler as far as I can tell no other motherboard does that currently on the market now there may be one that comes in the future but for the moment this is it and there you have

the unboxing of the asou republic of gamers crosshair six hero motherboard high-end enthusiast overclocking motherboard.