Featured

ASUS RoG Maximus XI Hero WiFi Z390 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look


Without a doubt, this is a sexy looking motherboard. The heavy use of black and dark grey matte finishes gives it a very sleek and stealthy look. For those that are using a lot of RGB, they’ll appreciate the neutral colour scheme, as it’ll pair up with just about anything aesthetically.

The power delivery hardware is pretty robust, and there are banks of capacitors and chokes around the CPU. They’re fed by an 8-pin and a 4-pin PSU header. Some of the more expensive motherboards use a dual 8-pin, so this isn’t too over the top. However, we suspect this will be more than enough.

Heat Sinks

The heatsinks are not mucking about either. They’re pretty sizeable chunks of metal with some fins, and a thick heat pipe spanning the two to help distribute the heat more effectively. Of course, even if you’re not running an extreme CPU or any overclocks, they look great too; win-win.

Behind the heatsink, you’ll also find three fan headers for the CPU cooler, one of which is designed for liquid cooler pumps.

Power Controls

Near the top, there’s a power and reset button, which is great if you’re using this on a test bench like we are today. Those tinkering with the BIOS will be happy to see a debug LED also, which is great for troubleshooting. There are both 12v and addressable RGB headers too.

The motherboard features USB 3.1 Gen 2 front panel connectors, as well as rear Gen 2 ports on the motherboard.

There’s even more fan headers at the base, as well as a water flow header, and plenty of USB headers.

More RGB

There are a further two RGB headers at the bottom of the board also.

One of the more impressive additions is the SupremeFX audio hardware. It’s mounted on a separate trace, as they usually are these days. There’s also a built-in shroud that just cleans up the aesthetics of this corner of the board.

However, there’s a mighty bank of gold audio capacitors too, ensuring you can drive high-end audio hardware as it was intended. These are exposed, likely to help with cooling.

There are two M.2 drive mounts on the motherboard, each fitted with a large heatsink that not only looks great, but will also protect and provide passive cooling for your drives.

Each will support high-end NVMe drive, or Intel Optane drives; the choice is yours.

Built-in I/O Sheild

Finally, we have the rear I/O, which comes with a lovely built-in shield to ease the installation process. It’s packed full of USB connections, including Gen 2 ports for super faster transfer rates. There’s a Type-C, as well as a BIOS Flashback USB port should things go really wrong with an update; and even BIOS and CMOS control buttons!

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Peter Donnell

As a child still in my 30's (but not for long), I spend my day combining my love of music and movies with a life-long passion for gaming, from arcade classics and retro consoles to the latest high-end PC and console games. So it's no wonder I write about tech and test the latest hardware while I enjoy my hobbies!

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

BenQ MOBIUZ EX2710Q 27″ QHD 165Hz 1ms, HDRi IPS Gaming Monitor

SpeakersSpeakersYesSpeaker amount and power output2x 2 WattDimensionsLength / Depth252.5 mmWidth614 mmHeight525.8 mmWeight7.4 kgStandards / SpecificationsAdaptive…

15 hours ago

Intel Core i7-12700KF 3.60GHz Socket LGA1700 Processor

Thermal SpecificationsMax. TDP125 WCPUCPU ManufacturerIntelCPU SeriesIntel Core i7CPU Socket1700CPU ArchitectureIntel Alder Lake-SCPU Cores12CPU Threads20Performance Cores8Efficiency…

15 hours ago

AOC 24B3HA2 24″ 1920×1080 VA 100Hz 1m Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor 

AOC 24B3HA2 23.6 1920x1080 VA 100Hz 1m Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black High-performance clarity…

15 hours ago

Corsair Hydro Series iCUE Link H115i RGB Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Fan SpecificationsFan Size140 mmColourPrimary ColourBlackSecondary ColourWhiteMaterialsMaterialsAluminium, Copper, RubberLightingLightingYesLighting ColourRGBLighting CompatibilityCorsair iCUEAdditional ContentsIncluded fans2x 140 mmTypeCPU…

15 hours ago

Philips Evnia 34″ 34M2C6500/00 3440×1440 QD-OLED 175Hz 1ms FreeSync Curved Ultrawide Gaming Monitor

This monitor is built with features that make incredible visuals. With VESA ClearMR 9000 and…

15 hours ago

Asus Radeon RX 7900 XTX TUF OC 24GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

The AMD RDNA™ 3 Architecture elevated by buffed cooling and power delivery to effortlessly churn…

15 hours ago