Car
Audio
Digital camera
Games
Painted Software
Robots
Smart watch
Tech news
ToolsAesthetics: Easy on the RGB
Like most high-end motherboards nowadays, the X570 ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ( Wi-Fi ) is built on a black PCB. This board besides has black heatsinks over the VRMs and chipset, equally well as black shroud over the rise I/O ports and audio circuitry .
You Can Trust Our Reviews
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buy decisions. ( Read our editorial mission. ) 
A wide band of grey steel runs diagonally across the board, adding some much-needed discolor. The board inactive looks slightly bland right out of the box, but solitaire will pay off—it transforms once you build out your system and fire it up .
It gains some extra flair once you do. Powered up, tastefully placed RGB LEDs situated on the back I/O shroud and over the chipset heatsink come to life, like this ROG logo …
Some motherboards throw on a scatter of RGB LEDs that turn the board into a riot of a light testify, which can steal attention away from the remainder of the arrangement. For some folks, that ‘s the calculate : besides much RGB is never adequate. This deployment is more elusive, though. Asus ‘ RGB execution merely adds some shining contrast with the otherwise predominantly black board, which gives the system as a unharmed a better aesthetic search. You can use the board ‘s RGB headers to roll out more lights, if you like, and coordinate them via Asus ‘ Aura Sync. ( More on that belated. )
Robust Power Design, Meet Mega-USB
naturally, as a motherboard designed for overclocking and bet on, this board features a solid baron blueprint. It consists of 16 IR3555 PowIRstages that are rated to handle 60 amps each. You can see the power phases peeking out from under the denude black coolers .
The power-regulation circuitry is covered by two boastfully heatsinks that are connected by a metal heatpipe. The motherboard ‘s chipset, interim, is besides covered by a boastfully heatsink. It ‘s actively cooled by a little fan that ‘s rated to concluding for up to 60,000 hours. ( actively cooled chipsets are the norm with X570, which runs at higher electrical power than earlier generations. )
Along with the thermal hardware, Asus equipped this dining table with a unharmed host of overclocking features. These include buttons on the rear I/O jury to reset and flash the BIOS. besides, you get a ability button on the motherboard for testing the control panel outside of a shell or without hooking up the common fine case power-switch wire, plus a debug LED control panel to help diagnose abortive bootups .
Being based on the X570 chipset, this motherboard offers a large amount of high-speed connections, first among them the chipset ‘s newly and boast support for PCI Express 4.0. This will by and large be of sake to PC upgraders and builders looking to install one of the few raw PCI Express 4.0-compliant M.2 SSDs .
On the rear I/O panel, which sports a built-in I/O shield, you ‘ll spot no less than 12 USB ports, all but four of these being USB 3.1 Gen 2. For storage, you get eight SATA 3.0 ports and two M.2 Key-M slots that support a ceiling of 64GBps of bandwidth over a PCI Express Gen4 x4 connection. These M.2 slots are covered by individual heatsinks that are easy to remove. For those looking to install one of the few up-to-date PCI Express 4.0-compatible SSDs, this board is a thoroughly campaigner. ( For more on motherboard terminology, see our motherboard slang dejargonizer. )
In terms of expansion slots, the three PCI Express x16 slots subscribe SLI duplicate or CrossFire twin- or triple-card installations, if that ‘s your bent, and the four DDR4 DIMM slots support up to 128GB of memory ( using 32GB DIMMs ) at speeds up to a whack 4,600MHz. You besides get a individual PCIe x1 slot .
The X570 Crosshair VIII Hero Wi-Fi features excellent network accompaniment, with two RJ-45 ports and a top-tier wireless solution. One of these RJ-45 ports is connected to a mainstream Intel i211AT Gigabit NIC, while the other RJ-45 is connected to a significantly faster Realtek RTL8125-CG chip that ‘s capable of speeds up to 2.5Gbps with the right router and service .
The radio is more hardheaded and stream, however. This Wi-Fi model of the X570 Crosshair VIII comes with one of Intel ‘s Wi-Fi 6 AX200 network adapters. It can transfer data at up to 2.4Gbps and features support for the spanking-new 802.11ax wireless standard. Of note, the AX200 is on the initial list of Wi-Fi 6-certified network solutions. ( See our lead, Should You Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 ? )
Asus specifies that this motherboard comes with a SupremeFX S1220 sound recording codec. If you ‘re an audio eccentric who has done his or her homework, you will know that this is basically good a rebadged Realtek ALC1220 audio codec with some total software. In other words, it ‘s the same high-end audio codec that most high-end motherboards come with. Asus did add an ESS ES9023P headset ampere to the board a well, though, which helps to boost the sound recording signal in a sop to audio buffs, a well as gamers using analogue headsets .
Inside the box, along with the motherboard proper, you get some ROG-brand stickers, the common mix of cables, and two coasters. One ‘s made of cardboard, and you can put your Coke or Pepsi on it, and one comes with drivers on it … wait, that ‘s a driver cadmium. I dare you to find a better use for it hera in 2019, when most people building high-end PCs ( particularly the kind of PCs to justify a board like this ) do n’t buy an ocular driveway to put in the case .
A Brief Look at the BIOS
Booting the X570 Crosshair VIII Hero takes a bite longer to get to POST than I ‘m habituate to, but things go more smoothly after you make it into the BIOS .
Like many high-end motherboards nowadays, this board features two different interfaces for the BIOS. There ‘s an EZ Mode BIOS for those who are n’t comfortable with poking round in the BIOS, and an Advanced Mode for more have users who want to exercise a greater sum of control condition over the hardware. ( One could argue, if you ‘re not going to play in the BIOS, though, you probably should n’t be buying a display panel like this one. )
The BIOS is, in general, well-organized and easy to navigate. Experienced overclockers will be delighted by the abundance of overclocking controls that explode out of the Extreme Tweaker section and overflow into the Advanced Mode section. Inexperienced overclockers should tread lightly when accessing these tools, as this board has more overclocking options than most and could cause instability if mishandled .
In accession to the standard features, this dining table besides gives you a arrange of basic controls for the dining table ‘s on-PCB RGB LEDs and a utility to securely erase all information on an SSD. One of the more utilitarian features of this BIOS is the My Favorites part, which can be customized to your preference by duplicating any of the controls found elsewhere in the BIOS onto a single page for late reference or retrieval .
Software & Drivers
One quibble I did have in the buildout for this dining table was the feel installing drivers. It was less than ideal, though it ‘s possible to chalk it up to the vagaries of Windows 10 and its updates the day I did my initial physique. Your mileage may vary .
The AMD chipset drivers, american samoa well as the wire network drivers from both Intel and Realtek, installed without issue. The Realtek audio drivers besides installed good very well after updating Windows 10. I was n’t able to get the drivers provided by Asus for the Intel AX200 radio NIC to install at all, but when I downloaded those drivers individually straight from Intel, that set installed merely fine .
Asus besides provides several utilitarian software utilities with this motherboard, along with one that I ‘d recommend avoiding for now. The better programs of note include the Asus Aura Sync utility and the Overwolf GameFirst V software. The first gear of these gives you full control over any addressable RGB LEDs connected to the system, or gear that supports Aura Sync ; the second broadcast has respective functions, including built-in network and hardware monitors. You ‘ll need solitaire to negotiate the full cargo of utilities that come with this board, though. I ‘ve built far more than my share of PCs, but I was hard-pressed to get all of them to work correctly .
The biggest perpetrator, in my experience, was Asus ‘ Armoury Crate software. It ‘s a newer control suite used by assorted Asus products for viewing organization parameters, controlling RGB unhorse, and the like. ( It besides comprises a mobile-app aspect that lets you monitor system stuff from your call. ) I first gear tried to install this software while disconnected from the Internet ; it requires internet access, though, so it configured itself to start and install deoxyadenosine monophosphate soon as it was available. After connecting, this software loaded up and started update, but in my encase only reached 50 percentage completion, after which it just attend .
While the software continued in its attack to update, command-prompt dialogue boxes frequently opened and closed every few seconds, which would steal attention away from anything else I was doing. I was able to stop this from happening by editing the list of startup services in MSCONFIG and setting the update service to not run when the system boots. But merely installing a utility should n’t cause this much commotion .
ultimately, I was n’t able to get Armoury Crate to install. The Overwolf GameFirst V software had some different issues. The trouble here : Downloading and running the EXE charge labelled “ GameFirst V ” on the display panel ‘s support page wo n’t actually install the GameFirst V program. rather, it installs another program dubbed Overwolf, which is basically fair an app store. A second course of study called GameFirst V will then show up on your system, and this barely tells you that you must go download the GameFirst V software to use it. It provides a link to download and install the right software … and the liaison did n’t work, in my case .
You can search on Google and find the discipline download file for GameFirst V, and the software does have some utilitarian functions once it ‘s installed. ( It ‘s designed to let you tweak network traffic and favor, say, your game pour, or to see what on your net is mooching the bandwidth. ) The install process is a runaround, though, and I ‘d prefer to know, particularly with such a costly motherboard, that I ‘m basically being roped into installing an app memory. not break in, but not utilitarian, either .
Right in the Crosshairs
A few of the utilities included with this circuit board may be more trouble than they are worth, but they are not essential. many folks do n’t pay any much attention to the full explosion of software that comes on modern motherboards, in any case. here, being choosy may be for the best .
That said, it is the hardware that counts here. The dining table was stable during the time I used it, and the more significant aspects, such as its comprehensive BIOS and the ample ports, work without topic. The X570 ROG Crosshair VIII Hero Wi-Fi retails for $ 379.99 and at this price, I ‘d recommend it for both gamers and overclockers, looking for a forward-minded board for third-gen Ryzen, particularly if the Wi-Fi 6 confirm and heavy-duty might delivery are aspects you ‘ll make use of .
It ‘s a near-run choice, but we ‘re slenderly more capture with Asrock ‘s modestly less expensive X570 Phantom X Gaming. That said, with a rev up or two of the Asus utility software, we could be persuaded to go with the Crosshair board fair vitamin a well. Both are excellent X570 boards if you ‘ll make full, or close to full, use of the overclocking features and its other leading-edge business. If not, boards like the Asrock X570 Extreme4 or even a last-gen, BIOS-upgraded X470 or B350 board will do, and save you a bunch together .
Asus ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi)
4.0
See It
$ 379.99
at Amazon
MSRP $ 379.99
Pros
View More
Cons
The Bottom Line
Packing Wi-Fi 6 support and a bus of tweaker animal comforts, the Asus ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero ( Wi-Fi ) is an excellent up-to-date AM4 motherboard for gambling and overclocking on AMD ‘s latest-gen Ryzen CPUs .
Like What You’re Reading?
Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox .
e-mail
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any prison term.
Thanks for signing up !
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox !
Sign up for other newsletters
