Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the overclocking performance potential of the Crosshair VI Hero motherboard, we attempted to push it to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. At the stock base clock speed of 100Mhz, we were able to get the system stabile at a 3.9GHz CPU speed across all cores and 3200MHz memory speed. This was done at a 1.40V CPU voltage, a 1.25V VddSOC voltage, and a 1.35V memory voltage with all other values left at default settings. Unfortunately, the system would not stabilize at any CPU or memory speeds greater than those listed above. All overclocking sessions remained stable for over 4hrs. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with EVGA's OC Scanner X graphical benchmark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 8x MSAA in stress test mode. Note that 8GB (2 x 4GB) of Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4-4000 memory modules were used for the overclocking tests.
100MHz Base Clock Stats with 3.9GHZ CPU and 3200MHz memory speed
Note that this is is meant only as a quick preview of the board's performance potential. With more time to tweak the settings to a greater extent, pushing to a higher base clock and ring bus speed may have been achievable, in addition to an overnight stability run without issue.
Pricing
As of October 15, the ASUS Crosshair VI Hero motherboard was available from Amazon.com for $234.00 with Prime shipping. The board was also available from Newegg.com for $234.99 and B&H for 234.99 with free shipping.
Conclusion
The ASUS Crosshair VI Hero motherboard is a well designed solutions, taking the design strengths from ASUS' Intel board lines for a strong yet elegant AMD x370 solution. The board features ROG line aesthetics common to their Intel board line as well. In addition to its ROG inspired looks, ASUS integrated RGB LEDs into the board, as well as support for syncing with external RGB LED strips. The range of integrated features makes the board a competitive solution in relation to its Intel counterparts. Its performance is top notch, falling in between that of the Z270 and X299 Intel board lines when paired with a Ryzen 1700X CPU. Overclocking-wise, its no slouch, but may take some time to dial-in. Given the relative immature nature of the X370 / Ryzen platform, its performance is impressive and should do nothing but increase as ASUS further tweaks the board's BIOS.
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking potential
- Board aesthetics, layout, and design
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Configurable RGB LEDs using AURA applet
Weaknesses
- Unable to run memory at speeds above 3200Mhz
- Lack of RGB LED configuration via UEFI
- CMOS battery placement
The CMOS battery should have
The CMOS battery should have a motorized, pop-up holder with RGB lighting. 5/10.
Are CMOS batteries 10 cents a
Are CMOS batteries 10 cents a volt yet?
Ryan’s waiting from them to
Ryan's waiting from them to drop to 10volts / cent lol….
bottom of page 2:
“Simply
bottom of page 2:
“Simply plug in a USB drive containing the proper BIOS file in the root of the drive into the lower USB 3.0 port (blue colored) located beneath the PS/2 port and power on the system.”
you have a PS/2 port ? and is it not the lower black USB port that is used for BIOS flashing ? (when comparing to my board)
Oversight on my part, thanks
Oversight on my part, thanks for pointing that out. Its been fixed to reflect the proper port position and type..
Seems fishy to see a review
Seems fishy to see a review of this board that actually doesn’t mention any of the major issues people are complaining about. The Cold Boot issue, CPU, AIO, and motherboard fan headers shutting off completely for no reason until the system overheats, no AGESA update since 1.0.0.6, inconsistent BIOS updates, and basically the board has been abandoned by Asus support on their own official forum! Don’t buy this POS! How much was PCPer paid for their fictional favorable review?
Thanks for your input.
Thanks for your input. Didn't see any of those issues in testing. It was a bit difficult to get dialed in, but no more than any new platform or first experience with a new platform…
Thank you for the review. I
Thank you for the review. I was the one who asked Ryan if you could do AMD motherboard reviews on Mailbag #2. Glad to see the first one done.
I would love to see the review of Crosshair VI Extreme but since that’s essentially a beefed up version of Hero it would problably not be very intresting. Maybe one of the better B350 boards or one of the other top X370 boards then. Keep up the good work.
2017 ? Huh, I’m just passing by. It’s now 2025 and I’m still using this motherboard. I upgraded CPU 4 times, and never had any problems with this motherboard. Ryzen 1600 > 2600X > 3600 > 5800X. First ryzens had problems, they had been reaching only very low frequencies, ryzen 1600 sucked quite alot in OC, 2600X was bad as well on this motherboard, in its time. ryzen 5 3600 was massive jump. And now 5800X was yet another massive leap in power, going from 6 to 8/16 cores. Frequency is reaching 4,85Ghz on all cores during gaming, even when 4,7Ghz is default boost frequency. Using watercooing on CPU + having Bios settings set to [cpu loadline 4/5, T-Probe is a go for Ryzens] and it’s working like a charm ! Just upgraded RAM to 3600Mhz 4x16GB modules (Tridenz), mind it’s AMD system. Did i mention it’s running 3600Mhz on RAM ? Just awesome job done – AMD chipset X370. After 8 years, still working. I’m a happy man.