Hardware Asus Maximus VI Hero Review

We take a look at Asus' budget-friendly ROG Haswell board.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/28/asus-maximus-vi-hero-review/1

 

All of these fancy flashy boards that will never see their full potential due to the CPUs that go in them.

Usually after a new CPU release I'm keen and eager to see boards reviewed but since Ivy it's becoming quite apparent that expensive boards don't make much difference.

 

Great board and great features wanted to go back to atx motherboards having had the Asus Maximus Gene IV and the Gene V. its been fantastic. just got to get around to overclocking my i5 4670k

 

I like it! it's a really clean looking board and has the performance to match it's RoG title.

 

Scan has the Maximus VI Formula for £175inc on pre-order. Is that right as the conclusion says it should be £50 more than this Hero?

 

Pretty cool name

Price seems high for a 'budget ROG' board. I'm holding out on buying a new mobo, as I can't seem to find a decent ITX board for a sensible price.

 

Nice board, nice price. One of the few PCI-E only boards (DIE ALREADY, STUPID PCI!), and compared to the Sabertooth has a PS/2 port.

Wish they had this back in the Z77 days

Oh well, not like it matters anyways.. next rig will likely be Haswell-E...

 

I take it going from the pictures there's only 3 pcie 16x slots

I take it the red highlighted words shouldn't be there?

 

Last time Intel were selling CPUs which didn't overclock very well and ran really hot (Prescott), was when AMD came out with the A64 and blew them away for a few years.
Hears hoping we get a bit more competition in the CPU market again.

 

Vishera still runs hotter than anything Intel makes this side of LGA2011, so no, not happening for a while...

I'll honestly be happy if AMD can just properly catch up to Intel IPC-wise at this point, let alone surpass.

Now, when is Haswell-E out again?

 

Up until recently it was rumored for a 2014 release, But more recent rumors say maybe September.
http://wccftech.com/intel-haswell-core-i3-core-i74771-processors-launch-1st-september/

 

I don't know.. other rumours say that Ivy-E is for this year, which kindof makes sense based on what the SB-E platform has done..

 

Whooopsy my mistake the article i linked is just the newer Haswell chips not the E
This one says maybe 2015 http://wccftech.com/intel-roadmap-leaks-haswell-e-lituya-bay-hedt-platform/

 

Asus have put videos EVERYWHERE saying buy a board based on its feature set, NOT PERFORMANCE.... and you've done a performance review.... srsly?

 

Yeah, end 2014 looks about right. By the looks of it, no Broadwell-E either (not that I particularly care for it on the desktop).

This a review website, with a very strong focus on performance, not a press release archive like some others (before you ask, names will not be mentioned).

Secondly, this ROG board has basically the same featureset as the higher-end Z87 boards all round. Differences lie in the PCI/PCIe, USB and SATA/eSATA configuration, and other external stuff like software, warranty and PCB design.

Higher end ROG boards have genuine extra bits, like PLX chips for increased PCIe lane counts and whatnot, but this is the entry-level board, so by nature, it remains very close to the base Z77 implementation with a few extra bits.

 

Unless Intel skips Ivy-E entirely, it'll be Ivy-E later this year, Haswell-E fall of next year, most likely.

Wondering what the hell Asus has done here - the budget ROG board is coming in neck and neck or even a bit higher than the Extreme?

 

Was the 4.7Ghz overclock running under the stock Intel hsf? 99c is a wee bit toasty.

edit: Hmm................?