To go along with the Zen 4 launch AMD is also launching their new AM5 chipsets and motherboards. They have four new chipsets, the X670E, X670, B650E, and B650 but for the launch, I am testing with the highest-end X670E with Asus’s ROG Crosshair X670E Hero. To go with today's coverage of some of the new CPUs I’m also going to check out what the X670E Hero has to offer for features and put it through a few tests as well. With a new LGA style socket, USB 4, and PCIe 5.0 as just a few quick highlights when looking at the specifications I’m excited to see what else it will have to offer!

Product Name: Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

Review Sample Provided by: Asus

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

 

Specifications

CPU

AMD Socket AM5 for AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series Desktop Processors*

Chipset

AMD X670E

Memory

4 x DIMM, Max. 128GB, DDR5 6400+(OC)/ 6200(OC)/ 6000(OC)/ 5800(OC)/ 5600(OC)/

5400(OC)/ 5200/ 5000/ 4800 ECC/Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory*

Dual Channel Memory Architecture

Supports AMD® Extended Profiles for Overclocking (EXPO™)

OptiMem II

* Supported memory types, data rate (Speed), and number of DRAM modules varies depending

on the CPU and memory configuration. For more information refer to www.asus.com for memory

support list.

** Non-ECC, un-buffered DDR5 memory supports on-die ECC functionality.

Graphics

1 x HDMI® port*

2 x USB4® ports support USB Type-C® display outputs**

*Supports 4K@60Hz as specified in HDMI 2.1.

**VGA resolution support depends on processors' or graphic cards' resolution

Expansion Slots

AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series Desktop Processors

2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 slots (supports x16 or x8/x8 mode(s)*

AMD X670 Chipset

1 x PCIe 4.0 x1 slots

* When ROG PCIE 5.0 M.2 card is installed on PCIEX16(G5)_2, PCIEX16(G5)_1 will run x8 only.

Storage

Total supports 5 x M.2 slots and 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports*

AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series Desktop Processors

M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 5.0 x4 mode)

M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 5.0 x4 mode)

PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot (Key M) via ROG PCIe 5.0 M.2 card, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 5.0

x4 mode)**

AMD X670 Chipset

M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 )

M.2_4 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 )

6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports

*AMD RAID Xpert Technology supports both NVMe RAID 0/1/10 and SATA RAID 0/1/10.

** Performance may vary based on the SSD firmware version, system hardware, and the system

configuration. For more information, refer to www.asus.com for the device support list.

Ethernet

1 x Intel® 2.5Gb Ethernet

ASUS LANGuard

Wireless & Bluetooth

Wi-Fi 6E

2x2 Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax)

Supports 2.4/5/6GHz frequency band*

Bluetooth v5.3**

USB

Rear USB (Total 12 ports)

2 x USB4® ports with Intel® JHL8540 USB4® controller (2 x USB Type-C®)

1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port(s) (1 x USB Type-C®)

9 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 port(s) (8 x Type-A + 1 x USB Type-C®)

Front USB (Total of 11 ports)

1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connector (supports USB Type-C® with up to 60W PD/QC4+)

2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 header(s) support(s) additional 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports

3 x USB 2.0 header(s) support(s) additional 6 USB 2.0 ports

Audio

ROG SupremeFX 7.1 Surround Sound High Definition Audio CODEC ALC4082

- 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

- Supports up to 32-Bit/384 kHz playback

Audio Features

- SupremeFX Shielding Technology

-ESS® ES9218 QUAD DAC

- Gold-plated audio jacks

- Rear optical S/PDIF out port

- Premium audio capacitors

- Audio cover

Back Panel I/O Ports

2 x USB4® ports with Intel® JHL8540 USB4® controller (2 x USB Type-C®)

1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port (1 x USB Type-C®)

9 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (8 x Type-A + 1 x Type-C®)

1 x HDMI® port

1 x Wi-Fi Module

1 x Intel® 2.5Gb Ethernet port

5 x Gold-plated audio jacks

1 x Optical S/PDIF out port

1 x BIOS FlashBack™ button

1 x Clear CMOS button

Fan Connectors

1 x 4-pin CPU Fan header

1 x 4-pin CPU OPT Fan header

1 x 4-pin AIO Pump header

4 x 4-pin Chassis Fan headers

1 x W_PUMP+ header

1 x 2-pin Water In header

1 x 2-pin Water Out header

1 x 3-pin Water Flow header

Power Connectors

1 x 24-pin Main Power connector

2 x 8-pin +12V Power connector

1 x 6-pin PCIe Power connector

Storage Connectors

4 x M.2 slots (Key M)

6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports

USB Connectors

1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connector (support(s) USB Type-C®)

2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 header(s) support(s) additional 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports

3 x USB 2.0 header(s) support(s) additional 6 USB 2.0 ports

Miscellaneous Connectors

3 x Addressable Gen 2 header(s)

1 x Alteration Mode Switch

1 x AURA RGB header(s)

1 x FlexKey button

1 x Front Panel Audio header (AAFP)

1 x ReTry button

1 x Start button

1 x 10-1 pin System Panel header

1 x Thermal Sensor header

Extreme OC Kit

- FlexKey button

- ReTry button

- Start button

Extreme Engine

Digi+

- 10K Black Metallic Capacitors

- MicroFine Alloy Choke

ASUS Q-Design

- M.2 Q-Latch

- PCIe Slot Q-Release

- Q-Code

- Q-Connector

- Q-DIMM

- Q-LED (CPU [red], DRAM [yellow], VGA [white], Boot Device [yellow green])

- Q-Slot

ASUS Thermal Solution

- M.2 heatsink backplate

- M.2 heatsink

- VRM heatsink design

ASUS EZ DIY

- BIOS FlashBack™ button

- Clear CMOS button

- ProCool II

- Pre-mounted I/O shield

- SafeSlot

- SafeDIMM

AURA Sync & Lighting Control

- AURA RGB header

- Addressable Gen 2 headers

Front Panel USB

Front Panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 with Quick Charge 4+ Support

- Support: up to 60W charging*

- Output: 5/9/15/20V max. 3A, PPS:3.3–21V max. 3A

- Compatible with QC 4.0/3.0/2.0, PD3.0, and PPS

* To support 60W, please install the power cable to 6-pin PCIe Graphics Card connector or can

only support 27W

ROG Exclusive Software

- GameFirst VI

- ROG CPU-Z

- Sonic Studio III + Sonic Studio Virtual Mixer + Sonic Suite Companion

- Sonic Radar III

- DTS® Sound Unbound

- BullGuard Internet Security (1-year full version)

ASUS Exclusive Software

Armoury Crate

- AIDA64 Extreme (1-year full version)

- AURA Creator

- AURA Sync

- Fan Xpert 4 with AI Cooling II

- Power Saving

- Two-Way AI Noise Cancellation

AI Suite 3

- TPU

- DIGI+ Power Control

- PC Cleaner

- Turbo app

MyAsus

WinRAR

MyAsus

WinRAR

BIOS

UEFI BIOS

- ASUS EZ DIY

- ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3

- ASUS EZ Flash 3

- ASUS UEFI BIOS EZ Mode

- 256 Mb Flash ROM, UEFI AMI BIOS

Manageability

WOL by PME, PXE

Accessories

Cables

1 x ARGB RGB extension cable

1 x RGB extension cable

4 x SATA 6Gb/s cables

ROG PCIe 5.0 M.2 Card with Heatsink

1 x PCIe 5.0 M.2 Card with heatsink

1 x M.2 screw package for ROG PCIe 5.0 M.2 Card

Additional Cooling Kit

1 x Thermal pad for M.2

Miscellaneous

1 x ASUS Wi-Fi moving antennas

3 x Rubber Packages for M.2 backplate

1 x Q-connector

1 x M.2 Q-Latch package

3 x M.2 Q-Latch packages for M.2 backplate

1 x ROG Graphics card holder

1 x ROG key chain

1 x ROG stickers

1 x ROG thank you card

Installation Media

1 x USB drive with utilities and drivers

Documentation

1 x User guide

Operating System

Windows® 11 or 10 64-bit

Form Factor

ATX Form Factor

12 inch x 9.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm )

 

 


Packaging and Accessories

The box for the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero has the standard ROG theme with its black background and the bright ROG red along the bottom and on the ROG logo in the top left corner. The black background has the ROG logo as well as multiple ROG-themed quotes repeated in a very dark grey. The model name is across the front in a reflective finish and then the board has a wraparound in the bottom right with the AMD chipset information which lets you know this is an AM5 board, X670E chipset, and that it supports DDR5 and PCIe 5 for the GPU and NVME. Around on the back, the black and red theme continues but the back finally has pictures of the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero with a full board photo on the left along with the antenna. Then on the right half, they feature a few of the main features with additional photos specific to those features. There is a basic specification listing that lets you know all of the rear I/O ports, some of the internal headers, and the form factor.

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When you open the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero up the box has the ROG logo right in your face with a warning “For Those Who Dare” at the bottom. Then the main compartment is covered with a formed plastic panel. Normally this is clear and you can see the board but Asus has changed this up with black plastic which seems a little thinner so you can’t see the board anymore. It does have the ROG logo formed into it as well. Under that, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero sits in its cardboard tray that can lift out and has all of the accessories and documentation up under it. One half of the accessory section is foam to keep the M.2 card and USB drive safe. I should also note that this board was sent along with the memory and the new CPUs from AMD and from the looks of it with the dust and a fingerprint on the ram DIMMs that it was pretested. Most likely updating the BIOS before the launch.

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For cables, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero comes with a big bag of black SATA cables with four cables (two of which have a right-angled connection on one end). You get a Wifi 6E antenna which is the same design that Asus has used the last few years which has a flip out antenna and a rubber base. They also include a small metal graphics card holder to help with the weight of today's huge GPUs. There is an RGB extension cable and one also for addressable RGB as well. As far as the bundle of small baggies go. Four of those have M.2 hold down screws which all have the new toolless design. There are multiple rubber bumpers for M.2 drives if they aren’t double-sided. There is a Q connect adapter which makes hooking up your front panel connections easier and a thermal pad for an M.2 slot as well. They included an ROG keychain which is a nice touch and an ROG thumb drive which comes with the drives and software.

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The included PCIe device is a PCIe 5.0 M.2 card. It is blacked out with a black PCB and a thick black aluminum heatsink on the front which has the ROG logo and stripes with a brushed finish that gives contrast to the normal texture on the rest of the heatsink. There isn’t anything going on the back other than a sticker with a serial number on it. Four screws hold the heatsink on and when you pull it off you can see the one PCIe 5.0 slot sitting at an angle. They have thermal tape on the heatsink and on the slot for thermal transfer from both sides of a drive. The drive length supports up to 22110 which is longer than the standard 2280. I was surprised at the weight of the card which comes from the extremely thick heatsink which weighs 319 grams!

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For documentation the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero comes with a full user guide book and with it, there was also a card telling you about their armoury crate app and a paper with a special offer on Asus WebStorage. You also get a full sheet of ROG-themed stickers which has a metallic finish and a whole variety of black, silver, and red stickers.

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Board Layout and Pictures

The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero has the same styling that ROG has used on the last few generations with a fully blacked-out PCB and blacked-out heatsinks. With the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero being high in the product stack (only the Extreme is above it) it is also decked out in shields and covers. The rear I/O integrates in with the heatsinks around the CPU socket but has a mirrored finish across the top along with the Crosshair branding printed in black on black. The same is going on down in the bottom half with SupremeFX printed on the shield on the left and a mirror finish on half of the covers between the PCIe slots over to the chipset. The ROG logo is integrated into that mirrored design with their pixelated backlit design that was also on the Z690 Extreme.

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A majority of the shield and covers covering the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero all work together as heatsinks. The biggest example of this is up around the CPU socket with the three heatsinks there. The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero has an 18+2 VRM layout with 110A rated smart power stages and 10k rated capacitors. All of that has large blacked-out heatsinks on top which are connected together with a heatpipe. The VRM on the left side of the PU socket have their heatsink hidden up under the rear I/O cover, but that cooler is there as well. The heatsink at the bottom of the CPU socket is the most interesting to me though because at first glance it looks like it is part of the VRM cooling but it is a huge heatsink for the top M.2 slot.

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The rear I/O cover does have lighting on top just like with the Z690 Extreme only they are calling this the Polymo Lighting design and with the mirrored finish you really can’t see any of it until it is powered up. The large heatsink that covers the board from left to right and starts below the top PCIe slot has a few different functions. On the right where the ROG logo is goes over top of the chipset to pull some of that heat out. All of the mirrored section doesn’t get removed. The second half however is where Asus has three more M.2 slots hidden. The cover comes with thermal pads in place for all three M.2 locations but be sure to remove the plastic if you use them.  

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Starting in the top left region of the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero the majority of the space is filled with the three heatsinks, rear I/O, and the CPU socket itself. But the board does have two 8-pin CPU power connections tucked away up in the top left corner. Both connections have metal around them to pull heat out and keep them from overheating.

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The new AM5 or LGA1718 socket is worth stopping and taking a look at itself. AMD stuck with the same pinned CPU setup forever now so switching it up and moving over to an LGA setup is big news. It’s been so long that some people are going to see this new socket and associate it with Intel. LGA stands for land grid array which means all of the pins that used to be on the CPU are now on the motherboard itself and they use the metal bracket to lock the CPU in place on top of them and to push down onto them. Easy CPU pin repairs are a thing of the past, but this design does mean you no longer have to worry about pulling the CPU out of the socket when you pull your cooler off and they are able to pack more connections into a small space. All of that said, AMD did keep the hook-style mounting for their CPU coolers alive. A majority of coolers will work with AM5, if they use the hook mount they will all work. Coolers that replace the backplate on AM4 and below will have issues, however.

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The top right corner on the other hand has more going on starting with the four DDR5 slots which for the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero are blacked out to go with everything else. This is AMD’s first DDR5 chipset and unlike Intel, they aren’t doing double duty with DDR4 and DDR5 being options. Up on the top edge above the RAM DIMMs, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero has three PWM fan headers with two being CPU fan headers and one for your AIO pump. Next to that is the status LED readout that shows your booting status. Then at the corner, there are two RGB headers designated by their white color, one is a 3-pin addressable RGB header and the other is a standard four-pin RGB header. Moving down along the right edge you have three buttons. The largest at the top is the power button which Asus has labeled as start. Below that is the flex key which you can program its function in the BIOS to do anything you want and then below that the small button is the retry button which is for overclocking when you want to reboot without changing any settings if a boot failed. Below that is the 24-pin motherboard power plug and a 6-pin additional power connection. Then below that is a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connection for a front panel Type-C connection, this can support up to 60 watts of power which should be great for charging devices.

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The bottom right corner has the chipset cooler but even with that, a lot is going on both on the bottom edge and along the right edge. But I did want to point out two other things first. The top M.2 heatsink that sits below the CPU socket does cover up the middle mounting screw so if you are planning on using all of your mounting screws remember to wait to install that heatsink after the board is in your system. Also in that same area, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero does have the easy push button PCIe latch like we first saw on Z690 boards. It is just to the right of the bottom of the memory and pushing the button pulls a string and unlatches the PCI latch without having to stick something in that tight space between the heatsink and your video card. On the right edge of the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero, there are six SATA ports which are all right-angled, and a right-angled USB 3.2 header as well along with one PWM fan header. Along the bottom edge in this bottom right corner has three standard USB 2.0 headers and a second USB 3.2 which this one has a metal shield that should give that connection more strength, I know I’ve pulled a few of those off in the past. There are two more individually addressable RGB headers on the far left (3 addressable and 1 standard so far). Then in the bottom right corner, Asus calls this their water cooling zone with a four-pin PWM header for a water pump(5 so far) and a 3-pin connection for a water flow meter. There are thermal prob connections for water temps in and out and more. Then in the corner itself are the front panel connections. The LN2 mode jumper is also right here in the water cooling section as well.

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The bottom left corner of the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero is where you will find the board's three PCIe slots. Two of those are full length and at the bottom, there is one X1 length slot but with that, I should point out the slot is open-ended on the right side to support longer cards but only give x1 bandwidth. Both of the full-length x16 slots are PCIe 5.0 compatible and those run right off of the CPU itself where the X1 slot is on the chipset. They have x16 lanes if you are running one slot but when both are in use they share that bandwidth for x8/x8. Also in this area are all of the M.2 slots which there is one up under the CPU socket and then three under the heatsink at the bottom. M.2 slots 1 and 2 are both PCIe 5.0 x4 and you also have the included M.2 PCIe card as well for a third. Those all get their lanes from the CPU and then the last two M.2 slots run off of the X670 chipset which both of those are PCIe 4.0 x4. On the far left the onboard audio is covered by the shield that runs that entire length and it is a Realtek ALC4082 codec and has an ESS ES9218 quad DAC amp as well. The front panel audio header is down on the bottom edge alongside of three more PWM fan headers for a total of 8 which all support 1 amp each.

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The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero has a preinstalled rear I/O cover which is great to see and Asus has put a sticker on it to black it out and give it a texture that should match well with most cases. All of the connections have bright white legends so you know what each does including all of the audio connections which also are color coded. Sadly they don’t also have the built-in color LEDs that make plugging them in the dark even easier. On the far left of the rear I/O there is a clear CMOS button and below that the BIOS flashback button for updating the BIOS without a CPU or memory installed. Next to that is an HDMI header for the built-in GPU. From there the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero is loaded with USB connections with four rows. Each row at the bottom has a Type-C connection for four in total, two of those are the new USB 4.0 running on the JHL8540 controller and then there is a USB 3.2 and a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. For the eight Type-A connections those are all USB 3.2 Gen 2. The last row of USB connections shares space with the single ethernet connection which is a 2.5G connection that runs on the Intel NIC and next to that are the two wireless antenna connections that work with the Intel wireless NIC for Wifi 6E and Bluetooth v5.3.

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The back of the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero gives us a good look at the blacked-out PCB and we can see the split PCB on the right around the audio chipset. That also shows us that the cover over the audio that runs to the rear I/O is a lot larger than the audio section itself which is mostly down at the bottom of the board. The new AM5 socket has a large all-metal backplate on the back of the CPU socket. But the most interesting thing going on back here is the four Phision chips mounted on the back. These look just like the controller on an SSD but are actually redrivers for the new PCIe 5.0 interface. 5.0 can only run short distances, the redrivers help lengthen that distance.

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BIOS

The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero booted right up into the advanced menu, but given this is a higher-end board that is fine. Normally I like to see it default to the EZ mode section just in case anyone who doesn’t know what they are looking at gets into the BIOS to minimize potential damage and to make it easier to handle small updates. You can see the Asus EZ mode at the end of the video. It shows you which fans are hooked up, your CPU information, and ram information. Then you have an EZ tuning option and a drop-down menu to be able to turn on AMD's new EXPO DDR5 overclock. Boot priority is drag and drop and you can get into fan controls. For most people, this is all you would ever need in the BIOS.

Back in the main advanced menu, the landing page is the main tab and this lists off your BIOS revision, AGESA version, and memory and CPU information. You have a my favorites tab in the top left that you can set up with any specific option to make your own page if you are changing things often.

Then the next tab is the extreme tweaker page which is what Asus calls their overclocking page. This starts with default stuff like the AI Tuner which also has the AMD expo settings and eclk settings. From there you can get into basic memory frequencies and your fclock and make adjustments to your core performance boosts. Scrolling down gets you into the heavy stuff with pages like the DRAM timing control which dives into every single detail. Precision boost overdrive has options to change the thermal throttling and anything else boost related. The Digi VRM page has all of the VRM power settings which by default are all set to auto.

If what you are looking for isn’t on the extreme tweaker page then it will be in the advanced tab. This has all of the chipset controls, controls for subsystems, USB, network, SATA, and anything else you can think of. Down at the bottom, they have the AMD CBS page start to get into the CPU options. The AMD PBS has thunderbolt and USB 4 settings and all of the settings for the graphics. Last up is the AMD overclocking page which is AMD's own tweakers paradise. This one should really be a page over on the tweakers paradise tab because most of these are overclocking settings.

The monitor tab has pages for temperature monitoring, fan speed monitoring, voltage monitoring, and q-fan configuration. This is basically where you can see every sensor or readout on the Hero. The Boot tab is where you change your boot devices or override the boot order one time. You can also get into secure boot settings as well here. Then the tool tab is the last of the tabs and is where Asus has tucked away all of their other utilities. A good example of that is this is where you get to Asus EZ Flash 3 to update the BIOS on the Hero. You have Asus secure erase to clear hard drives, and settings for your armoury crate software as well. Also floating around in the BIOS up on the top row the Hero has a Qfan Control which you can open on any page. This allows you to set the fan profiles for any of the hooked up fans including going as far as setting what temperature sensor you want the fan profile to go off of which is nice because if you have a great CPU cooler maybe you want some fans to pay attention to if your board gets hot. You can change resize BAR settings and even quickly turn off all of the RGB lighting on the board with the top row options.  

 


Test Rig and Procedures

Test System

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X - Live Pricing

Cooling: Corsair iCUE H100i ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler - Live Pricing

Noctua NT-H1 Thermal PasteLive Pricing

  Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5 16GBx2 6000MHz - Live Pricing

Storage: Corsair 2TB MP600 PCIe Gen 4 SSD - Live Pricing

Video Card: Nvidia RTX 3070 FE - Live Pricing

Power Supply: Corsair AX1200 - Live Pricing

Case: Primochill Wetbench - Live Pricing

OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Live Pricing

 

Motherboard Testing

3DMark

We run Fire Strike on the performance setting and Time Spy on its regular setting

PCMark 10

PCMark 10 standard test, not the quick or extended versions

Passmark Performance Test 10

Overall Passmark score

In Game Tests

World War Z: Aftermath

Built-in benchmark run at 1080p with ultra detail preset

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Built-in benchmark run at 1080p with high detail preset

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Built-in benchmark run at 1080p with high detail preset

Far Cry 6

Built-in benchmark run at 1080p with ultra detail preset

Subsystem Tests

Network Performance

Passmark Advanced network test

 


Performance

When it comes to performance testing, typically motherboard to motherboard we aren’t going to see any big performance difference when running the same components and clock speeds. The exception to that is when boards are auto overclocking of course and there are a few areas where components can make a difference like with ethernet and USB controllers. For our X670 testing we don’t have any point of comparison so far to put the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero up against so I have just run it with the same 3070 GPU and 7700X used in CPU testing. I’m not expecting any of the standard tests to stand out in any way but we won't know for sure until we have more boards to test.

When it comes to network performance, however, those are numbers that we can compare with numbers from the past. The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero runs the now standard Intel 2.5G NIC which for some people has been known to have issues. More than anything I was surprised that a board of this level didn’t also have a 10G NIC, not that everyone has a 10G network at home. The wired testing went well and the NIC transferred files at 2317 Mbps which is in line with what I have seen in other tests. I then switched over to a new Wifi 6E access point with only the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero connected to it and ran the same test. This resulted in a transfer speed of 479.0 Mbps which to be fair is higher than I have seen in the past when testing standard Wifi 6, especially with Asus’s antenna design which the Hero still has. The Wifi 6E did connect at a speed of 2.4 Gbps through the windows network status page which is higher than I have ever seen before but as usual, real-world performance, especially for wireless is a lot less than what you see in a perfect situation.

3DMark – Fire Strike

Motherboard

Overall Score

Graphics Score

Physics Score

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

31533

34134

36091

3DMark – Time Spy

Motherboard

Overall Score

Graphics Score

CPU Score

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

13511

13401

14171

PCMark 10 Score

Motherboard

Overall Score

Essentials

Productivity

Content Creation

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

8938

11238

11678

14766

Passmark PerformanceTest 10.0 - Overall Score

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

9764.2

World War Z: Aftermath – Ultra Detail – Average FPS

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

229

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands – High Detail - Average FPS

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

156.62

Shadow of the Tomb Raider – High Detail - Average FPS

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

188

Far Cry 6 – Ultra Detail - Average FPS

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero

128

Average Network Speed – WiFi 6E - Mbits/Sec

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero – Intel WiFI 6E

479.0 Mbps

Average Network Speed – wired on 10G Network - Mbits/Sec

Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero 2.5G Intel NIC

2317 Mbps

           

 

While testing I did also get a few pictures of the RGB lighting on the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero which when compared to the Z690 Extreme that we use for our GPU test bench has a minimum amount of lighting. The board doesn’t have the underglow lighting or any lighting on the area over the chipset which I thought would be backlit given the mirrored finish and ROG logo but it isn’t. All of the lighting is on top of the rear I/O cover with the Polymo Lighting which has a holographic-like effect with multiple layers being lit up that looks great.

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I also had the thermal camera out while testing and I would have preferred to do this testing with one of the Ryzen 9 CPUs but our samples of those CPUs aren’t coming in until launch day. Overall the 7700X does use a lot of power with the system pulling 230 watts when loaded in AIDA 64 with the FPU stress test that I ran for 30 minutes to get these images. You can see that heatsinks are taking in the heat but at 48c it is much cooler than the CPU.

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Overall and Final Verdict

If it's features you want when you start looking at your options for the new AM5 motherboards, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero doesn’t lack them that is for sure. Just with its USB options alone, you will be set. The rear I/O has 8 Type-A connections and four Type-C including two USB4. Not to mention three USB 2 headers, two 3.2 headers, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 for internal headers that can give you 11 more front panel USB connections. Then you add in the 4 M.2 slots on the board (two of which are PCIe 5.0) and the included add-in card as well which is also PCIe 5.0 as well. It isn’t to the level of the ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme, but it isn’t too far off. You even get the convenient push button release for the top PCIe bracket for easier removal of your GPU in a tight space.

At the same time though with the crazy number of features the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero is also missing a 10G NIC which given the cost I would have thought might have been included. You do get a 2.5G NIC and Wifi 6E which isn’t too bad though. I also thought the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero would have more lighting, but I don’t know that I consider it a con that it doesn’t All of the lighting is up on top of the rear I/O cover and nowhere else which is surprising given the price. Speaking of price, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero has an MSRP of $699 which is expensive so its focus is mostly going to be higher-end builds. But like I mentioned in our Ryzen 7000 series review, this isn’t a bad time to buy into the AM5 ecosystem because you will have some flexibility to upgrade in the future given how long AMD keeps their CPU sockets around.

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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