ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero Ryzen Motherboard Review @ [H]

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ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero Ryzen Motherboard Review - It’s been years since we’ve reviewed an ASUS ROG offering that was designed for AMD CPUs. That’s not to say that those haven’t existed, those just weren’t worth a look as the AMD side of things has not been compelling for the better part of the last decade. Thanks to AMD Ryzen, we have a reason to take the ASUS Crosshair VI Hero for a test drive and tell you how it fared in the tumultuous sea of AM4 motherboards.
 
Thanks for reviewing this board. It is pretty surprising for ASUS to put out a ROG board that doesn't excel at overclocking. It seems like overall the motherboard implementations for the Ryzen CPUs are still struggling to mature. Hopefully the memory issues will improve/mature and get these CPUs to be even better.
 
Whoa. Is this the downfall of Asus?

Has Asus's hardware division finally started to resemble its customer service sector???
 
RIP test board.

Nice review, that board sounds frustrating as hell. At some point board makers should back away from putting over 9000 features on boards and focus on shit that works.
 
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I have the ASRock X370 Pro Gaming and I love their UEFI as much as ASUS. If the ASUS is no go, then I'd recommend people give this one a try. The Tachi is pretty much the same board with only a few things stripped down and for $199 is a solid offering IMO. I'm really glad I went with my gut and got the ASRock this time.
 
I will agree the Crosshair bios needs work. Hopefully things improve here soon on that front. Having been limited to DDR 2667 on my memory and very relaxed timings. The new Aegsa 1.0.0.6 is supposed to solve most issues with ram so they say.
Other than that I've been rocking 4ghz stable on all 8c, with 1.35 volts. On my R7 1700.

Another note I thought I was going to brick the board updating the bios via the windows tool, Took over 9 hours to complete the flash, and it rebooted and worked, I thought for sure it was gonna be dead. I think I am going to use a usb stick next time and hopefully its faster.
 
Whoa. Is this the downfall of Asus?

Has Asus's hardware division finally started to resemble its customer service sector???

i just think the board was released to early.. to be honest i was actually surprised they even had the crosshair VI on release day of ryzen. the last few boards from that line i think have been released a month or so after the processor had been released.
 
Is HardOCP getting soft?
  • First batch of boards came with bios's that will brick (make it a paperweight)
  • RGB lighting has a rather short time span before they all go dark - mine went dark about a week ago, maybe longer since I really didn't miss it that much to bother to see if it went out reading about it over and over again. To get it back, if I can get it back means loading Aura again (it would never open before, fresh install of Windows? ? ?)
  • Software is anything but stable, Aura RGB software has corrupted countless RGB lighted ram
  • Many loading AI Suite III will have lock ups or windows not booting ( I did not have that, I did have the automatic OCing software concluded that 1.55v to the cpu was fine with a clock speed of around 4.1ghz! on a cpu that was not even stable at 3.85ghz with 1.45v). Not one piece of ASUS Windows software worked well in my experience.
  • I had to remove all the ASUS sound software since with it installed passing any stability test was a very trying event - goes along with OCing - removed ASUS software if you want any kind of success
  • Then removing the ASUS software is one of the most frustrating thing you will have to do, it is more like a virus and just sticks around causing all sorts of havoc, use DDU, CC Clean and plow through the registry manually and good luck fishing
  • My cheapo B350 BioStar mobo boots up about 10secs faster then the CH6, runs rams flawlessly at 3200, no cold boot issues
  • Speaking of cold boot issues, if your temperature gets less than 20c ambient and your CH6 is less than 20c -> good luck booting it will just turn on and do nothing, let it warm up some and it will boot
  • Many who turn off power to the motherboard will fight to get back into the bios to reload hopefully a saved profile, a special beta bios was put forth that started the motherboard at 90mhz BCLK vice 100mhz to solve this, except some devices did not like running that slow
Now I am able to go to 4ghz but currently don't have good enough cooling to consider running at that speed. Memory wise no problem getting past 3200 speeds, mixture of cpu IMC quality, bios, AMD AGESA quality and if you got all the planets align right. I got lucky twice with memory. Actually with the newer beta bios with AGESA 1.0.0.6 ASUS is probably best for memory support.

The bios does give much to configure, play with etc. I don't have any mouse lag issues in the bios and I am using a USB wireless mouse - so was surprise seeing Kyle having that issue. Logitech G602 mouse.

ASUS is very active at overclock.net with this motherboard which is refreshing and makes it sorta fun as well as time goes on. I would only recommend this board if you are a deep seated Enthusiast that don't mind plowing through hours of issues at times, this motherboard can deliver some great results. Now if you want a show boat don't expect to bring friends over, start it up with all the RGB decorations lighting up, nor it booting up with the past weeks OCing triumphs that tested stable for 24 hours straight except now you are now at base clock. Consistency this motherboard is not and that can be very frustrating, especially it can be very unique to you with others having totally different nightmares or experiences.

I hope HardOCP reviews the Tachi, looks like the AM4 board to have for an Ethusiast also BioStars X370GT7, the MSI Titanium looks to be joke for the price. Hopefully the ThreadRipper is somewhat more mature or stable when it hits, that is where I think HardOCP will not be so nice if it fails to deliver.
 
I skimmed over the conclusion very briefly but I agree, if Asus wants to play make a better motherboard. The reliance upon something that might or might not survive pending on settings which are not something this board is not capable of supporting is just another form of showing things are "terribly" wrong.

Meaning that if from a 1000 people using Crosshair VI Hero 800 boards are pretty reliable is simply not good enough and even if that 800 number is bigger there is no good reason for that number not to be 1000.

Asus needs to do a lot more to be the best on the AM4 platform.

Coming back from a "bad" overclock is not an easy process with this motherboard either. Many times you have to simply clear the CMOS to have any hope of having the board POST again. Over...and over...and over...and over. Intel and ASUS have simply spoiled us with its extremely matured UEFI over the last five years. The AM4 platform on the Crosshair VI Hero will make you feel like you have been moved back a decade when you start truly dialing in your overclock. One thing I can tell you is make sure you save your UEFI settings, and more than once I found those "gone" after a hard power down for a few minutes, pulling the CMOS battery, and finally powering back up. Quite simply working with this motherboard over the last few months has not been an enjoyable experience. Of all the AM4 motherboards I have worked with up to this point, the Crosshair VI is on the bottom of my list. It's odd though as there were shining moments where you though ASUS had everything lined out, and then you would see another UEFI roll out and things would be worse than those were two releases ago.

bad overclocks aside the whole process makes little to no sense. Which makes me wonder why , why is it that this is so "broken" can't put the blame on AMD. Then I'm wondering does Asus know what they are doing. The first time I saw that this board was out I was thinking (after seeing jay2cents video and reading xtremesystems.org on it just bricking) skip this one at all costs.

Shouldn't sirens go off at Asus HQ or other forms of alarms ?
 
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I get it that the board makers didnt get a lot of time to prepare for am4's launch but I expected asus to get their ROG board issues worked out by now, especially for what they are charging for it.
 
Well, there is a soft brick issue with AMI itself. Gigabyte has it as well and they're reps indicated it would affect all the manufacturers most likely. Removing all power cables from the MB and the CMOS battery for a while should bring it back if its this particular bug.

Also the Blender test seemed hard to explain. That's a significant difference between Asus and Gigabyte even though the clock speed is the same and the Gigabyte board has faster RAM to boot.

On the other hand the AotS results are probably explained by the faster memory on the Gigabyte board (retesting GA at 2933 might be a good data point)
 
So I am thinking about picking up this board. My new system will probably not be overclocked and use my setup for a mix of gaming and productivity work (Some VM's for cert training). Was trying to think if the 1800x + this board worth it over a 7700K setup?
 
So I am thinking about picking up this board. My new system will probably not be overclocked and use my setup for a mix of gaming and productivity work (Some VM's for cert training). Was trying to think if the 1800x + this board worth it over a 7700K setup?

You should be able to find cheaper X370 boards all of them should be able to handle stock 1800X.
 
Is HardOCP getting soft?
  • First batch of boards came with bios's that will brick (make it a paperweight)
  • RGB lighting has a rather short time span before they all go dark - mine went dark about a week ago, maybe longer since I really didn't miss it that much to bother to see if it went out reading about it over and over again. To get it back, if I can get it back means loading Aura again (it would never open before, fresh install of Windows? ? ?)
  • Software is anything but stable, Aura RGB software has corrupted countless RGB lighted ram
  • Many loading AI Suite III will have lock ups or windows not booting ( I did not have that, I did have the automatic OCing software concluded that 1.55v to the cpu was fine with a clock speed of around 4.1ghz! on a cpu that was not even stable at 3.85ghz with 1.45v). Not one piece of ASUS Windows software worked well in my experience.
  • I had to remove all the ASUS sound software since with it installed passing any stability test was a very trying event - goes along with OCing - removed ASUS software if you want any kind of success
  • Then removing the ASUS software is one of the most frustrating thing you will have to do, it is more like a virus and just sticks around causing all sorts of havoc, use DDU, CC Clean and plow through the registry manually and good luck fishing
  • My cheapo B350 BioStar mobo boots up about 10secs faster then the CH6, runs rams flawlessly at 3200, no cold boot issues
  • Speaking of cold boot issues, if your temperature gets less than 20c ambient and your CH6 is less than 20c -> good luck booting it will just turn on and do nothing, let it warm up some and it will boot
  • Many who turn off power to the motherboard will fight to get back into the bios to reload hopefully a saved profile, a special beta bios was put forth that started the motherboard at 90mhz BCLK vice 100mhz to solve this, except some devices did not like running that slow
Soft you say? Hardly.

  • First batch of boards came with bios's that will brick (make it a paperweight)
We mentioned the fact that this was one of three motherboards that have failed on us. Unless the board is DOA, this statement doesn't make any sense. How can a BIOS that's already on the board brick the thing?
  • RGB lighting has a rather short time span before they all go dark - mine went dark about a week ago, maybe longer since I really didn't miss it that much to bother to see if it went out reading about it over and over again. To get it back, if I can get it back means loading Aura again (it would never open before, fresh install of Windows? ? ?)
I had the board on my bench for two weeks and mine never "went dark." You can't speak as though the issues you've seen or read about are 100% certain on every board. How can I slam a board over a problem I never encountered?
  • Software is anything but stable, Aura RGB software has corrupted countless RGB lighted ram
Again, I never experienced this.
  • Many loading AI Suite III will have lock ups or windows not booting ( I did not have that, I did have the automatic OCing software concluded that 1.55v to the cpu was fine with a clock speed of around 4.1ghz! on a cpu that was not even stable at 3.85ghz with 1.45v). Not one piece of ASUS Windows software worked well in my experience.
AI Suite III worked fine once I got it installed. Automatic overclocking often selects voltages that are out of whack, so this isn't purely an issue that's isolated to AI Suite III.
  • I had to remove all the ASUS sound software since with it installed passing any stability test was a very trying event - goes along with OCing - removed ASUS software if you want any kind of success
Once again, this wasn't my experience.
  • Then removing the ASUS software is one of the most frustrating thing you will have to do, it is more like a virus and just sticks around causing all sorts of havoc, use DDU, CC Clean and plow through the registry manually and good luck fishing
I've never had any trouble removing ASUS software.
  • My cheapo B350 BioStar mobo boots up about 10secs faster then the CH6, runs rams flawlessly at 3200, no cold boot issues
I never had any cold boot issues provided I wasn't trying to recover from a bad overclock.
  • Speaking of cold boot issues, if your temperature gets less than 20c ambient and your CH6 is less than 20c -> good luck booting it will just turn on and do nothing, let it warm up some and it will boot
This wasn't an issue.
  • Many who turn off power to the motherboard will fight to get back into the bios to reload hopefully a saved profile, a special beta bios was put forth that started the motherboard at 90mhz BCLK vice 100mhz to solve this, except some devices did not like running that slow
The ROG Crosshair VI Hero did fight me on getting into the UEFI sometimes, I'll give you that. Still, I hardly think that the [H] is going "soft" because we didn't experience the same issues as you did.

Now I am able to go to 4ghz but currently don't have good enough cooling to consider running at that speed. Memory wise no problem getting past 3200 speeds, mixture of cpu IMC quality, bios, AMD AGESA quality and if you got all the planets align right. I got lucky twice with memory. Actually with the newer beta bios with AGESA 1.0.0.6 ASUS is probably best for memory support.

We had no trouble with DDR4 3200MHz RAM speeds using a very specific set of modules. None of the others we tried were able to run at that speed. It's not really a mixture of CPU IMC or any of the other issues you mentioned. Motherboard design may factor in, but the biggest issues are related to the UEFI and the AGESA code of a given motherboard model. So far, it doesn't seem like the CPU itself is a limiting factor. Nothing more, nothing else.

The bios does give much to configure, play with etc. I don't have any mouse lag issues in the bios and I am using a USB wireless mouse - so was surprise seeing Kyle having that issue. Logitech G602 mouse.

I didn't have any issues with the mouse lagging in the UEFI. I was using a Logitech G602 as well.

ASUS is very active at overclock.net with this motherboard which is refreshing and makes it sorta fun as well as time goes on. I would only recommend this board if you are a deep seated Enthusiast that don't mind plowing through hours of issues at times, this motherboard can deliver some great results. Now if you want a show boat don't expect to bring friends over, start it up with all the RGB decorations lighting up, nor it booting up with the past weeks OCing triumphs that tested stable for 24 hours straight except now you are now at base clock. Consistency this motherboard is not and that can be very frustrating, especially it can be very unique to you with others having totally different nightmares or experiences.

ASUS is usually pretty active in various forums. This isn't anything unusual. What is unusual is the inconsistency of the ROG Crosshair VI Hero experience. Good or bad, ASUS is fairly consistent most of the time.

I hope HardOCP reviews the Tachi, looks like the AM4 board to have for an Ethusiast also BioStars X370GT7, the MSI Titanium looks to be joke for the price. Hopefully the ThreadRipper is somewhat more mature or stable when it hits, that is where I think HardOCP will not be so nice if it fails to deliver.

Kyle makes all the decisions on what boards we review. I don't know what I'm going to get until I go and pick them up. As for ThreadRipper, I sincerely hope AMD's X370 serves as the refresher course in motherboard chipsets and reference code that it needed. Frankly, the last two major chipset releases that AMD has had were a cluster fuck, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. We are still dealing with X370's bullshit and the 990FX chipset was a shit show too. It was arguably worse than X370 in some ways. I have a feeling that ThreadRipper's chipset will be repurposed server hardware that's been haphazardly thrown into an "enthusiast" configuration hastily. Whether or not that proves to be a good thing or a bad one is anyone's guess. We'll have to wait and see. You are right about one thing, I will not be kind if ThreadRipper's chipset / platform is as screwed up as X370 was. With X370, I can almost give AMD a pass since it had been so long since they produced a motherboard / chipset platform anyone wanted that they easily could have forgotten how to do it right. With ThreadRipper, they won't have that excuse.
 
So I am thinking about picking up this board. My new system will probably not be overclocked and use my setup for a mix of gaming and productivity work (Some VM's for cert training). Was trying to think if the 1800x + this board worth it over a 7700K setup?
If you are not going to overclock, not sure why you would want to buy this board? It was made to tinker with. I just never got to the productivity part yet with this board. It is better then when I first got it bios wise but it still has issues. For me this is a fun board, it has been awhile since I plowed through a bios, hours, days and really over a couple of months now. That will eventually end when I will not even think about he bios for months if not a year - I just wonder if the board will go beyond the tinkering and fixing stage. I would not even consider a 7700K at this time, Ryzen for the bucks just offers way more in the scheme of things. I wished HardOCP reviewed more AM4 boards, I know the platform is not yet mature but that just goes with the territory.
 
If you are not going to overclock, not sure why you would want to buy this board? It was made to tinker with. I just never got to the productivity part yet with this board. It is better then when I first got it bios wise but it still has issues. For me this is a fun board, it has been awhile since I plowed through a bios, hours, days and really over a couple of months now. That will eventually end when I will not even think about he bios for months if not a year - I just wonder if the board will go beyond the tinkering and fixing stage. I would not even consider a 7700K at this time, Ryzen for the bucks just offers way more in the scheme of things. I wished HardOCP reviewed more AM4 boards, I know the platform is not yet mature but that just goes with the territory.


Oh I plan to tweak and play with Overclocking eventually, just not right out the gate.
 
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If you are not going to overclock, not sure why you would want to buy this board? It was made to tinker with. I just never got to the productivity part yet with this board. It is better then when I first got it bios wise but it still has issues. For me this is a fun board, it has been awhile since I plowed through a bios, hours, days and really over a couple of months now. That will eventually end when I will not even think about he bios for months if not a year - I just wonder if the board will go beyond the tinkering and fixing stage. I would not even consider a 7700K at this time, Ryzen for the bucks just offers way more in the scheme of things. I wished HardOCP reviewed more AM4 boards, I know the platform is not yet mature but that just goes with the territory.

More AM4 motherboards will be reviewed. Don't worry about that.
 
Here is the best thread I've seen for info about this board: http://www.overclock.net/t/1624603/rog-crosshair-vi-overclocking-thread
The problem is that the thread is a mile long and it's hard to read it all to pick out the good info, but here is one big issue people need to know about from that thread:

"Aura software and RGB sticks corrupting SPD

If you're using out Aura software and have compatible RGB sticks installed, please make sure you're not running any other software which is reading SPD (CPU-Z, HWMonitor, HWInfo32/64, SIV, AIDA64, Speedfan etc) or you might end up with a corrupted SPD. Most of the time they will still work fine, but there's a slight chance your sticks might become unusable. It's currently being investigated on our side, until then I have to recommend to uninstall Aura until we've fully assessed the situation. From what I've learned it's a bug present with several different vendors and combinations of both motherboards and DRAM modules."

Yup, the software will F up your RAM. Nice right?

Asus really needs to get their act together for this board in my opinion. In general they seem a bit behind on bios updates in general compared to other companies.
The Crosshair VI Hero and maybe the X370 Pro have some beta bioses available with AGESA 1.0.0.6. They are available in that long thread somewhere, but hard to find.
Other boards in the lineup don't have anything yet.
The other board manufacturers have more beta bioses with AGESA 1.0.0.6 available, and they had them sooner. Asus is just behind and I'm not happy about it. I have the Prime B350 Plus and wish I had picked up an MSI or Gigabyte now. It will probably be weeks before my board gets an update.

edit: Here are the beta bioses for the Crosshair: http://www.overclock.net/t/1624603/rog-crosshair-vi-overclocking-thread/15900#post_26106654
Elmor works at Asus so those are fine to use.
 
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Soft you say? Hardly.

  • First batch of boards came with bios's that will brick (make it a paperweight)
We mentioned the fact that this was one of three motherboards that have failed on us. Unless the board is DOA, this statement doesn't make any sense. How can a BIOS that's already on the board brick the thing?
  • RGB lighting has a rather short time span before they all go dark - mine went dark about a week ago, maybe longer since I really didn't miss it that much to bother to see if it went out reading about it over and over again. To get it back, if I can get it back means loading Aura again (it would never open before, fresh install of Windows? ? ?)
I had the board on my bench for two weeks and mine never "went dark." You can't speak as though the issues you've seen or read about are 100% certain on every board. How can I slam a board over a problem I never encountered?
  • Software is anything but stable, Aura RGB software has corrupted countless RGB lighted ram
Again, I never experienced this.
  • Many loading AI Suite III will have lock ups or windows not booting ( I did not have that, I did have the automatic OCing software concluded that 1.55v to the cpu was fine with a clock speed of around 4.1ghz! on a cpu that was not even stable at 3.85ghz with 1.45v). Not one piece of ASUS Windows software worked well in my experience.
AI Suite III worked fine once I got it installed. Automatic overclocking often selects voltages that are out of whack, so this isn't purely an issue that's isolated to AI Suite III.
  • I had to remove all the ASUS sound software since with it installed passing any stability test was a very trying event - goes along with OCing - removed ASUS software if you want any kind of success
Once again, this wasn't my experience.
  • Then removing the ASUS software is one of the most frustrating thing you will have to do, it is more like a virus and just sticks around causing all sorts of havoc, use DDU, CC Clean and plow through the registry manually and good luck fishing
I've never had any trouble removing ASUS software.
  • My cheapo B350 BioStar mobo boots up about 10secs faster then the CH6, runs rams flawlessly at 3200, no cold boot issues
I never had any cold boot issues provided I wasn't trying to recover from a bad overclock.
  • Speaking of cold boot issues, if your temperature gets less than 20c ambient and your CH6 is less than 20c -> good luck booting it will just turn on and do nothing, let it warm up some and it will boot
This wasn't an issue.
  • Many who turn off power to the motherboard will fight to get back into the bios to reload hopefully a saved profile, a special beta bios was put forth that started the motherboard at 90mhz BCLK vice 100mhz to solve this, except some devices did not like running that slow
The ROG Crosshair VI Hero did fight me on getting into the UEFI sometimes, I'll give you that. Still, I hardly think that the [H] is going "soft" because we didn't experience the same issues as you did.



We had no trouble with DDR4 3200MHz RAM speeds using a very specific set of modules. None of the others we tried were able to run at that speed. It's not really a mixture of CPU IMC or any of the other issues you mentioned. Motherboard design may factor in, but the biggest issues are related to the UEFI and the AGESA code of a given motherboard model. So far, it doesn't seem like the CPU itself is a limiting factor. Nothing more, nothing else.



I didn't have any issues with the mouse lagging in the UEFI. I was using a Logitech G602 as well.



ASUS is usually pretty active in various forums. This isn't anything unusual. What is unusual is the inconsistency of the ROG Crosshair VI Hero experience. Good or bad, ASUS is fairly consistent most of the time.



Kyle makes all the decisions on what boards we review. I don't know what I'm going to get until I go and pick them up. As for ThreadRipper, I sincerely hope AMD's X370 serves as the refresher course in motherboard chipsets and reference code that it needed. Frankly, the last two major chipset releases that AMD has had were a cluster fuck, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. We are still dealing with X370's bullshit and the 990FX chipset was a shit show too. It was arguably worse than X370 in some ways. I have a feeling that ThreadRipper's chipset will be repurposed server hardware that's been haphazardly thrown into an "enthusiast" configuration hastily. Whether or not that proves to be a good thing or a bad one is anyone's guess. We'll have to wait and see. You are right about one thing, I will not be kind if ThreadRipper's chipset / platform is as screwed up as X370 was. With X370, I can almost give AMD a pass since it had been so long since they produced a motherboard / chipset platform anyone wanted that they easily could have forgotten how to do it right. With ThreadRipper, they won't have that excuse.
lol, yes inconsistent is probably the best word to describe the CH6. Kyle had different issues then you and I as well. Now that was a joke that you guys are getting soft :).

The initial bios's allowed the SOC voltage to get excessive which corrupted one of the onboard EC (electronic controller). ASUS was not very specific, bios 901 corrected this issue but many first buyers boards bricked after changing ram settings due to this.

I am not the only one that had RGB going out, Aura not loading etc. Hard to quantify or give accurate numbers of a percentage of owners. If you uninstall Aura you will still have services running in the background that are not uninstalled. Aura will corrupt RGB GSkill ram modules - known issue which ASUS recommends not using AURA if you use RGB modules at this time. Since I don't have RGB modules, I will reload the latest AURA which has been updated since my issues with it not starting to see if I can ignite those lights again - oh boy.

Maybe I should be more precise on cold boot - one issue for some; is if you power down the board as in unplugged or turn off the power supply, it will basically on the next startup turn on and off over and over again eventually going into default mode where you will need to reload your bios settings or profile - I don't have that issue - that 90mhz bios was for that. Second is with temperature, some of us if the board gets cold enough - it will not boot up until it warms up - it just hangs before the bios. Since I live in Florida that is not too much of an issue unless I cool my room down excessively with my A/C unit.

The ASUS sound software I only know one other person making similar report that had the same issue as I, I never went back into the software to see if I could locate a setting causing the issue. Basically at 100% cpu load stress testing with Sound Sonic and the other program (forget) the desktop would freeze periodically, hitch etc. and eventually fail. Prevent the startup of Sound Sonic etc. same test, no issues - changing a number settings, voltages, frequency, cpu clock had no impact on this behavior only not starting the software. It gave that unsteady feel to the OS or that it was not stable. Uninstalling and reloading did not change the issue. I stress test normally with music running, it can be a good indicator of issues and with the ASUS sound suite it was an utter mess until it was not used. My recommendations of not using any ASUS software until you have a good baseline on your OC, Ryzen Master or Bios. I just don't have much faith in ASUS software at this time.

Current issue I have with most recent bios is if the VIVE is powered up, it will boot into a black screen, no bios screen etc. Now why that would change with a bios change . . .

All said and done, I like the board, it is fun and can deliver some potent performance once tamed a little.
 
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lol, yes inconsistent is probably the best word to describe the CH6. Kyle had different issues then you and I as well. Now that was a joke that you guys are getting soft :).

Funny it is a "joke" now that we spent the time answering every one of your concerns. Don't threadcrap our review threads again. There are some of us trying to have real conversations.

The initial bios's allowed the SOC voltage to get excessive which corrupted one of the onboard EC (electronic controller).

We did not have that issue, so we did not report it.

I am not the only one that had RGB going out,

We did not have that issue, so we did not report it.

Maybe I should be more precise on cold boot - one issue for some; is if you power down the board as in unplugged or turn off the power supply, it will basically on the next startup turn on and off over and over again eventually going into default mode where you will need to reload your bios settings or profile - I

We did not have that issue, so we did not report it.

The ASUS sound software I only know one other person making similar report that had the same issue as I

We did not have that issue, so we did not report it.

Current issue I have with most recent bios is if the VIVE is powered up, it will boot into a black screen, no bios screen etc. Now why that would change with a bios change . . .

We did not have that issue, so we did not report it.

All said and done, I like the board, it is fun and can deliver some potent performance once tamed a little.

I would never hire you to review hardware with that kind of opinion after all you have dealt with.

I have very much watched the forums and the issues that others are having with this motherboard. However when we review products, you calling us soft because we did not have the same issues as you is bullshit. I am not here to echo YOUR issues, we are here to document and report the issues we had during our review process.

Now that all said, input like yours is important in our community as this is what community is about, all of us sharing information. But I am not here to be a mouthpiece for YOUR issues.
 
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The other board manufacturers have more beta bioses with AGESA 1.0.0.6 available, and they had them sooner. Asus is just behind and I'm not happy about it. I have the Prime B350 Plus and wish I had picked up an MSI or Gigabyte now. It will probably be weeks before my board gets an update.

edit: Here are the beta bioses for the Crosshair: http://www.overclock.net/t/1624603/rog-crosshair-vi-overclocking-thread/15900#post_26106654
Elmor works at Asus so those are fine to use.

And that is part of the problem as well , updates that make people want to downgrade again , had stability on several issues in the previous update and the new bios is not something that would build upon it but break things and fix other issues.

If only they could get that part right (fixing stuff and not break working configurations )...
 
Thanks for the review. I took the plunge and preordered one, and it has been super flakey in my experience too. I am running the 1201, and still have issues that are fundamental, and this is running stock. Example, with the 3 16x slots populated, I manually set the 4_3 slot to 1x lanes, it ignores my settting, utilizes 4x lanes, so some of my other pci slots are unusable. I would also not recommend the board. The issues with x370 means I will be much more skeptical of x399. Even if threadripper has great performance/value, the platform can still sink it.
 
Great review, thanks guys.

I own this board and an R1700. The whole thing has been a F-ing nightmare. It's the most inconsistently booting, slow loading, piece of shit I've ever experienced. This isn't 100% Asus's fault, as Ryzen was a rushed clusterfuck.

I've never enjoyed overclocking less. To the point that I don't even have my memory running at speed or my CPU overclocked anymore. I check the overclock.net message boards a few times a week, hoping some BIOS miracle comes out, and then fart around with the newest beta bios for a few hours before shutting it down and not touching it for another week.

Fuck ryzen and asus.
 
So far GIGABYTE has provided the best experience with Ryzen processors.
 
Kyle/Dan

Seems like no matter what board, overclocks are basically hitting the same wall (not talking LN or extreme cooling solutions). This been your experience as well?

Part of me wants to dump this C6H for something with FEWER settings, just slap together simple overclock, and quit looking at this computer (god I must be getting old).
 
Interesting that this had issues - my Prime B350M-A has been very good, which I would think would not work as well as the ROG line (or anything in the x370 line). I'm even at 2933 cas14 on my 3000 cas15 rated ram, with the 1700 at 3.7 on (wraith) air. I had thought about moving to an x370, but I can't see a reason to do so. I'm not sure what it would gain me other than some extra pci-e lanes and maybe slight power savings due to p-state overclocking.
 
Seems like no matter what board, overclocks are basically hitting the same wall (not talking LN or extreme cooling solutions). This been your experience as well?
Simple answer, yes.
 
Great review, thanks guys.

I own this board and an R1700. The whole thing has been a F-ing nightmare. It's the most inconsistently booting, slow loading, piece of shit I've ever experienced. This isn't 100% Asus's fault, as Ryzen was a rushed clusterfuck.

I've never enjoyed overclocking less. To the point that I don't even have my memory running at speed or my CPU overclocked anymore. I check the overclock.net message boards a few times a week, hoping some BIOS miracle comes out, and then fart around with the newest beta bios for a few hours before shutting it down and not touching it for another week.

Fuck ryzen and asus.


My experience too, I am running at stock speeds, since stability non oced has been so questionable. I still will randomly get failed boots, will completely stock speeds. Not impressed with all the issues I have had without overclocking, so I kept putting off overclocking until it gets ironed out. Now I am thinking spending extra for the Intel x299 platform might be worth it if it ends up being rock solid.
 
This is not like ASUS, but then again, the code they have to work with is controlled by AMD (AGESA). Its a shame that the release of Ryzen has suffered from immaturity. I hope they get it right with Vega.
 
This is not like ASUS, but then again, the code they have to work with is controlled by AMD (AGESA). Its a shame that the release of Ryzen has suffered from immaturity. I hope they get it right with Vega.

And this is exactly the problem. I think the hardware is probably fine and that everything wrong with the Crosshair VI Hero comes down to firmware.
 
I just had to put my ch6 in the mail today for an rma after all my rgb lighting went out and would not come back on...

The only thing I did not like and I'm not sure if this was because of the board but when I first started using it through core voltage was all over the board and I did not like how high the voltage was going but a manually set voltage solved that problem
 
I have this board with an 1700 and have not had any issues with it, even with overclocking the memory and CPU. Boot speeds are fast, games and video encoding run great. Now I'm starting to get paranoid after reading this review. I'm going to offer more sacrifices to the computer gods tonight just in case.
 
Great review as always..
after many years of using Gigabyte MB's and having great success with them, I decided to try ASROCK for the first time in a long time, and I could not be happier with the ASROCK Killer SLI/ac board.. I didn't want to go very expensive at my first go with AMD since the Athlon days..
That being said, ASUS has always failed me in the passed, so I do not consider Asus for my builds..
Thanks again for the reviews!
 
I just had to put my ch6 in the mail today for an rma after all my rgb lighting went out and would not come back on...

The only thing I did not like and I'm not sure if this was because of the board but when I first started using it through core voltage was all over the board and I did not like how high the voltage was going but a manually set voltage solved that problem
Well I was able to revive my RGB lights by downloading most recent Aura version, this time Aura worked and would open. Looks like what I consider as bloatware Aura may have to be installed to keep the lights going at least that what some have indicated at overclock.net.
 
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After reading this review, I am not updating the BIOS of my brother's Crosshair VI Hero any time soon. I have not updated the BIOS since the lunch of Ryzen a few months ago because I am waiting on a BIOS release that solves issues instead of creating more. His system currently runs an 1800X at 4.1Ghz and the DDR4 3000Mhz memory at 2666Mhz because I could not get the memory to run stable at higher frequencies. Other than the issue of memory stability at frequencies higher than 2666Mhz, the machine boots fast and runs stable.
 
I've not had the experience described in the review at all. It has been stable, and overclocked well. Currently running memory at 3466 MHz, 14-14-14-14-34-1T timings. User experiences vary I guess, but it does seem odd. I do have a criticism of the review itself. You tested the x370 motherboards configured at significantly different memory settings, essentially negating any validity to comparative results.. the C6H was set at 2933 MHz and tested against the AX370 set at 3200 Mhz. Come on, that is nuts. Talk about putting a thumb on the scale! Even so the C6H won in memory bandwidth, which is pretty amazing.

Take any two motherboards with otherwise identical components, hamstrung one of them with lower settings, test and gee whiz!! DOH. I thought you guys used decent methods, but this review is a big FAIL to me.
 
The motherboard performs well for me - that is what counts - software in my experience has been a big waste of time and buggy on this board but that maybe more my view. I just don't like a lot of software running in the back ground that I will never even look at or use after a few times. Maybe I am getting old but keeping the OS lean and mean seems more prudent. Get rid of the ASUS software junk in the OS - the board starts to really perform well - at least in my experience.

Just ran Passmark - for shits and grins - for AMD DDR 4 performance I got the top Memory Read Uncached of 19567, fastest memory write of 10650. Unless I am reading their charts wrong for AMD (likely). Anyways been running DDR4 3200 after a week I got this board and currently running DDR4 3500. BCLK overclocking is a very strong feature of this motherboard which was not covered at all. CPU mark of 16961 - whoopee.
 
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