ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero Z390 Motherboard Review

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero Z390 Motherboard Review

Taking a queue from Hollywood, ASUS brings us another sequel to its long running ROG franchise with its Maximus XI Hero. While most movie sequels never live up to the original, computer hardware usually improves on the previous iteration. However, that’s not always the case. Is that the case here? Read on and find out.

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I personally no longer buy their products. Between shoddy software that is prone to causing system locks up, performance loss and crashing in general and some quality control issues I've had over the years I just don't feel their price premium worth it. I can accept that may be limited to my own personal experience but, looking it up, i'm not alone, it seems.
 
Asus has 16 Z390 boards on their website. 11 of them have "ROG" in the name. "ROG" means nothing as far as differentiating a Z390 board from the rest of their Z390 product line.
 
The Extreme, APEX & Gene are the ones with proper VRMs in their Z390 line-up - the rest are mediocre to bad at best.

The best VRMs for Z390 can be found on the Gigabyte Z390 Extreme along with the best and more useful features of any other Z390 board including the MSI Godlike. Gigabyte comes with the most efficient VRM chips and also has the best cooling.

With that said, Asus still has the best memory overclocks (sub timings?) and UEFI. Their software sucks yes but no less that the rest.....all M/B manufacturers have a lot of work to do before their software changes from "garbage" status to lean and usable....IMHO.

I have an upcoming build with a Z390 motherboard and if I stay in the $250-300 range for the mobo I will choose the Gigaby Aorus Master if I go higher I will either go with the Maximus XI Extreme of the Gigabyte Extreme which is even better than the Asus.


I hope this is the last time they attempt to push mediocre hardware to enthusiasts under the ROG name since they need to realize that people know and find out what lies beneath....
 
Too bad this is happening.

The Hero used to be my "go-to" ROG board because it had all the essentials and no fluff.
Seems like that is gone.
 
Incorrect, the Maximus XI Formula has the standard implementation we've seen on its better motherboards for awhile. It may not be as good as the APEX or Gene, but I can't speak to that as I've not looked into it. I haven't had those on hand. I've only looked at the Maximus XI Hero and Formula so far. The latter uses the standard IR phase doublers in a 4+2 phase configuration doubled to 8+2 with the ASP1405 controller, etc.

They might be using different controllers since launch since up to now I thought the Hero & Formula used the same VRM and this is not only me...Can you confirm that it uses a different VRM configuration (even the controller) vs the Hero?

Anyway, the Formula is not cheap and they should do better for the price vs the waterblock and shiny armor which is a lesser version of the Rampage Extreme...I would prefer to spend extra and get the Maximus Extreme or the even better Gigabyte Aorus Extreme that has a top notch VRM and a ton of extra features (10GB NIC, Thunderbolt, extra Fan Header Cards / RGB Controllers that Asus charges $100 for) vs the Formula....

Anyway the thing is that Asus is on a cost reduction spree and this sucks......they just released the new Rampage VI Omega and the same applies there too....cost reduction.
 
My last two builds have been with Asus ROG Hero boards (Maximus VI with a 4770K and my current Crosshair VII Hero). Both of these were Gold Award winners and have been rock solid for me. The Maximus is going still going strong after 5 years with a moderate OC on a 4770k. Too bad to see ASUS scrimping on a power component.
 
They might be using different controllers since launch since up to now I thought the Hero & Formula used the same VRM and this is not only me...Can you confirm that it uses a different VRM configuration (even the controller) vs the Hero?

Anyway, the Formula is not cheap and they should do better for the price vs the waterblock and shiny armor which is a lesser version of the Rampage Extreme...I would prefer to spend extra and get the Maximus Extreme or the even better Gigabyte Aorus Extreme that has a top notch VRM and a ton of extra features (10GB NIC, Thunderbolt, extra Fan Header Cards / RGB Controllers that Asus charges $100 for) vs the Formula....

Anyway the thing is that Asus is on a cost reduction spree and this sucks......they just released the new Rampage VI Omega and the same applies there too....cost reduction.

I've actually pulled the heat sink and thermal armor off the Maximus XI Formula and the VRM implementation is identical to that of the Maximus XI Hero. It uses the ASP1400CTB voltage controller. So you are correct.
 
Instead of investing in a better, more efficient VRM implementation in the likes of the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme but not so many overkill phases, the chose to spent on the "Armor" and cool their less efficient VRMs with a waterblock......I mean it costs almost as much as the Extreme that on top of better VRMs it at least has A 5Gbit NIC (why not a 10GB??)....

Anyway, at least for those with custom loops it will be "cool" even on a 9900K but I am not going to be one of them.I want to build a nice gaming system that could double as a small "backup workstation" for content creation for when my main PC is down (for maintenance or....worse). I also wanted it to have 10Gbit lan because I plan on a NAS too with 10GB and I am really puzzled as wether it is worth it or not to get the Maximus XI Extreme of the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme which offers much more. However, both raise the cost of the build quite a lot and at the end of the day it will still be a 16 PCI-E lane platform.

Anyway, I am now working on a waterloop for this build and I won't be purchasing the mobo/cpu until late June so plenty of time to also see what AMD has to offer.
 
Instead of investing in a better, more efficient VRM implementation in the likes of the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme but not so many overkill phases, the chose to spent on the "Armor" and cool their less efficient VRMs with a waterblock......I mean it costs almost as much as the Extreme that on top of better VRMs it at least has A 5Gbit NIC (why not a 10GB??)....

Anyway, at least for those with custom loops it will be "cool" even on a 9900K but I am not going to be one of them.I want to build a nice gaming system that could double as a small "backup workstation" for content creation for when my main PC is down (for maintenance or....worse). I also wanted it to have 10Gbit lan because I plan on a NAS too with 10GB and I am really puzzled as wether it is worth it or not to get the Maximus XI Extreme of the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme which offers much more. However, both raise the cost of the build quite a lot and at the end of the day it will still be a 16 PCI-E lane platform.

Anyway, I am now working on a waterloop for this build and I won't be purchasing the mobo/cpu until late June so plenty of time to also see what AMD has to offer.

I think we should probably stick to the Maximus XI Hero in this thread so I don't want to go too far off topic. You'll be seeing our review on it soon. As for the pricing comment, the Formula is cheaper than the Extreme last I checked. I couldn't agree with you more on the 10GbE vs. 5GbE stuff. I address this in detail and outline my thoughts on this in the upcoming article.
 
I will await for your review on the formula since I am really curious how the same VRM behaves under the waterblock both with and without water...
 
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