ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO LGA1851 Motherboard Review

Introduction

It has been 10 generations ago since the debut of the Hero class of motherboards from ROG and since then it has been the steadfast entrypoint for ROG motherboards especially in situations where ASUS doesn’t feel like releasing a FORMULA or an EXTREME.

In 2o24, motherboards serve more as support for the CPU while providing IO. This means there’s not much a manufacturer can add-in without bumping up cost. This has pushed vendors to be creative with their offerings, creating motherboard designs from foundational boards that feature essentials all the way to catch-all solutions that try to cover every and all bases.

Specifications

Official product page – MAXIMUS Z890 HERO

Z890 Block Diagram

Packaging & Content

ASUS has been using this style for a while now but goddamn that’s a lot of marketing icons on the lower side of the box. Aside from that, the front features just the name of the motherboard with no product photos. All of that is reserved to the back where we have feature highlights and a quick specs table.

Inside the box we have the following:

• 1 x ARGB RGB extension cable
• 4 x SATA 6Gb/s cables
• 1 x DDR5 fan holder
• 1 x Thermal pad for M.2 22110
• 1 x ASUS WiFi Q-Antenna
• 1 x Q-connector
• 1 x M.2 Q-Latch package
• 3 x M.2 Q-Slide packages
• 1 x ROG stickers sheet
• 6 x M.2 rubber packages
• 1 x ROG Thank You card
• 1 x ROG Bottle Opener
• 1 x USB drive with utilities and drivers
• 1 x Quick start guide

Board Layout

The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO is a standard ATX-sized motherboard featuring a metallic shroud in the front and a near-full coverage backplate on the rear side of the motherboard. This motherboard is very heavy and the backplate is there to support the weight while also adding aesthetic, though only for the out-of-box look.

This generation’s design follows what we’ve seen from the MAXIMUS Z790 DARK HERO with just a styling on the ROG logo to fit into this year’s design language.

One of the most stand-out physical feature of this motherboard is its gigantic heatsink array. Holding it the first time gives the feeling you’re holding a high-end motherboard. Its easily the heaviest ROG MAXIMUS HERO and given the amount of metal this thing has, that’s to be expected. Still, a 22-phase array for the CPU alone seems to be overkill for a CPU family aimed at reducing power.

Aside from the CPU socket, the top area is dominanted by the heatsink but ASUS skillfullly jams their plugs and buttons to complete the HERO experience.

Given that this is a prim and proper ATX board, it has all the makings of something bound for an eATX. Barring the VRM, the IO shroud covers a good portion of the left side of the board with the topmost M.2 Gen5 slot being covered by another massive chunk of aluminum.

The right side is packed with plenty of IO including a pair of USB-C front panel headers with one capable of USB3.2 Gen2x2 20Gbps as well as 65W PD charging and another USB-C running at 10Gbps. Aside from the remaining 4 SATA ports, ASUS gives us a slimSAS port. Its explicitly stated what they intend for it. ASUS has been putting slimSAS on their workstation boards but other than U.2 or a SATA breakout capable, I’m in the dark on other possible uses.

Going back to the giant heatsink block on the Gen5 M.2 slot, its got this nice level lock that holds it in place. Its a solid piece of metal and weighs the part, too.

That heatsink is only a portion of the M.2 heatsink the ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO has. The rest of the bottom shrouds ditches a secondary PCIe x16 and gives us another pair of Gen5 M.2 slots which shares its bandwidth with the primary PCIe x16 slot. You’ll be running in x8 if you populate any of these two Gen5 M.2 slots but the topmost slot (with the large block) has its own dedicated PCIe lanes. The rest of the slots are Gen4 speed.

ASUS introduces a slider mechanism that locks the drive in place uses a plastic slider. This is not an original as IcyDock implemented a similar mechanism a few years ago already on their M.2 enclosures.

Moving down the bottom half of the board we get a ton more connectivity and port headers! The rest of the RGB headers are in this area as well as your helping of USB2.0 and USB3.0 headers. A bunch of fan headers round out the bottom along with the front panel connectors for both the case and audio.

The slider toggle at the bottom left is the PCIe speed selector which goes from left to the right as Gen5, Gen4, and lastly Gen3 for the PCIe slots. Speaking of PCIe slots, that last one is only a x1 slot so if you’re planning to use this with a PCIe device like capture card or an x16 M.2 riser, then you’re out of luck. Aside from a sound card, that last slot is absolutely useless.  Before we move on, the tack switch on the lower right is the ReTry button which is a force hard reset switch if the ROG MAXIMUS Z890 ends up crapping itself.

Let me stop you right there ASUS. Let me be known from this day onwards that whoever signed off on having a 2.5GbE + 5GbE instead of of a single 10GbE is going have to explain himself to the Tribal Chief. Yes, it’s convenient but there is no way in God’s green Earth that someone actuall thought of this as a better idea than having dual 10GbE. For a company that sells routers with 10GbE ports and WIFI7, the goal is to give users a reason to use them. Not embracing the technology you make is a shameful display.

Anyway, the rest of the rear IO comprises of more DIY buttons including the BIOS Flashback button and the Clear CMOS button. Rear USB and IO include a total of 11 ports:

• 2 x Thunderbolt 4 ports (2 x USB-C)
• 5 x USB 10Gbps ports (4 x Type-A + 1 x USB-C)
• 4 x USB 5Gbps ports (4 x Type-A)

This is paired with a pair ethernet ports from Intel and Realtek which are just fine but could’ve been so much better.

Closing everything is the WIFI antenna plugs and the audio optical-out port and a pair of gold plated 3.5mm jack for mic-in and line-out/speaker-out.

BIOS Walkthrough

ASUS’ BIOS layout hasn’t seen much change for more than half-a-decade and that may be a good thing as its easy to find things once you know where to look. For newcomers to the platform though, ASUS’ paging system has become very dense with much of the tools crammed underneath Extreme Tweaker and Advanced.

Still, this is one of the more responsive UEFI interfaces out there with only EVGA’s topping everyone else’s… that is EVGA made a Z890 board.The new UEFI looks sharper than before and Intel’s default profiles are front and center to make sure you are intentionally choosing to run your system on an unlocked profile if you do.

The beta BIOS sent to the media for the review rounds of this motherboard only included a limited list of memory preset profiles for their OC setting. You could however play around with DIMM Fit to further finetune your memory speeds.

Sadly, no advanced BIOS settings has been added except for knobs and screens for newer features like DIMM Fit, DLVR controls, etc.

Load Behavior and VRM Thermals

Test Setup & Methodology

Processor: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (Media Sample)
Motherboard: ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO
Memory: Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5-7200
Storage: Corsair MP700 Gen5 SSD
PSU: FSP Hydro G Pro 1000W
Cooling: ROG Ryuo III 360 AIO CPU Liquid Cooler
Monitor: ROG Strix XG32UQ 4K
VGA: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050 Ti

The review sample for this test is a media kit from ASUS consisting of the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, a Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5 RAM kit, and the Corsair MP700 PRO Gen5 SSD.

Most motherboards nowadays are heavily overbuilt particularly on the higher-end of the spectrum. You really don’t need a 20-phase VRM assembly, much less a heavily engineered one with the most bleeding edge hardware. Still, they’re there for primarily stable power delivery and running cool while doing so.

Running on ASUS unlocked profile, the motherboard is pushing 320W+ to our Core Ultra 9 285K. With 22 power phases and a VRM heatsink array to make the last-generation’s EXTREME blush, the MAXIMUS Z890 HERO keeps it really cool.

User Experience & Conclusion

Many publications have been slimming down on motherboard reviews as motherboards themselves are becoming redundant. This is true but I feel the motherboard represents glue that brings your system altogether in a way to make them perform as well the usability experience a user has outside of pure performance.

With that in mind, ASUS has been at the forefront of delivering some of the most notable improvements on motherboards in recent years but in a year filled with misses, the ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO does feel like its pretending to be something else rather than being what made the HERO class a step-up from the ROG Strix. Though to be fair, ASUS’ ROG Strix line-up has been more ROG than Strix lately and has filled the role of the older HEROs but still, ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO (I affectionally refer to it as the MAXIMUS XVI) sits in a position where it wants to be a single-purpose gaming/overclocking motherboard rather than the multi-purpose HERO it used to be.

The upside is that it shares many of the design and features of the MAXIMUS EXTREME motherboard including the overly-engineered VRM and VRM heatsink. This generation of ASUS motherbaords also see the debut of ASUS’s NitroPath of RAM connectors. This is exclusive to ASUS and it can give an increase in RAM stability especially in higher RAM OCs.

Curiously though, this is the only motherboard I’ve tested that draws power from not only the ATX12V+EPS12V but also the ATX12V off the 24-pin PSU. I was going to do a segment on that but I couldn’t isolate what board component could be drawing 22W in idle but I didn’t want to conclude on the total draw and include it so I’ll be requesting more details from ASUS about this. EDIT: Our ASUS technical rep Jim has responded with:

There are couple of CPU power rails required to be drawn from 24-pin connector 12V, including VSA / VGT / Vnnaon ,and for ROG Extreme, Hero, Apex boards, there’ll be another 4-phases of CPU Vcore power drawing from 24-pin 12V.

–  ASUS Technical Rep “Jim”.

Many of the things that vanished in terms of physical addition are somewhat covered by quality-of-life features like ASUS’ Q-release slot which removes the need to press a tab or button to release your graphics card or PCIe device. The decision to ditch the secondary PCIe x16 slot (x8) is also an EXTREME holdover but if the intention is to pack a trio of Gen5 SSDs on this board, a fairly warm GPU can easily add heat to that shroud which are cooling a pair of Gen5 SSDs so poorly thought out there… alongside those pair of LAN ports. That’s just bad. Have I made it quite clear yet?

As a motherboard though, this board is all about excesses but trades off some regular board commodities to make room for it. Rich in IO, rich in storage but lacks in high-speed LAN connectivity as well as lacks PCIe device expandability removes this board as a high-performance production motheboard.

Aesthetically, it is a very good-looking motherboard with the charcoal black and glass mix coupled with the towering mass of metal on the VRM area. And the powered-on looks is just as excellent.  There is no LED readout nor a full-colored OLED display, some things that ASUS could’ve worked in into this generation.

So to sum it all up as someone who has been using a HERO/DARK HERO for the past 2 or 3 years, the board is expectedly phenomenal and looks the part. I/O is rich but there are trade-offs which may or may not be usable to all users. The choice to go with mismatched ethernet ports is a big turn-off. But this is everything that MAXIMUS EXTREME is, just made a bit less. So yes, ASUS is actually create an EXTREME LITE with the HERO rather than the other way around so if you prefer to sit in that usecase where watercooling, gaming and overclocking are your prime usecase then this board will definitely fit your needs.

Coming in with an official MSRP of PHP45,520, the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO has a lot of competition below but ASUS seems to be keen in holding their spot for luxury high-end motherboards. Its a love-hate relationship for me but for a CPU generation targeted for gaming, this is about as high-end as I’d recommend so it gets a pass.

The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO is backed by a 3-year warranty and is available now. Despite being an EXTREME expy, the MAXIMUS Z890 HERO is the better recommendation than the MAXIMUS Z890 EXTREME for a luxurious daily driver. I give it my B2G Recommended Seal.

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO LGA1851 Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Its a love-hate relationship for me but for a CPU generation targeted for gaming, this is about as high-end as I'd recommend so it gets a pass.

Pros

Excellent looks

Great VRM cooling performance

Very good quality-of-life improvements

Expansive IO option

Same price as last-gen

Cons

Trades PCIe expansions for M.2 slots

2.5GbE and 5GbE pair is stupid

Still priced premium as last-gen

9.1

Rating

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