ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO Motherboard Review

AMD continues its support for the AM5 platform with the latest release of the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor, a successor to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. With this new release, several AMD Board Partners, such as ASUS, took the chance to release a new wave of their X870E series chipset motherboards. We have the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO in the labs for our review.

ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO Motherboard – A Closer Look

The ASUS ROG Crosshair is ASUS’ flagship motherboard line for its AMD socket motherboards, a counterpart to the ROG Formula series for Intel. As such, you have a very different packaging design from the usual ROG and ROG Strix series motherboards

Contents of the packaging are as follows:

• 2 x SATA 6Gb/s cables
• 1 x Thermal pad for M.2 22110
• 1 x ASUS Wi-Fi moving antennas
• 1 x Cable ties pack
• 1 x M.2 Q-Latch package
• 2 x M.2 Q-Slides
• 1 x ROG key chain
• 1 x ROG Strix stickers
• 5 x M.2 Rubbers
• 1 x Quick Start guide

The ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO has a distinctive design that sets it apart from regular ROG Strix and ROG Formula series motherboards. The Crosshair follows a bit more muted design, relying on the large LED area on the IO connector and VRM heatsink for aesthetics. Its M.2 heatsink area is also less bulky looking compared to previous ASUS ROG motherboards.

Like most premium ASUS ROG motherboards, the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO features a full-coverage backplate with a decent cutout on the CPU socket area for easy cooler mounting access.

VRM setup on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO is as overkill as you can get on an AM5 platform motherboard. You have 20(110A) + 2(110A) + 2(80A) POWER STAGES, which is basically overkill even for the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU. This has two more 110A power stages over the ASUS ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WIFI Motherboard that we reviewed a year ago.

Memory support on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO is also higher at 8,600+ MBT/s using Ryzen 9000 series CPUs. It’s a marginal 600MT/s OC support bump over the X870E-E Gaming WIFI. DIMM slots A2 and B2 are the optimal slots to populate first for a dual-channel setup.

You have the standard ASUS ProCool II EPS 12V power connectors on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK Hero motherboard. Like its VRM setup, these connectors are overkill even for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, as each connector can support up to 384W and 9A per pin.

The ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK Hero sports a pretty generous IO configuration and is probably the most packed IO in a motherobard that we’ve reviewed so far. It has two USB 4 40 Gbps ports, three USB Type-C 10 Gbps ports, six USB Type-A 10Gbps ports, one HDMI 2.1 port, one 10Gb RJ-45 port, one 5Gb Ethernet port, two 3.5mm audio jacks,and one optical S/PDIF port, a BIOS FlashBack button, one clear CMOS button, and a WiFi 7 connector. The Wifi 7 connector sports ASUS’ latest quick-release mechanism dubbed the Q-Antenna.

The BIOS FlashBack buttons and Clear CMOS buttons are recessed enough to prevent accidental presses.

One of the key pains of ASUS ROG Motherboards are the one large heatsink shared among its M.2 SSD slots. There’s added work should you need to tinker with one of the M.2 slots. There’s also the hassle of having to remove your GPU when you need to access an M.2 SSD except for the top-most Gen 5 M.2 slot.

That said, ASUS has its signature PCIE Slot Q-Release, M.2 Q-Release, M.2 Q-Slide, and M.2 Q-Latch tool-less mechanisms to alleviate the typical screwing ordeal.

Benchmark Setup and Test Methodology

Gadget Pilipinas’ testing philosophy is to provide detail-oriented results as accurately as possible so that our readers can replicate our tests, given that these conditions are met. Different benchmarking apps and sequences are used depending on the tested component or device.

We use CapFrameX 1.8.4 BETA as our primary FPS capture and analysis tool for all our gaming benchmarks. The latest build version of Windows 11 Pro and WHQL-certified drivers are used for our benchmarks. Readings such as temperatures and power draws are recorded using HWINFO64, and other relevant software for cross-checking.

For more info, read our Review and Benchmark methodology article.

ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO Benchmarks

3DMark – Firestrike, Timespy, and CPU Profile

3DMark is the go-to benchmark for gamers because of the ability to share and compare results online.

SuperPI 32M

SuperPI is a single-threaded benchmark application that lets the CPU calculate Pi(π) to the nth digit. In this benchmark, we selected the Pi calculation to 32M, the highest available for the app. 

CINEBENCH 2024.1

Maxon’s Cinebench benchmark is one of the most iconic benchmark applications used by reviewers and enthusiasts. The latest Cinebench R23 uses the latest rendering architectures, including Intel’s Embree ray tracing technology and other advanced features from AMD and Intel that allow users to render the same scene on the same hard. 

ADOBE PREMIERE PRO v26 – PROCYON

Procyon benchmark suite is developed by the UL, the same team behind 3DMark and PCMark benchmarks. The UL Procycon video editing benchmark uses Adobe Premiere in a typical video editing workflow. The benchmark starts by importing two video project files with various edits, adjustments, and effects – the second project uses several GPU-accelerated effects. Each project is exported in 1080p with H.264 encoding and again in 4K with HEVC H.265. The reported score is based on the time taken to export all four videos.

OCCT Enterprise Benchmark

OCCT is a popular benchmark and stability testing tool among overclockers, enthusiasts, and system integrators

wPrime 1024M

wPrime is a benchmark tool similar to SuperPI, but the former takes on finding prime numbers using Newton’s Method. The benchmark is set to calculate 1024 million prime numbers, and the performance is measured according to calculation time. 

V-RAY 6

V-Ray Benchmark is a stand-alone version of V-Ray developed by Chaos Group. It is designed to test the CPU and GPU by rendering sample scenes at a fixed amount of time. V-Ray is a plug-in mostly utilized by 3D computer graphics software applications, mainly for industrial design, product design, architecture, film, and video game production. V-Ray is not limited to 64-threads as it supports multi and mega-threading. 

BLENDER

Blender is a widely used, free, open-source 3D creation suite. It supports the whole 3D pipeline process from modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, and even motion tracking. Blender has become a standard for CPU benchmarks, with the BMW27 and Classroom Scene being the most used. This prompted the company to release Blender Open Data Benchmark in 2018, a benchmark-specific version allowing users to run a preset benchmark and share the results online like 3DMark.

GeekBench 6.5

Geekbench is a multi-platform benchmark used to gauge CPU performance and compare it across Windows, Mac, and Mobile. Geekbench 6 is the latest version and doesn’t rely on memory more than the previous Geekbench 4, making it a great tool to measure both single-core and multi-core CPU performance.

PCMark10

From the same developers of the popular game benchmarking tool 3DMark, PCMark 10 is a benchmarking app for measuring a whole PC’s performance. It covers a wide variety of tests to reflect common tasks performed in a modern workplace. We selected PCMark 10’s extended benchmark and reported both the overall score and Digital Content Creation Score. 

CORONA RENDERER

Corona Renderer is an unbiased photorealistic render available for Autodesk 3Ds Max, Maxon Cinema 4D, and as a stand-alone application. Its popularity, similar to Blender, led Chaos Group to develop a benchmark version of the app which runs using Corona Renderer 1.3. Workstation systems, especially CPUs, can utilize Corona Benchmark as up to 72 threads can be used in the benchmark, making it very suitable for CPUs with various price segments. 

PassMark 10.2

Passmark 10 provides a comprehensive suite of tests that evaluate various aspects of a system’s performance, including CPU, GPU, memory, and disk performance. Its automated testing process makes it accessible and efficient for reviewers to conduct benchmarks and analyze the performance of different systems.

BapCo CROSSMARK

Crossmark is one of the few native cross-platform benchmark tools available for Windows, Android, Linux ChromeOS, iOS, and macOS. It measures overall system performance and system responsiveness using models of real-world applications, making it a great comparison point across multiple platforms.

HANDBRAKE

Handbrake is a top-rated open-source video conversion software that is used by professionals, enthusiasts, and even reviewers as a reference point, mainly because of its wide variety of media codecs. The rise of streaming and blogging makes video content, both encoding and transcoding, important for these people, regardless of whether they’re seasoned professionals or just starting out. Handbrake also takes advantage of AVX-512 and OpenCL to accelerate certain types of media codecs. Our Handbrake benchmark converts a 500MB MP4 video to H.264 to measure the processor’s performance.

OCTANE 2.0 PLUS

Google Octane 2.0 is a benchmark that measures a Javascript engine’s performance by running multiple tests representing different use cases of JavaScript applications. While Google Octane is retired and no longer maintained, it is still a good representation of today’s dynamic, interactive web applications. Our Google Octane 2.0 runs on Microsoft’s latest Chromium-based Edge browser. 

ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO Temps

The ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO has the highest recorded idle and peak temperatures in our test bench at 46.5°C and 95.6°C respectively. That said, the delta between the other X870E boards atleast in the peak temps is less than 1°C and for the performance you’re getting, it’s a negligible tradeoff.

Overall, you have a complete package of everything you need with the ASUS ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WIFI provided if you can afford the Php 33,000 “package” price. Like in our ROG Strix -E series previous review, the X870E-E is basically a Crosshair board without the branding and the eccentric features. The premium you’re getting apart from the robust connectivity is ASUS’ signature quality-of-life experience with its easy-to-use, Q-series features. So, if you value getting everything that you need and might need in the future, especially if you’re aiming to upgrade to the next CPU series under the AM5 platform, then the ROG Strix X870-E Gaming is future-ready thanks to its superb build quality and robust connectivity.

Conclusion

The ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO brings a much more complete, end-game feature-set on what you would see on a motherboard. It addresses the bifurcation issues plaguing most X870E boards that would render most of their M.2 slots almost useless or basically bottlenecked with reduced speeds that also affected your GPU. It’s one-stop shop motherboard to get if you’re planning to max out the AM5 platform to last you until another new-socket DARK HERO comes.

At Php 55,420, the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E DARK HERO is certainly not for everyone with its cost matching a whole new pc build for 1080p gaming. That said, much of its price tag goes to the guarantee of running the latest AMD AM5 CPUs, even the just recently announced AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. Its has an unparalleled connectivity that doesn’t come quirks of bandwidth sharing especially between your M.2 slots. Its robust build quality, performance, premium features, and generous IO make it a future-ready motherboard worthy of its investment-tier pricing especially if it’ll power a build that’s used to generate income weather its through productivity workloads or help you dominate in games.

Grant Soriano

PC Review Lead and Sales Officer at Gadget Pilipinas | Website

Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.