ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero review Review UK 2026

I’ve tested dozens of motherboards that looked brilliant on paper but fell apart in practice. Fancy heatsinks covering mediocre VRMs. BIOS interfaces that make you want to throw your keyboard. RGB lighting that blinds you whilst the board throttles your CPU. That’s why I don’t trust spec sheets anymore. I trust thermal cameras, stress tests, and two weeks of actual building experience. And that’s exactly what I’ve put the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero through.

The X870E chipset is AMD’s current flagship, and it shows. You get proper PCIe 5.0 support for both your GPU and primary M.2 slot, which matters if you’re planning to use the latest Gen 5 SSDs that actually saturate those speeds. The “E” designation means extended features, specifically more PCIe 5.0 lanes than the standard X870.

What I appreciate about this implementation is that ASUS hasn’t skimped on the chipset cooling. There’s a substantial heatsink with proper thermal pad contact, not the decorative plastic rubbish you sometimes see on cheaper boards. During my testing with a Ryzen 9 9900X, the chipset never exceeded 58°C even during extended file transfers across multiple NVMe drives.

Right, let’s talk about the bit that actually matters for long-term reliability. The Crosshair X870E Hero uses an 18+2+2 phase design with 110A power stages. That’s 18 phases for the CPU cores, two for the SoC, and two more for memory. Each phase can handle 110 amps, which means you’ve got absolutely massive headroom.

I’ve tested this board with a Ryzen 9 9900X running Cinebench R23 loops for hours. The sort of sustained load that separates proper VRMs from marketing nonsense. And I’m genuinely impressed.

Tested with Ryzen 9 9900X, Noctua NH-D15, 23°C ambient temperature. VRM temps measured with thermal camera during 30-minute Cinebench R23 loop. These are excellent results that show proper heatsink design.

Those VRM temperatures are brilliant. Fifty-four degrees under sustained all-core load is exactly what you want to see. It means the heatsinks are actually doing their job, not just looking pretty. The MicroFine alloy chokes and premium capacitors ASUS mentions aren’t just marketing speak either. You can feel the quality when you’re handling the board.

The ProCool II power connectors are another nice touch. They’re reinforced and make proper contact with your PSU cables. I’ve seen too many boards where the 8-pin EPS connector feels loose, but these are solid. Small detail, but it matters when you’re pushing 200+ watts through them.

I spend a lot of time in BIOS interfaces. Too much time, probably. So I get properly annoyed when manufacturers make them confusing or hide important settings. ASUS generally does a decent job, and the Crosshair X870E Hero is no exception.

The EZ Mode landing page shows you temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds at a glance. You can enable EXPO memory profiles with one click, adjust fan curves, and change boot order without diving into advanced menus. For most people, you’ll rarely need to leave EZ Mode.

But when you do switch to Advanced Mode, everything’s where you’d expect it. CPU overclocking options are comprehensive without being overwhelming. The AI Overclocking feature is actually useful this time around. I let it tune my 9900X and it found settings that were within 2% of what I’d manually configured, which saved me about an hour of testing.

Fan control is excellent. You can set custom curves for every header, link them to different temperature sensors, and even set hysteresis to prevent annoying fan ramping. The Q-Fan Control works properly, which sounds basic but you’d be surprised how many boards get this wrong.

Memory overclocking tools are comprehensive. ASUS AEMP (their EXPO enhancement) worked well with my DDR5-6000 kit, though I did need to manually adjust the SoC voltage slightly for full stability at DDR5-6400. The Memory Try It! presets are helpful if you’re not comfortable with manual timings.

I tested with a 32GB kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 (EXPO profile). Enabled EXPO in BIOS, booted first time, ran MemTest86 for six hours without errors. That’s how it should work. I also pushed the kit to DDR5-6400 with manual tuning and it was stable, though I needed to bump the SoC voltage from 1.25V to 1.30V.

The four DIMM slots can handle up to 192GB total (4x48GB), which is more than most people will ever need. But if you’re running VMs or heavy content creation work, it’s nice to have the option. The slots are reinforced and have proper retention clips that don’t feel like they’ll snap if you look at them wrong.

This is where the X870E chipset really shows its worth. You get five M.2 slots, and two of them support PCIe 5.0 speeds. That’s proper Gen 5, not the fake marketing stuff. The primary M.2 slot sits directly under a substantial heatsink with a thermal pad, and it kept my Samsung 990 Pro at 42°C during sustained writes.

All five M.2 slots have heatsinks, which is brilliant. No need to buy aftermarket cooling or worry about thermal throttling. The heatsinks are tool-free with spring-loaded mechanisms, though I found them a bit fiddly to clip back on. Minor annoyance, not a dealbreaker.

You also get four SATA ports, which feels a bit stingy for a flagship board. Most people won’t care since M.2 is the standard now, but if you’ve got a pile of old SATA SSDs or mechanical drives, you might need to invest in an expansion card.

The rear I/O is comprehensive. Two USB 4.0 ports with 40Gbps bandwidth are brilliant for fast external storage or high-resolution displays. You get plenty of USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports for peripherals, and even a couple of USB 2.0 ports for older devices or RGB controllers that don’t need high speed.

WiFi 7 is included via an Intel BE200 module. In my testing, I got consistent 1.8Gbps speeds on my WiFi 6E router (yes, backwards compatible), which is more than enough for anything short of moving massive files. The 2.5GbE Intel LAN is rock solid. I prefer Intel NICs over Realtek for stability, and ASUS made the right choice here.

Audio is handled by a SupremeFX ALC4082 codec with an ESS ES9218 DAC. It sounds good through my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones. Clean, no audible interference, plenty of volume. But if you’re serious about audio, you’re probably using an external DAC anyway.

Compared to the Gigabyte X870E AORUS Master, the ASUS board has a slightly beefier VRM (110A vs 90A power stages) and I prefer ASUS’s BIOS layout. But the Gigabyte board offers better RGB customisation if that’s your thing, and some people swear by Gigabyte’s Q-Flash Plus for BIOS recovery.

The MSI MEG X870E Godlike is in a different league entirely. It’s got more of everything, including a price that’ll make your wallet weep. Unless you’re doing extreme overclocking or need that third Gen 5 M.2 slot, the Crosshair X870E Hero gives you 90% of the performance for significantly less money.

The Q-LED diagnostic LEDs on the board are genuinely helpful. They light up during POST to show you exactly where the boot process is failing (CPU, RAM, GPU, or storage). Saved me ten minutes of troubleshooting when I forgot to flip the PSU switch. Yes, I’m an idiot sometimes.

One thing I really appreciate is the M.2 slot layout. They’re spaced sensibly, so installing drives doesn’t require removing your GPU or other components. The tool-free heatsink clips are a nice idea, though they can be a bit stiff when you’re trying to remove them. I’d rather have that than loose clips that fall off, mind you.

The RGB implementation is tasteful for once. There’s lighting in the I/O shroud and chipset heatsink, but it’s not obnoxious. You can turn it all off in BIOS if you prefer a stealth look. ASUS Aura Sync works properly with compatible components, though I generally don’t bother with RGB ecosystems.

Let’s be honest about value. At £499.99, this board isn’t cheap. You could build an entire budget gaming PC for less. But value isn’t just about the lowest price. It’s about whether you’re getting what you pay for.

If you’re building around a Ryzen 9 9950X or 9900X, you need a board that can actually handle the power delivery. Cheaper boards will work, but they’ll run hotter and potentially limit your CPU’s performance. The Crosshair X870E Hero won’t. The VRM is genuinely excellent, and that matters for long-term reliability.

The PCIe 5.0 support is another consideration. Right now, Gen 5 SSDs are expensive and most people won’t notice the difference. But in two years? You might want that speed. And the board will still be here, ready for it. That’s the value proposition with flagship boards. You’re future-proofing.

Compare this to something like the ASUS PRIME B650-PLUS in the mid-range segment. That board will happily run a Ryzen 7 7800X3D for gaming. It’ll save you a couple hundred quid. But it won’t handle a 9950X under sustained workstation loads, and it doesn’t have PCIe 5.0 support. Horses for courses.