ASUS ROG Maximus VI Hero Pro Reviews

The ASUS Maximus VI Hero is very much a welcome model in the ASUS Republic of Gamers product stack. It fills in the need for a lower priced ROG motherboard option. Of course with that you will give up a lot of extra features that you find on other ROG motherboards, but the core essence of the Republic of Gamers motherboard is retained. The Maximus VI Hero is rich in terms of enthusiast overclocking features and simply supplies a great platform in terms of executing those features at a sub-$220 price point, with an Amazon-direct price of $205 with Free Prime Shipping if you can wait a month for Amazon to bring stock in.

Reasonably priced as low as $200, the Maximus VI Hero is currently one of the best values in the Z87 motherboard market. Granted, it may be missing the more robust version of 4-Way Optimization included with the Z87 Deluxe and the overclocking profiles seen in the Rampage series but these are only minor exclusions on an otherwise top-tier board. If you always wanted to get in on the innovation and build quality the ASUS ROG team brings to the table without paying an astronomical amount, look no further.

ROG has come to the plate in the Z87 game sporting multiple board models to allow even more granularity to the lineup. The fact that there will no longer be just a few models (Extreme, Formula, Gene) and now has grown to 5 boards. ROG with its ever growing innovations always impresses with feature sets and this time around the Digi+ VRM gets a nice little shot in the arm with new components and even better performance to match the Z87 architectures ability to run extremely well while saving even more power. The included ROG RAMDisk and SSD Secure Erase are very cool tools in their own right to give you great performance and the Secure Erase makes sure you keep getting great performance. The new UEFI options such as the quick notes and even previous change logs I see as cool being a overclocker it is nice to not have to write down or keep finite details on every change since you can see them right in the BIOS. The HERO while not everything that the Maximus Vi Extreme comes out to be it comes in at a much more reasonable price tag so that gamers looking for some great overclocking and performance along with compatibility up to dual card setups really have no reason not to snatch this board up in a big hurry. This board for its performance, features and just looking awesome in the process deserves a top pick amongst high end gaming boards especially with a very sweet price.

When I heard what ASUS was calling their new SKU, I almost choked. I really thought ASUS might be taking a big risk here with the MAXIMUS VI HERO, and I even added some Tina Tuner to my music playlist as I began my testing. Everything worked pretty well, but when I tested the power consumption numbers, I was not surprised to find some far higher than expected. I even started singing along with Tina, images of Mad Max floating through my head. So I ran my benchmarks, not paying attention to scores, and started overclocking. The ASUS ROG series has long been known to provide one of the most functional platforms for record-breaking results, and its ease-of-use that is second to none. To me, overclocking with the ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO proved that ASUS is still on top of their game when it comes time to overclock, providing the necessary options to reach and crack the limit. So much so that I'm using an ASUS ROG Z87 product as the base for my current memory testing rig--none other than the MAXIMUS VI EXTREME I'll cover in a full review within the coming weeks. The ASUS MAXIMUS VI HERO is very much a smaller version of the more expensive EXTREME board, but there are some glaring differences too, like the Hero's lack of in-BIOS overclocking profiles and its limited support for multi-GPU configurations. Their overall differences are so huge that I MUST review the EXTREME board separately, because they really are very different in so many ways. The most obvious difference is the price. The MAXIMUS VI HERO is literally half the price of the EXTREME.

When I first saw this board and heard it was a gateway product into the ROG universe I was curious as to which features would get left by the wayside to reach an affordable price point. A price point that was not really out of reach for the majority of users looking to jump into an ROG motherboard. Traditionally the ROG motherboards are halo products designed for the hard core gamer and enthusiast, usually with a price to match. Not so here with the ASUS Maximus VI Hero that comes to market at a more friendly $229 that puts it right into a nice price bucket. What you get for that price is a board that comes with all the hardware capabilities of the ASUS Z87 product stack coupled with a comprehensive software package that provides added value and functionality for the end user. To start with, as a gaming centric board sound and graphics capabilities are going to be high on the list of must haves. Here ASUS delivers with up to Quad SLI and CrossfireX using a pair of multi GPU cards such as the GTX 690 or just released HD 7990. ASUS' Supreme FX sound solution is implemented well including the isolation of the sound solution from EMI interference at the hardware level. ELNA audio capacitors are used to provide a richer experience that comes across quite well while gaming, watching a Blu-ray movie, or just listening to music. The sound is crisp and clear, plus you get the redline moat visuals for some added bling factor. Supreme FX audio also supports a new tool for gamers called Sonic Radar to help improve the gaming experience even further by taking the sounds generated in-game and providing a graphic representation of where they come from. One last bit on the sound is Perfect Voice, a tool used to improve VOIP by reducing ambient noise intrusion.

The ASUS ROG Maximus VI Hero definitely lives up to the ROG name and saves us some bank! The ASUS ROG Maximus VI Hero performs great, overclocks great and generally does everything great! I would certainly have no issues using this board in my personal system or recommending it to anyone!