ASUS ROG Z890 Maximus Hero Review
Conclusion
Conclusion
If you’ve read another of our Z890 reviews you can skip this paragraph. It bears repeating though. Like the rest of the Z890 motherboards we’re looking at today, we’re largely considering the ASUS ROG Z890 Maximus Hero in a vacuum. We understand that there is a possibility this will be the only use of this particular socket, so the upgrade path might be a dead end. We also know the Z890 isn’t offering loads that isn’t already available on current Z790 platforms. They are, however, the only way you can use a Intel Core Ultra processor. We have to judge them on those merits.
We’ve spoken a lot today about how we feel regarding the underlying Intel Core Ultra processors. If you’ve ever been party to a closed-beta test and there be maybe one or two faults, and then a public beta happens and the changelog is massive, that’s how we feel right now. Getting the Core Ultra CPUs working smoothly has not been the matter of a moment. Indeed it’s possibly the most annoying Intel launch in memory. Our results bear this out. You can level many claims at the Ultra 200S, but consistent isn’t one of them. Now by the time you read this they’ll be public, and Intel go from having maybe 100 people trying them out, to thousands. Maybe that will get them to focus on the underlying issues. Nobody wants to faff about installing things in a very specific order just to have fun.
Fortunately for ASUS the ROG Z890 Maximus Hero and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K combination has been, on average, the best of the six motherboards we’ve reviewed for launch. Of the seventeen tests we run, the Z890 Maximus Hero is top of the graph in seven, top three in 12 and bottom in zero. We know it’s not the most affordable of the options we’ve tested, but that level of performance is undeniable. We are especially impressed by the VRM temperatures. The Z890 Hero boasts 22 110A stages, so keeping them cool isn’t a simple task.
Although aesthetics are very much a matter of personal taste, we have to say we do like the bold design of the Hero. Big block fonts. None of that glitchy text ASUS seems to love. Couple that to the plethora of connection options, including twin LANs, and the ASUS ROG Z890 Maximus Hero is deserving of that famous name and wins our OC3D Performance award. It’s the best of the Z890s in raw benchmarks.
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