ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero Review
Conclusion & Video
Conclusion
It doesn’t feel that long ago that ASUS only offered the Formula and Extreme in their main motherboard models. The introduction of the Dark Hero version of their Crosshair VIII motherboard was such a success it’s here as a Maximus variant. If you’ve seen our preview of the all-white ASUS ROG Maximus Formula, you can think of this as the, ahem, dark version. Okay the Maximus Z790 Dark Hero hasn’t got the hybrid heatsinks, but otherwise it’s a Formula in a black suit.
ASUS have experimented a lot with their motherboard designs in recent years. We’ve seen glitchy text, graffiti, multiple textures, some with greater success than others. All of this makes the simple design of the Dark Hero really stand out. It’s classy. The huge ROG Eye logo on the M.2 heatspreader would dominate things if it wasn’t for the RGB logo over the VRMs. In fact that logo is one we’d thoroughly recommend you checking out in the video. Pictures just don’t do it justice. It’s attention grabbing and gorgeous. A real highlight. Such is the attention to detail on the Dark Hero, and nothing less than we’d expect from ROG, you could almost stop here.
However, that isn’t all the Dark Hero has to offer. With support for the new 14th Gen Intel CPUs out of the box it’s easy to get up and running. Five M.2 slots – four Gen 4 and one Gen 5 – cover all your storage needs, and four SATA ports allow you to migrate old drives easily. Connectivity is here aplenty. The rear panel alone has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, 6 USB 10G ports and 4 5G ones. There is a 2.5G LAN and Intel’s latest WiFi 7 for high-speed networking. Special mention has to go to the redesigned antenna which are much more user-friendly. The front panel USB Type-C is a 20G version with support for Quick Charge 4+ too. Great for those of us who often plug our devices in.
The business side of things begins with the 20 teamed 90A power phases. Not the highest rating we’ve seen but, again, this is around the Formula point in the ASUS lineup. That massive heatsink ensures that they are kept cool throughout our testing. Even pushing our Core i9-14900K to 6 GHz didn’t cause the Dark Hero to break into a sweat.
Sporting plenty of connectivity, fantastic looks and great performance, the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero wins out OC3D Performance Award.
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