ASUS ROG Z890 Maximus Hero Preview
Introduction
Introduction
A strong brand is the corner stone to strong sales. However much we might like to imagine things like brand loyalty or a cult following are important, that a company is our friend, at the end of the day its a business. There can’t be many brands on the market stronger than the pairing we have for you today.
On the one hand we have Intel, the people who have been in the CPU business longer than any other. We’re old enough to remember Cyrix too, and the fact only we can – and therefore our back hurts – shows how dominant Intel and then AMD became in the processor world. The other is the Republic of Gamers arm of ASUS. ASUS have a portfolio bigger than any other company we can think of. If you want it, and it’s to do with computing, you can probably get an ASUS version of it. ROG became a sub-brand in 2006 and since then has come to define high end products.
Never more so than with the name that is resplendent upon today’s model, the ASUS ROG Z890 Maximus Hero. ASUS might have moved on from merely using ‘Formula’ and ‘Extreme’ nomenclature, but Hero has been around long enough it’s famous too. Maximus certainly is. Husband to a murdered wife etc … ahem. So if you fancy getting onboard with the new Intel Arrow Lake CPUs – Ultra is too tempting after all – then you’ll need a new LGA1851 motherboard. ASUS are hoping the Maximus Hero will be your choice. Let’s take a look.
Z890 Chipset Overview
At the time of writing we haven’t yet got the motherboard specifics. However, Intel have released a lot of information about the new Z890 chipset in more general terms. Primarily this is very similar to the already excellent Z790 chipset. A lot of the Intel claims are about WiFi 7 and Thunderbolt 4, both things we know existed on the Maximus Z790 Hero. Perhaps there is more than meets the eye. Perhaps once the motherboard manufacturers have stopped being so coy we’ll know more clearly what we’re playing with.
However, if the Z890 chipset overall doesn’t seem like a massive change, the overclocking certainly has been. Giving the user significantly more granular control of their core clock and voltages is just the start. The AI heavy leanings on the new Arrow Lake CPUs probably go someway towards explaining how much of these new enhancements are automated. We’re not going to debate the semantics of machines following heuristics vs genuine artificial intelligence. Suffice to say if you really like overclocking, the new Intel lineup could be right up your alley.
