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Firmware
Asus’ BIOS on the X870E Hero looks the same, sporting the black, red, easy-to-read ROG theme we’re all familiar with. Asus starts in an Easy Mode that displays high-level information, including CPU and memory clock speeds, temperatures, fan speeds, storage information, etc. Advanced Mode has several headers across the top that drop down additional options. The BIOS is one of my favorites, as any option you need is there, and anything you need frequently isn’t buried deep within menus.
A unique feature of the Asus BIOS is the integrated Memtest functionality. As the name implies, Memtest86, a memory testing application, is in the BIOS and ready to use. This is most useful to the tweaker and overclocker, but even those who ‘just’ set XMP can find it useful. I also like the new Q-Dashboard in the BIOS, which shows all the integrated connectivity. When hardware is connected, there’s a green circle next to it.
Software
Asus offers several software options: the Armoury Crate for centralized control over the appearance (think RGBs and Aura Sync) and some tweaking, the Asus Driver Hub to streamline the installation and management of Asus drivers and utilities, and the TurboV Core applications for overclocking in Windows. We’ve included a few screenshots of the applications.
Also worth mentioning is the included software. When buying Asus ROG Strix motherboards, you get a 60-day trial of AIDA64, a good application for stress and performance testing, and one free month of Adobe Creative Cloud, which could bring additional value to potential buyers.
Test System / Comparison Products
We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (23H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late September 2024 (this includes the Branch Prediction Optimizations for AMD). Hardware-wise, we’ve updated the RAM kits (matching our Intel test system), cooling, storage, and video card. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public. Thanks to Asus for providing the RTX 4080 TUF graphics card and Crucial for the 2TB T705 SSDs. The hardware we used is as follows:
Test System Components
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 9900X |
| Cooling | Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420 |
| Storage | Crucial 2TB T705 M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD |
| RAM | Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEAK2-32) |
| RAM | Teamgroup T-Froce Delta DDR5-7200 CL34 (FF3D518G7200HC34ABK) |
| RAM | Klevv Cras XR5 RGB DDR5-8000 (KD5AGUA80-80R380S) |
| GPU | Asus TUF RTX 4080 16G |
| PSU | EVGA Supernova 850W P6 |
| Software | Windows 11 64-bit (23H2 - 22631.4169) |
| Display Driver | NVIDIA Driver 561.09 |
| Sound | Integrated HD audio |
| Network | Integrated Networking (GbE to 10 GbE) |
| Graphics Driver | GeForce 561.09 |
Benchmark Settings
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
| Procyon | Version 2.8.1352 64 |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Office 365, Video Editing (Premiere Pro 24.6.1), Photo Editing (Photoshop 25.1.2, Lightroom Classic 13.5.1) |
| 3DMark | Version 2.29.8294.0 64 |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Speed Way and Steel Nomad (Default) |
| Cinebench R24 | Version 2024.1.0 |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Open GL Rendering Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded |
| Blender | Version 4.2.0 |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Full benchmark (all 3 tests) |
| Application Tests and Settings | Row 9 - Cell 1 |
| LAME MP3 | Version SSE2_2019 |
| Row 11 - Cell 0 | Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) |
| HandBrake CLI | Version: 1.8.2 |
| Row 13 - Cell 0 | Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX) |
| Corona 1.4 | Version 1.4 |
| Row 15 - Cell 0 | Custom benchmark |
| 7-Zip | Version 24.08 |
| Row 17 - Cell 0 | Integrated benchmark (Command Line) |
| Game Tests and Settings | Row 18 - Cell 1 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | Ultra RT: - 1920 x 1080, DLSS - Balanced |
| F1 2024 | Ultra High Preset - 1920 x 1080, 16xAF/TAA, Great Britain (Clear/Dry), FPS Counter ON |
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