At the time of going to press, we haven’t
had chance to play with a lot of Z370
motherboards yet. That said, it’s hard to
argue with the Asus ROG Maximus
Hero’s heritage. We’ve been using this
lineup of motherboards in our testbenches since Devil’s Canyon and Z97.
The Asus ROG Maximus X Hero is a
fantastic update to the series, featuring
an integrated rear I/O cover, oodles of
USB ports, BIOS reset switches,
Ethernet ports, integrated Wi-Fi,
dependable audio, a ton of onboard
storage support, M.2 heatsinks, and
more. One of the things we’ve already
touched upon with our love for Asus is
just how easy it is to use the UEFI
BIOS. It may be difficult to quantifiably
review a BIOS, because those familiarASUS ROG MAXIMUS X HERO
http://www.asus.comIt isn’t a great time to upgrade memory right now.
Memory pricing has almost doubled in the last 12
months, so while we’d love to recommend that
everyone aims for at least 16GB in their systems, it’s
a tough call to make when even a budget kit will set
you back nearly £200. Aim for 8GB as an absolute
minimum, although 32GB is nice for serious work. If
you’ve got room to double up on what you’ve already
got, do so, because hopefully pricing will calm down
by the time you upgrade again. When it comes to what
to buy, aim for capacity first and frequency after. Low
latency kits are the way to go if you can afford them,
although given the current inflated pricing, being picky
will cost you. As an example, you can pick up DDR4 kits
rated at up to 4,600MT/s (PC4 36800 with 19-23-23-
43 timings), although you will pay a lot for the privilege
(£390-plus for 16GB).
It’s worth noting that Ryzen benefits from faster
memory, but be mindful of compatibility—check your
motherboard’s supported memory list for capacity and
speed first.with one manufacturer’s BIOS will
almost always know how best to take
advantage of that compared to another,
and it’s often personal preference that
dictates the issue; however, the
placement of menus, along with theoptions and items you can tweak in
Asus’s BIOS make it one of the more
intuitive and easy-to-use that we’ve
seen in the last few years.
This board is a touch on the pricey
side, but if you’re looking to shell out on
a high-end Coffee Lake processor, it’s
well worth the investment. After all,
there’s little point spending your
hard-earned cash on a top-of-the-range
processor and not letting it shine. This
is a good compromise on price without
sacrificing performance.CORSAIR 32GB
DOMINATOR
PLATINUM
2,400MHZ
TOTAL
£289
BUDGET
GIGABYTE HAS IMPRESSED US
WITH JUST HOW MUCH IT CAN
CRAM ONTO A MOTHERBOARD
RAM
http://www.corsair.com £420
THE OPTIONS AND ITEMS YOU CAN TWEAK IN
ASUS’S BIOS MAKE IT ONE OF THE MORE
INTUITIVE AND EASY-TO-USEFeature
TODAY’S BEST UPGRADES
TOTAL
£240
MID_RANGE