Best overall Z270 motherboard
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ASUS Maximus IX Hero- Good price
- Best overclocking and memory scores
- Mild or wild, depending on how you tune the lights
- No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth
- More board than you need for a typical PC
The midrange Maximus Hero IX lived up to its name during testing, taking on motherboards costing almost twice as much and frequently pulling ahead on performance or features, making it best overall pick for Z270.
Gunmetal grey heatsink shapes and relatively restrained styling clothe this otherwise hardcore gaming product in upscale attire. Leave off the Aura lighting and you might assume it’s a workstation board. This neutral color scheme works well for extravagant rig builders too; just turn on the lights, match your colors, and you’re good to go, no matter what neon-colored components or cases you have in mind.
Hardware hobbyists will also find plenty to play around with. Subtly incorporated along the upper right and lower board edges are buttons for power, system reboot, memory reset, and BIOS entry, which are welcome additions when tinkering on a workbench. Extensive and well-placed fan headers are backed by features such a flow tachometer for water cooling loops and ASUS’s in-depth BIOS fan control.
What’s more, all this attention pays off with the highest multiplier and memory numbers among the boards tested here. The Hero IX managed a stress-free 5.1 GHz and pushed two-stick memory configurations beyond their rated 3600 MHz capacity. Further, post-benchmark BCLK testing raised that to almost 5.2 GHz without incident before heat became a factor. None of the other boards here came close, with the Hero even upstaging ASUS’s own, more expensive Formula IX.
Ten USB ports on the back I/O panel mean plenty of external connectors, but internal USB headers are limited to three, one of each generation. This means just a single USB 2.0 header, so system builders with water-cooled systems like Corsair’s H115i that require a USB header will need to plan ahead with either an internal USB expander or an adapter cable for the USB 3.0 or 3.1 headers.
The onboard Intel v219 Ethernet LAN controller is a smart low-latency choice, but Wi-Fi and Bluetooth would have been welcome additions for a product released in 2017. With Intel 7265 M.2 wireless modules under $20 online, leaving this feature off a premium motherboard that retails for over $200 seems like deliberate product segmentation, although MSI’s Z270 XPower is even more cynical since it retails for a cool $100 more and doesn’t have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth either.
