Asus ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO ALPHA ATX DDR4 3000 LGA 1151 Motherboards

Let's be honest - this is overkill for a Z170 system. There is no solid reason you need this motherboard over the $130 version that Asus sells.I've always gone with a $150 motherboard for all my systems but for this build I wanted to blow that and buy a fancy motheboard for a change. It does look good and I like how you can keep the LED lights on or turn them off component by component in the BIOS, which is useful if you are trying to keep a color theme. I'm not using the LED strip functionality but instead using the LED strip with my Phanteks Enthoo Luxe case. It was a decision between the standard VIII HERO (M8H) and the VIII HERO Alpha (M8HA).M8H > vs > M8HAASMedia USB 3.1 >> Intel USB 3.1SATA Express >> newer U.2 revisionNo wifi or BT >> wifi and BTold driver set >> latest driver setWhether those features are worth the price tag to you is only something you can decide. In addition to those features I heard the original M8H had some bugs so I thought I would pay a bit more to get the board without the bugs. I probably won't use wifi or BT. Not sure on U.2 yet but I know I wouldn't use SATA Express so that is better. Only being able to use 1 due to sharing a lane with the Intel 6Gb ports isn't a big deal to me since if I did go with U.2 I would only use 1 anyway. I do prefer Intel USB 3.1 and the more updated driver set. I downloaded the drivers off of the Asus website and didn't use the disc or install the extra programs. Best part of building your own machine is removing the bloatware. Though I may install the ROG theme CPU-Z as I will get CPU-Z in some form anyway.Lots of options for overclocking and I honestly can't think of anything that it is missing. Once I enabled XMP it automatically recognized my overclocked by factory RAM (3000MHz). It's "EZ Overclock" feature gave me about a 22% OC before I went back to stock to complete my build. I like the Start button on the motherboard, came in handy. It was very easy and fast to update the BIOS. You have 3 methods by the way, one of which you can do with a USB drive and without it being turned on (very nice!). Not a fan of how the BIOS is laid out but once you get used to it its not bad. I haven't tried it yet so only like it in theory at the moment but I like how you can save multiple profiles in the BIOS. It automatically selected the boot order I wanted (SSD first, HDD second, blu-ray drive third) so that was one less thing to tweak. I did have to apply more force than I thought I would for the RAM and video card because at first it only read half of my RAM. I waited for the clicks the first time but reseating it with more force fixed it. Despite it being 4-pin PWM it didn't seem like the Waterblock fan header is controlled the same as the CPU Fan Header is because my H100i GTX was not spinning right away, so I plugged it into the CPU Fan Header. It's ok for the case fans to be delayed at start up but I want my heatsink fan working right away.I wish there was more dedicated USB 3.0 slots since keyboards these days almost always have 2 and gaming mice usually require USB 3.0 as well.So far onboard sound is quite good. Signal appears clean and crisp. I don't hear any audio pops or crackles nor does it have low volume like my previous motherboard had.The 6 SATA cables it came with were exactly what I was looking for but couldn't find on Amazon - black/white and not too long. Three 90 degree and 3 straight. Figured I would mention it since people like to plan for cable management.The price is very high and you can find the M8H on sale for $80 cheaper. I knew what I was getting into as far as features for price so I'm not sure I should dock a star. All of my motherboards before have had headaches and lingering bugs so in comparison this is a very nice board. The only issue I've seen so far is my keyboard wasn't recognized immediately from a cold boot (PSU turned off and unplugged) right away and future attempts required me waiting on the K70's LEDs to come on. So I'm not sure if its a motherboard bug, a K70 bug or just simply waiting for the juice to circulate through the system. I'm not going to blame the motherboard unless I see it on warm boots. It also has more features than I am used to and overclocking looks easier than ever. Most of the setup was hassle free so I say 5 stars ...but seriously Asus, too expensive! Niche priced board for sure.

This review is a little different from other motherboard reviews, in that it's from the perspective of a first-time gamer PC builder. After doing extensive research and watching many video tutorials, I decided to take the plunge and build my own PC as opposed to buying a complete unit from Digital Storm. I tried to use high end (but not stratospheric) components, with the final build running about $2,200 as opposed to $3,400 for a custom built system of the same specs. I had been looking at the Hero VIII, and as the Alpha just came out (with WiFi that I needed for this application) so I decided to go for it.The build was a dream, with everything going together in one low-stress day. The layout of fan headers, USB and SATA ports, front panel controls, etc made the going easy, plus the board looks very cool. The RGB options on this board made adding LED lighting a breeze, and everything just plain worked the first time. Bios updating and Windows 10 loading was effortless. I had heard to stay clear of the mass of software tools included on disk, only using the necessary Bluetooth and WiFi drivers, which was probably a good call. Bios setup and overclocking were easy, and the WiFi worked as soon as the drivers were installed, running much quicker download speeds than my previous PC. Overall, a very pleasant experience for this rookie. Buy one!Asus Hero VIII AlphaSkylake 6700KEVGA GTX980ti Classified16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3000Corsair H110i GTXEVGA G2 850w1 TB 850 EVO SSDCorsair LED fans, Cablemods LED light strip & sleeved cablesCorsair 450D case

So many features plus amazing specs. Worth the sale price compared to my Gigabyte i7 4790K build I did last year. Way faster and the i7 6700K with ddr4 is way faster than the drr3 I use for a daily use PC.I've read comments and reviews that say you can get all of these features cheaper and when I looked and shopped around you lost key features like ddr4 in price range or 3 way SLI or integrated blutetooth. There isn't a stronger or cheaper board with as reliable specs as this one. Some people will say they won't use these features but a year later I had to put in a bluetooth and wifi card into my PC which is equivalent to just having one for the same price.

Great mobo once I figured out that XMP needs to be on for it to configure my RAM properly. The default automatic settings were extremely unstable even though I'm using a recommended RAM build directly from the mobo manual. I was leery to turn on XMP as it warned it can cause instability and my system was already very unstable. But once enabled it detected my RAM freq, voltage, and timings exactly. Now it's running like a champ.I did try configuring these settings manually but it is not at all intuitive on how to configure the RAM to match the rated specs. It doesn't follow the standard timing format at all. XMP was a life saver.

Decided on this motherboard due to having owed multiple Asus laptops and always being impressed with their products. A big selling point for me was the built in wifi, which is running at about 80 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up.Running this with an i5 6500, 15% overclocked using the native bios setup. It was very easy to use, just ran the wizard and let it do its thing. I'm using the corsair h100v2 liquid cooler, under stress holding the cpu to around 34 degrees.Also running 16gb G.skill ddr4 3200 ram, no issues. As well as an evga gtx 970 card.All in all this is a great product that has performed as promised by Asus. Would absolutely recommend it to anyone thinking about purchasing.