ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha Motherboard Review

[section_title title=”Overclocking”]

Overclocking

As I have probably mentioned quite a few times in the review so far, the VIII Hero Alpha and the VIII Formula aren’t to dissimilar from each other. They both encompass a fully digital 10 power phase design and the socket areas are identical; is this a good thing? I would say so indeed as ASUS have really gone all out on the overclocking features.

First of all, the inclusion of the ever popular LN2 mode (popular with overclockers) is a great step and shows the pedigree of the board. For those not too “extreme”, ASUS KeyBot II allows for one click overclocking for air cooling and water cooling, so don’t worry, regular enthusiasts haven’t been forgotten here!

So what did we manage to achieve using our Intel Core i7 6700k? Well each sample can vary of course, but we did manage to hit 5GHz without too many issues, albeit with a lot more voltage than we normally need; more to do with the actual CPU than the board itself, just thought that needed clearing up!

To go one step further, I thought I would try my luck for more as let’s be honest, this is a beast of a board from the belly of the ROG laboratory and I feel it deserved to be made to scream! It did indeed scream away and I managed a whopping 5.1GHz on the core with a core voltage of 1.5v; Vdroop allowed for more voltage to provide extra stability. Although it wasn’t entirely stable, it did manage around 75% of a Cinebench 11.5 CPU benchmark run which is pretty decent in my opinion!

Overall this board backs up the claims ASUS make about it in all the marketing spiel and in my opinion, it’s a really good motherboard for overclockers; sure there are better options out there, but it hangs with the best of them in my opinion!