ROG Maximus VIII Hero a good bet?

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Rustynuts

[H]F Junkie
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Feb 6, 2003
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Z170 flavor. Is this MB still a good bet vs other brands or the more expensive Alpha version? I likely won't be pushing the MB hard and probably won't OC. Was looking at Sabretooth, but some said the Hero has better audio? Using a 6700K cpu and 32g 3333 RAM plus water cooling.
 
Why do they have a baziliion Maximus versions in this price point? Ridiculous.

Hero
Gene (WTF name is that!)
Impact
Ranger
 
If you're not overclocking or pushing the cpu/board hard, why get a premium board anyway?
 
Personally, I got the Ranger as the differences were minimal and it was about $30 cheaper.
 
Onboard audio will all be close. Get a dedicated sound card if you want better than onboard.
 
I hate messing with sound cards these days. More nuisance, case clutter than they're worth. Went with the Hero anyway as I already have one in another rig.
 
"Alpha" is the newer version with a newer color scheme and RGB backlight. Not sure if there are other upgrades or not, actually. But yeah, the Maximus line are always well made and I've found are generally some of the best boards available for Intel Mainstream offerings.

For those who asked about the tons of variants, here's my understanding. Asus's "high end gaming/overclocking" boards come under their Republic of Gamers (ROG) family, and unlike most other boards Asus offers they have "names' as opposed to model numbers. ROG boards are typically at the top, then TUF / Sabertooth a half step down,and then the "numbered" boards which are still quality and have their own tiers (ie WS / Deluxe > Pro > plain numbered etc) . Within ROG, the name of each "family" comes from its platform. Rampage is typically the Intel Enthusiast branch (ie X58, X79, X99 etc) , Maximus is Intel Mainstream (Z97, Z170 etc), Crosshair was AMD etc. Numbers are which generation. For Skylake / Z170 its the 8th major revision of Maximus boards, so Maximus VIII etc. After the family name comes the model name - typically "Extreme" is the top end most expensive for heavy OC, then "Formula" is a step down but still pretty expensive. "Hero" was brought in to be a more affordable way to get into ROG for those who didn't want to spend $300+ on an ATX board, and it worked really well. "Ranger" is new, even less expensive than Hero tier with a few less features if I recall but still solid; though I think Hero is still the best value. Those are all ATX boards, but "Gene" is given to mATX boards, and "Impact" is granted to mITX . There are also suffixes for some updates to the board in the same major generation, such as "Alpha" or something like "U3.1" when certain varieties came with USB 3.1 cards packed in etc.

Hope that helps and is accurate to the best of my recollection, but its off the top of my head so I could have missed something.
 
Looking at this board now. Any recommendations on DDR4 that lights up? Was looking at some Geil but wasn't on the QVL table. Like to run 3000 with 4*8gb sticks.
 
jaxstraww said:
Looking at this board now. Any recommendations on DDR4 that lights up? Was looking at some Geil but wasn't on the QVL table. Like to run 3000 with 4*8gb sticks.
Click to expand...

If you're willing to pay the premium for light-up memory (which can be significant), then you're not likely to find better than Corsair Dominator Platinum, especially if you want to hit 4x 8gb. There aren't too many offerings that light up these days and as I said you'll be paying a lot especially for DDR4 3000+ and 32gb at that, but check out Corsair since they're a "tier one" manufacturer and see if their kits are to you liking. Not sure if they also come with a fan as well - there was a time when they did so..
 
Xaeos said:
If you're willing to pay the premium for light-up memory (which can be significant), then you're not likely to find better than Corsair Dominator Platinum, especially if you want to hit 4x 8gb. There aren't too many offerings that light up these days and as I said you'll be paying a lot especially for DDR4 3000+ and 32gb at that, but check out Corsair since they're a "tier one" manufacturer and see if their kits are to you liking. Not sure if they also come with a fan as well - there was a time when they did so..
Click to expand...


Hope to find someone running this Geil. But your right. The LED's for heat have gone away. Seems like it was more of a DDR3 item.

GeIL SUPER LUCE 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Desktop Memory Model GLR416GB3000C15ADC - Newegg.com
 
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