The Dark Hero is the latest Asus iteration of the proven AMD X570 enthusiast AM4 chipset based ROG motherboards.
The first round of X570 models warily debuted last year together with the Ryzen 3000 processors and has gone on to super dizzying sale successes (over Intel). Back then, AMD wasn't yet the big established success story of today. Many X570 models from that first round were barely adequate and seem to have been eclipsed by the more recent AMD B550 mainstream models which sported newer/faster LAN, Bluetooth and WIFI chipsets etc.
With the introduction of the incoming Ryzen 5000 processors which are now touted all round superiority over Intel, even in their last stronghold of single core processing and gaming, the time is simply ripe for a new round of refreshed and improved AMD X570 motherboards to cater to the growing demands of ever increasing numbers of AMD fans.
Here, Asus is clearly jumping at this second chance - at inventing a better wheel.
One main X570 specific bugbear is the need for active cooling of the 15W chipset. Using a tiny high speed chipset fan means potential noise and future mechanical failure and this sore point is addressed head-on by this latest Dark Hero model, simply use massive heatsinks and omit the fan.
Note the subtle refined LED lighting in this offical Asus photo, I like! Oh, check out the handsome heft of fan-less metal grille heatsink too.
Asus Sales Spiel
https://rog.asus.com/articles/crosshair-motherboards/introducing-the-rog-crosshair-viii-dark-hero/
"The Dark Hero is our first X570 board to implement a passive cooling design. A massive high surface area heatsink covers the chipset and extends into the space between the main PCIe slots to provide plenty of heat dissipation. Compared to the active cooling design on the Crosshair VIII Hero, the Dark Hero's chipset temperature under load is just 2.25% higher in our internal testing. The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero also employs an upgraded power design to efficiently deliver large amounts of clean power to the highest-end next-gen AMD CPUs for Socket AM4. When we provisioned this uprated board, we chose 16 integrated TI power stages, each capable of delivering 90A of current, and deployed them in a teamed power stage topology."
Official Website
Features
- AMD AM4 socket: Ready for 2nd, 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors with Radeon™ Graphics Processors and up to two M.2 drives, USB 3.2 Gen2, and AMD StoreMI to maximize connectivity and speed.
- Comprehensive thermal design: Passive chipset heatsink, M.2 aluminum heatsinks and ROG Water Cooling Zone.
- Robust power delivery: Designed power solution 14+2 TI power stages rated for 90A, ProCool II power connectors, microfine alloy chokes and 10K Japanese-made black metallic capacitors
- High-performance networking: On-board Wi-Fi 6 (Intel 802.11ax) with MU-MIMO support, 2.5 Gbps Ethernet (Realtek) and Gigabit Ethernet (Intel), both with ASUS LANGuard protection, and support for GameFirst VI software.
- 5-Way Optimization: Automated system-wide tuning, providing overclocking and cooling profiles that are tailor made for your rig.
- DIY Friendly Design: Pre-mounted I/O shield, ASUS SafeSlot, BIOS flashback and premium components for maximum endurance.
- Unmatched personalization: ASUS-exclusive Aura Sync RGB lighting, including RGB headers and addressable Gen 2 RGB headers
- Industry-leading ROG audio: ROG SupremeFX S1220 is combined with the venerable ESS® ES9023P to deliver high-fidelity audio to headsets and exotic cans.
Comparison
Good only as a general guide cos neither comprehensive or complete. Henceforth, the preceding 2019 model shall affectionately be referred to as the "Lao Hero".
The side by side photo compare is simply déjà vu cos the original design is that good that it simply deserves to be redone but now in silence.
Unboxing
Asus signature ROG cardboard box. Kindly excuse the photo quality, all taken on a cold dark rainy day lah...
Bundle
Rather sparse for a high end model but everything that is needed is included.
The Mobo Itself
And not a single fan was to be found, strange first world situation where less is more.To ensure good cooling... expansive heatsinks for both the nvme and chipset are installed, taking up whatever possible real estate over the left half of the muthaboard.
Good spacing of the PCI-e slots, there is an open ended x4 slot too.
The CPU socket sports the tell-tale access hole for the LN2 crazed fans, the hallmark of something factory designed and built for extreme clocks.
The integrated back I/O is packed chockful of different access ports, very nice!
The VRM heatsinks are linked by a wide heatpipe, seen here near the 2 CPU power plugs.
Same heatpipe seen from another view, the awesome looking improved CPU power delivery components are also evident here.
Numerical debug LED display, plentiful onboard buttons and fan headers all point to the high end build. Yeah yeah RGB fans, you get your glitzy fix headers here too.
And for hardcore multi-meter needle pokers, here comes your fix. All those access points seen located south of the main power plug, next to the USB-C (USB 3.2 Gen 2) header.
8 SATA3 ports are sited beside the more traditional USB 3.2 Gen 1 header. The chipset heatsink sleek grille appearance really looks sibeh impressive and chio from this angle, hor?
System headers, more fan, temp. and RGB headers etc...
The remaining edge of the board and the other buttons.
The BIOS chip and reflash headers are placed in a very accessible spot, again very nice!
Overall, a very well thought out and usable design, save for the CMOS battery location. Guess we can't have it both ways since it is either the CMOS battery or the BIOS flash headers in that prime little corner. lol
Test Setup
Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero | AMD Ryzen 7 3700X | Crucial DDR4-3200XMP@3600 16GB Kit | GTX 950 | Noctua D14 | Win 10 x64 20H2
Open air rig, early November 2020 ambient weather temps
BIOS used is factory stock, no other versions seem available at the present moment of testing. From the horse's mouth on this Reddit thread, Asus support confirmed this model is stock ready for Ryzen 5000 out of the box so no worries there.
All BIOS settings were run at stock except for the RAM which was set at DOCP/XMP and then selecting DDR4-3600 speed with tRCD loosened by 1.
You should be able to achieve better scores by tightening things further and playing with the vDIMM. Motherboard temps seem great for a passively cooled model, in fact only the central 140mm fan (ie. single) was used on the Noctua D14 so no ventilation help from that either.
Testing was done with a Ryzen 7 3700X before any new Ryzen 5000 series or Big Navi samples became available. Both samples were confirmed delayed at testing time, pity! Hopefully, these findings will be updated in the near future with Ryzen 5000 chips and a Big Navi card once more definitive test arrangements can be made.
Asus ROG UEFI
All time fave UEFI interface till now due to its simplicity, friendliness and. plentiful powerful options. Now improved with an Asus OC Exclusive: PBO Fmax Enhancer.
The F12 screenshot, Ctrl-F2 Save Profile as text file and Save and Reset change tracking list are simply heaven sent features.
Sample screenshots, showing the last minute rushed testing time stamps too. lol
The factory stock 0210 BIOS seemed stable in the testing and had no problems reaching the specced 3700X core boost speeds of 4.4GHz. Below are hwinfo64 monitoring results after a few hours of surfing and gaming to check 24/7 and idle stability.
OS Install
A fresh new install of the latest Windows 10 20H2/2009 ISO was done on a 750GB Crucial MX300 SSD, installation was fast and problem free with latest updates done.
Fast Startup
Pleasantly fast POST and boot into Windows 10 for a X570 motherboard. This screenshot is for a cold boot on the Crucial MX300 SATA SSD.
CPU-Z
AIDA64
HyperPi 0.99b
Occasionally misunderstood to be some kind of benchmark but this is more a quickie RAM stability grinding test akin to the more intensive CPU stability grinding in Prime95. Also relatively useful test to check load temps quickly.
The installed Crucial 16GB DDR4-3200 kit clears this test running at DDR4-3600MHz. It probably goes higher, just have to invest in more elbow greasing.
Cinebench R20
Asus OC Exclusive: PBO Fmax Enhancer Dynamic Overclocking
Finally, dynamic overclocking returns to Ryzen all thanks to some very crafty BIOS magic from The Stilt as implemented by Team Asus (hi there, Peter et al!).
Also check out the Youtube video by der8auer explaining in detail this very enticing feature. Note that core boost speed is preserved and both the Vcore and core clock speeds are dynamic.
Had to spend some time trying it out and yes, it already works very well at this early stage of development. Just a little nudge to the 3700X all core loading speed from the default 4GHz to 4.2GHz (5% increase) and the Cinebench R20 improvement is already evident, past the 5K points on air (7% increase). Temperatures are all good with the comprehensive threshold triggers built into this feature. (PS: the onboard debug display will now show OC.)
Note that with the 4.2GHz o'c, with Auto boost scalar/override set, each 3700X core now boosts over time to 4.4GHz.
A little more push at 4.25GHz, the CBR20 score is again better (8.4% improvement vs stock). This is a simple demo of the feature so there is thus possibility of clock stretching in the background. All in, very promising but as in all overclocking adventures, YMMV.
Vcore was set at 1.265V for 4.25GHz so it can be seen that this feature also allows the use of Ryzen undervolt overclocking (uvoc). Lower power means lower temps/noise/wear too.
Ha, Cinebench R23 just dropped so here goes...
Also tried out good ol' Realbench 2.56 this round (just spotted it lurking on my flashdrive), just to see the CPU load temps.
Out of the box, the new Ryzen 5000 series is already killing Intel, now overclocked Ryzen 5000 just adds to the burn... Intel is so very dead. So hey, just remember to have fun checking out this feature when you get your own Dark Hero.
Really fine work, The Stilt and Team Asus!
Silicon Lottery
Useful reference for Ryzen 3700X/3800X overclocking stats. Note the minuscule headroom for overclocking since AMD has binned and squeezed near max performance out of each chip at the factory. Makes sacrificing boost clocks and dynamic Vcore in most methods of manual overclocking scant worth the effort.
Ryzen R9 5900X Update
Finally got a retail boxed Zen3 processor to check the out of the box compatibility with the factory stock 0210 BIOS and it definitely works as stated as shown below. 2nd screenshot has a lil'' dynamic OC thrown in showing clear improvement over the stock CB r20 score.
Initial Impressions
For those who want quietness and reliability, there is good reason to opt for this model since its massive heatsinks effectively void the need for active cooling on the X570 chipset. Test load temperatures seen earlier are definitely cool and safe.
For those who demand out of the box BIOS support for the new Ryzen 5000 series, this is a great fuss free choice. No worries about your new CPUs being unrecognised and unable to POST which is a real downer after spending bucket loads. No need to hunt for flashdrives and taking the risks of flashing a new BIOS just to make things start working.
So for those buying new, this new Dark Hero model is a good consideration. However for those contemplating upgrading from the older VIII Hero/Formula models, Asus support on Reddit reassures that performance/feature wise, they are probably near equals. So unless you are definitely sure about wanting passive cooling and feeling cash flushed...just go ahead and make yourself happy in these depressing Covid-19 times.
Likes
- Out of box Ryzen 5000 support
- Effective silent passive cooling
- Best UEFI interface with plentiful options
- Asus exclusive PBO Fmax Enhancer dynamic overclocking
- Ambitious enthusiast design and feature packed build
- Stable operation
- Subdued lighting effects
- Much lower USD400 SRP than the USD700 Giga Aorus Xtreme fanless model
- Marginally higher SRP than the USD380 Lao Hero model
Dislikes
- Still trying v.v.v. hard to think of one...hmm OK, rather late entrant to the AM4 platform twilight
