Connectors and I/O

In total, ASUS equipped the ROG Maximus X Hero motherboard with six SATA 6Gbps connectors, which have all been natively wired to the PCH and angled by 90°. Above the first PCIe x16 slot there is the first M.2 slot and on top of the third full size PCIe slot, there is the second M.2 x4 Gen 3 slot. With this motherboard you get three PCIe x16 Gen 3.0 and three PCIe x1 Gen 3.0 slots and all of them have been painted black, while the first two received metal reinforcements. From top to bottom the full-sized PCIe slots have been wired using 16 lanes, 8 lanes and 8 lanes. This means you can build 16x/8x SLI/CrossFire and 8x/8x/8x CrossFireX (3-way). These are basically the standard options you get with any Intel Z370 based motherboard, that does not feature a PLX chip. The placement of the PCIe slots has been well-thought. Having a look around the board we find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons and there is also a debug LED on this board. Furthermore you get a MemOK button, which has proven to be a useful many times.



The ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero motherboard features a total of seven fan headers, which is enough to provide a normal gaming rig with enough of fresh air. A closer look at the pictures below shows where they have been placed. All six fan headers feature 4-pin and support PWM functionality. Therefore it's possible to control fan speeds from within Windows as well as the BIOS.

Connectors

• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A + USB Type-C
• 4 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 (blue)
• 2 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
• 1 x USB BIOS Flashback Button(s)
• 5 x Gold-plated audio jacks

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Layout
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 5 - Connectors and I/O
Page 3 - Features	Page 6 - Conclusion