Looking at the Z270 line-up from ASUS a few things have change compared to the past generation. Although the layout is still quite similar compared to the Maximus VIII Hero, the same can’t be said for the design.


The Maximus IX Hero is an ATX form-factor motherboard and there are the usual four DIMM slots. Apart from that there is the "Aura" feature, which allows to change the illumination of the board from within Windows. There are also three full-sized and metal-strengthened PCIe slots, which have been wired with 16/8/8 lanes top to bottom. Between the first and the second full-sized PCIe slot there are two slots distance leaving plenty of room for graphics cards to breathe even in multi-GPU configurations.

On the storage side we see two M.2 slots and the one placed at the bottom part of the motherboard is compatible with 22110 M.2 SSD, which means drives with a maximum length of 110 millimeters can be used. Compared to the predecessor there are two less SATA ports, which makes for a total of six.

Looking for additional features we find onboard buttons and a debug display, support for USB 3.1, a high-quality power design and a good mix of connectors at the I/O panel. At a first glance this is certainly a good looking motherboard and we expect to see a price similar to the old Z170 model (around 200 euro).