Looking at the Z370 lineup from ASUS not much has changed compared to their Z270 offerings. Once again we find ROG, STRIX Gaming, Prime and TUF series motherboards. Compared to the Maximus IX Hero the latest Maximus X Hero sports a few little differences: the first one regards the M.2 heat sink which is finally included in the bundle of the motherboard, and the second one is the back I/O panel that has been "glued" to the ports.


The Maximus X 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 for changing the illumination of the board from within Windows. There are 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 both of them are compatible with 22110 M.2 SSDs, which means drives with a maximum length of 110 millimeters can be used. While the first slot is placed almost in the center of the motherboard and features a M.2 heat sink, the second one is in the bottom region of the PCB and there is no additional heatsink included.

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 the price is similar to the old Z270 model (around 280 euro).