ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero

[TheLostSwede]

PCIe4 x4 is limited to just under 8GB/s - if both the M.2 PCIe4 sockets are connected ultimately via the CPU<->X870 PCIe4x4 link, just one of those M.2 sockets can (effectively) almost saturate that link.
Assuming you have 2 reasonably half-decent PCIe4 SSDs installed, any attempt to use them in some sort of strip array will struggle to scale higher than 1x the performance of a single drive.

You can see my system specs to the left.

NAS devices aren't exactly apples to apples comparison due to obvious limiting factors that dictate design and obscure potential hardware limits.
I'm not saying it's an issue for them, but in most cases with NAS devices the LAN is the performance limit - until you had a NAS device higher than 1Gb/s LAN the NAS could have SATA connected drives and the LAN connection is still the limiting factor. If there's a NAS device where that isn't the case and the LAN connection is waiting on the storage devices, it's a crap device.

I've copied files to the NAS over 10 Gbps, while shuffling files between my SSDs, obviously not while doing testing, but with my own DIY NAS that also has a 10 Gbps card in it. Never seen slowdowns from doing this.

Unless you can show me a review of an X870 chipset board somehow pulling more than 8GB/s through the non-CPU connected PCIe lanes, there exists a theoretical limit I can't see being overcome without more PCIe lanes. As I said before (but maybe wasn't quite clear enough), 2x 10Gb/s LAN controllers are NOT going to be a problem - the problem is that there is potential to bandwidth starve the platform as-is so throwing 2x 10Gb/s LAN chips on there could impact that.
To quote myself:

Yes, it might happen in a one in a million case, but it's highly unlikely, so why worry about it? It's an issue people have complained about for years now, yet no-one has so far managed to show it being an issue.

AM5 is just a little lacking to be a proper HEDT platform with lots of IO - at this point in time multiple 10Gb/s LAN is still seen as a bit of something that would be HEDT so I can semi see why they didn't bother. That's not to be interpreted as me saying the platform can't handle such a thing, etc., etc. - if anything Asus can go nuts and make multiple variants with all sorts of combinations (that's what they do at the low-end, why should the high-end be any different) - build it and they will come.

It's a consumer platform... Just like Intel's whatever socket they're on now and are about to launch, 1800-something pins.

But on the flip side why bother with the Intel 2.5G - why not just have 2x5Gb/s connections?? Without seeing a BOM it's impossible to know but I doubt that the Intel 2.5G connection parts are that much cheaper than the Realtek 5G parts and as this isn't a HEDT / Workstation / 'certified' board these days not as many care if it's an Intel NIC... Surely that would help make the UEFI programming a bit easier also - one less set of UEFI code parts to add for the LAN boot from either adapter...

Because some people want dual NICs? There have been people on here and other sites complaining about only getting one built in NIC, as their previous board had two.
And some people complain about getting a Realtek, because Realtek is shite, bla bla bla, but Intel's 2.5 Gbps offerings have been crap on so many levels, like randomly disconnecting if you have the "wrong" router or switch you connect it to.
As I said, the Realtek 5 Gbps controller is around $5, I wasn't given an exact cost by Realtek last year. The Intel i226-V is $2.87

Realtek's 5 Gbps Ethernet Solutions Will Reduce Cost and Power Draw Significantly

Realtek has decided to take consumer Ethernet speeds to a new level later this year with a family of 5 Gbps parts that are unlike anything its competitors have announced so far. The RTL8126-CG PCIe 3.0 x1 controller is a tiny QFN56 chip that measures 8 by 8 millimetres and consumes up to 1.7...

www.techpowerup.com

Intel® Ethernet Controller I226-V - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Ethernet Controller I226-V quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

ark.intel.com

I can't say that I've seen a WiFi module quite like that one before. Is it upgradeable? Is there a standard 2230 PCIe WiFi card inside that metal box?

Almost all motherboards have them like that these days and yes, there's a 2230 card inside, PCIe for AMD and CNVio2 for Intel.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

So these new boards have really exactly the same chipset as previous boards? And they still need to train RAM for example after a power loss?

 

[Bwaze]

Downside:

$700, and no snatch!

 

[TheLostSwede]

So these new boards have really exactly the same chipset as previous boards? And they still need to train RAM for example after a power loss?

The chipset is the same, yes.
As for your RAM training after power loss, that seems like a you problem. I haven't had that happen with my board.

 

[Vincero]

Yes, it might happen in a one in a million case, but it's highly unlikely, so why worry about it? It's an issue people have complained about for years now, yet no-one has so far managed to show it being an issue.

Likelihood is that >50% of the people that end up with this board will not populate the board fully so yes, highly unlikely to be a problem - this was only ever a theoretical point which I have no doubt has/will be used to justify not furnishing boards with higher spec options that exist.

Because some people want dual NICs? There have been people on here and other sites complaining about only getting one built in NIC, as their previous board had two.

Can't tell if you're purposely trying to mis-interpret my point. It wasn't about not having dual-NICs (ironically I didn't even consider dual-port single NIC as an option but I guess that would be easier to integrate), my point was simply why bother having two different ones for what was likely a nominal cost difference, and ultimately additional BIOS configuration work that could be skipped if just using identical devices.
I would admit that having another different device would potentially allow for working around any incompatibilities.

And some people complain about getting a Realtek, because Realtek is shite, bla bla bla, but Intel's 2.5 Gbps offerings have been crap on so many levels, like randomly disconnecting if you have the "wrong" router or switch you connect it to.
As I said, the Realtek 5 Gbps controller is around $5, I wasn't given an exact cost by Realtek last year. The Intel i226-V is $2.87

That seems pretty nominal cost for a significant throughput difference. 2.5/5 Gb/s do seem as very much iterative stop-gap solutions as 10Gb/s adoption has been taking a while (first 10G spec was 2006...), so no real reason to try to keep it on a board for some reason.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Can't tell if you're purposely trying to mis-interpret my point. It wasn't about not having dual-NICs (ironically I didn't even consider dual-port single NIC as an option but I guess that would be easier to integrate), my point was simply why bother having two different ones for what was likely a nominal cost difference, and ultimately additional BIOS configuration work that could be skipped if just using identical devices.
I would admit that having another different device would potentially allow for working around any incompatibilities.

Because all boards in the past 10 years that have had two NICs have had different ones, at least as far as Intel board goes. Due to Intel having an integrated MAC, you only need to add a PHY for that Ethernet interface, the second end up being a PCIe one, which costs more. This admittedly changed with the move to 2.5 Gbps, as Intel doesn't have a 2.5 Gbps PHY built in, but some boards still ended up with the cheap Intel solution. Also, as I mentioned, some people get mad if they don't get an Intel NIC, so hence one Intel (bad) and one Realtek (good), to keep the Intel NIC people happy.

That seems pretty nominal cost for a significant throughput difference. 2.5/5 Gb/s do seem as very much iterative stop-gap solutions as 10Gb/s adoption has been taking a while (first 10G spec was 2006...), so no real reason to try to keep it on a board for some reason.

Well, that's how it goes sometimes when products are developed, just because there's a spec, doesn't mean there's a product.
NBASE-T was developed after 10GBASE-T, as a lower cost alternative, especially as CAT 5e cabling is good enough.
5 Gbps was available in some (Aquantia/Marvell) 10 Gbps chips, but not others (Intel).
10 Gbps is still expensive, but Realtek said they're working on making it affordable and maybe we'll see the result of that in a year or two.
Both Realtek and Intel got 2.5 Gbps chips out fairly quickly, both had issues initially, Realtek fixed theirs, Intel, no so much.
Realtek announced their 5 Gbps chips last year at Computex and it obviously took another year to get product out in the market.
Intel might have a 5 Gbps chip coming, at least if MSI's specs of their upcoming MEG Z890 Unify-X are to be believed.

MSI's Upcoming MEG Z890 Unify-X Motherboard Leaks Ahead of Launch

Detailed specifications and a somewhat blurry slide showing off all the details of MSI's upcoming high-end MEG Z890 Unify-X motherboard have leaked courtesy of @ChamberTech_ on X/Twitter. The motherboard is likely to appeal to those looking to squeeze every extra bit of performance out of their...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Vincero]

Because all boards in the past 10 years that have had two NICs have had different ones, at least as far as Intel board goes. Due to Intel having an integrated MAC, you only need to add a PHY for that Ethernet interface, the second end up being a PCIe one, which costs more. This admittedly changed with the move to 2.5 Gbps, as Intel doesn't have a 2.5 Gbps PHY built in, but some boards still ended up with the cheap Intel solution.

Yet strangely enough, quite a large majority of Intel boards still had Realtek 1G NICs or PCIe connected Intel NICs (and I'm not talking just total unknown crap, I'm including Z/H/Q series chipset boards in there) completely bypassing the onboard MAC controller for single-NIC solutions.... which leads me to think it either isn't very good (and hasn't been for a while) or additional costs yield no benefit.

Well, that's how it goes sometimes when products are developed, just because there's a spec, doesn't mean there's a product.
.....
Both Realtek and Intel got 2.5 Gbps chips out fairly quickly, both had issues initially, Realtek fixed theirs, Intel, no so much.
Realtek announced their 5 Gbps chips last year at Computex and it obviously took another year to get product out in the market.

Well, I suppose having both on the board is one way to shift some of that inventory...

 

[Sarajiel]

And they still need to train RAM for example after a power loss?

As for your RAM training after power loss, that seems like a you problem. I haven't had that happen with my board.

Sounds like someone needs a fresh CMOS battery

Unless you run an extreme memory overclock, you can just enable memory context restore (MCR) and enjoy fast boot times. However, I'd advise that you force at least one re-train after all other BIOS settings are done, before enabling MCR. As long as you have a working CMOS battery, you will keep your training data that way. Even if your board sits in its box on a shelf for some days/weeks/months, assuming you plug the same CPU and memory into the board again later.

10 Gbps is still expensive

I think, a lot of people miss the part that a single 5GbE port is pretty much useless unless you already have a switch/hub/router that supports 10GbE on its side, which is still much more expensive than 2.5GbE per port, e.g. ~€12 vs ~€40 on an unmanaged consumer switch where I live. Therefore, I'm also in the camp that sees more use from a single 10GbE port vs a 2.5GbE+5GbE port solution.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I think, a lot of people miss the part that a single 5GbE port is pretty much useless unless you already have a switch/hub/router that supports 10GbE on its side, which is still much more expensive than 2.5GbE per port, e.g. ~€12 vs ~€40 on an unmanaged consumer switch where I live. Therefore, I'm also in the camp that sees more use from a single 10GbE port vs a 2.5GbE+5GbE port solution.

Right now, that is indeed an issue, but Realtek has a 5 Gbps PHY that works with their multi-gig switch, but so far no-one has made a commercial 5 Gbps switch using those components, at least no company I'm aware of.
See this news post

Realtek is Aiming to Make 5 Gbps Ethernet Switches More Affordable with New Platform

At Computex, Realtek was showing off a new 5 Gbps switch platform which is set to bring much more affordable high-speed Ethernet switches to the consumer market. At the core of the new switch platform sits Realtek's RTL9303 which is an eight port 10 Gbps switch controller. This was released a...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[csendesmark]

I think, a lot of people miss the part that a single 5GbE port is pretty much useless unless you already have a switch/hub/router that supports 10GbE on its side, which is still much more expensive than 2.5GbE per port, e.g. ~€12 vs ~€40 on an unmanaged consumer switch where I live. Therefore, I'm also in the camp that sees more use from a single 10GbE port vs a 2.5GbE+5GbE port solution.

I am just in my transition to have 10Gbps LAN speeds. My switch and "server" rig is already @ 10Gbps
And yes, you have to start purchase faster gear to move from one to two. That means spending some money.
1Gbps is pretty much the default for ~15 years now, it is really not enough for bigger file transfers.

 

[Combatus]

@Combatus - Any plans to review the ITX version?

Definitely. Just waiting to get one.

I don't quite understand why this is listed under "Cons". I would say that it's better to keep the BIOS as is than change it for the sake of change, so if you owned an ASUS Board before you feel right at home without having to learn everything anew.

Are personal preferences now a valid reason to put something into the "Con" list?


And i don't know if I missed something but what the heck is meant with that:

Couldn't find anything about it searching the entire review...

I agree to some extent but the Asus BIOS we have now is better than the one before it. And people probably said the same thing back then…

It’s chicken and egg with the reviews I’m afraid. We’ve had hands on with other boards and did mention this specifically in the conclusion mentioning the MSI Carbon WiFi. Should be clearer once we’ve reviewed more but we felt it important to mention that now.

 

[anonuser57]

honest question, why? wouldnt it be better if the board was $20 cheaper, and the the 0.1% that need a second port can buy a $10 5G USB adapter?

One answer is virtualization. Depending on the hyper visor you want to avoid or need certain configurations. For example, with Hyper-V your best bet of having a VM with internet access, wake on LAN for the host and no networking related blue screens is to have two Ethernet controllers connected by pcie or direct to CPU/chipset.

What I don't get is why put dual LAN on that ROG board. It has nothing else that someone who cares about virtualization wants. Usually it's the ProArt boards that have all the other things that you want alongside dual LAN.

 

[Mr. Perfect]

Almost all motherboards have them like that these days and yes, there's a 2230 card inside, PCIe for AMD and CNVio2 for Intel.

Ok, thanks. I guess these card mounts just escaped my notice until today's review mentioned cooling them with the IO heatsink.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Definitely. Just waiting to get one.


I agree to some extent but the Asus BIOS we have now is better than the one before it. And people probably said the same thing back then…

It’s chicken and egg with the reviews I’m afraid. We’ve had hands on with other boards and did mention this specifically in the conclusion mentioning the MSI Carbon WiFi. Should be clearer once we’ve reviewed more but we felt it important to mention that now.

In any case, let me be the first amongst the regulars to wish you that warm welcome to TPU!

 

[TheLostSwede]

Ok, thanks. I guess these card mounts just escaped my notice until today's review mentioned cooling them with the IO heatsink.

As you can see on this borrowed picture, it's a standard M.2 WiFi module, just mounted vertically.

 

[dont whant to set it"']

Omg Omg Omg, TPU has a new Motherboard reviewer(unless I missed a Motherboard review recently).
Le: orthography.

 

[kapone32]

That too, but the board W1zz envisioned pretty much already exists (the STRIX-E). I guess they leave some stuff on the table intentionally for the eventual Dark Hero or something.

The 870E Strix E comes with 1 PciE 5.0 slot.

 

[csendesmark]

Just noticed...
So I can't have PCIe v5 RAM-drive?

 

[Airisom]

I think the X670E Hero is laid out better when it comes to USB I/O. The additional 3.2 20g internal header will likely not be used at all due to most cases out there only having 1x 3.2 20g header. The SAS header is nice for a little NAS/DAS setup, but I think that belongs on a Pro Art board, not this one. Same for the dual NIC. But I guess they had to do something to differentiate it more from the X670E Hero since they're basically the same board and chipset.

 

[Sarajiel]

The SAS header is nice for a little NAS/DAS setup, but I think that belongs on a Pro Art board, not this one.

I agree with the ProArt part for the Slim SAS header, but I think it's NVMe only, which implies a use case for U.2 drives.

 

[Dr. Dro]

The 870E Strix E comes with 1 PciE 5.0 slot.

Nothingburger, SLI/CF is dead and any hardware supporting this is Gen 3 PCIe

 

[Sarajiel]

Nothingburger, SLI/CF is dead and any hardware supporting this is Gen 3 PCIe

I'm pretty sure, I've seen the nVidia SLI trademark on the backside of the PCB of the X670E Godlike, but that could just be for the five influencers or XOCers that still bench RTX 3090 TIs in SLI mode.

Nowadays, dual GPU on consumer boards is for all those AI nerds that can afford dual RTX 4090s, but at the same time are too poor to buy Epyc 9004 or Threadripper systems.

 

[kapone32]

Nothingburger, SLI/CF is dead and any hardware supporting this is Gen 3 PCIe

What are you talking about? Do you think I am talking about GPUs? Do you think that is the only use for a PCIe slot?

 

[529th]

Miss print?

"and the PCIe Gen 5 lane count rises from eight on X670 to 24 on X870"

 

[ir_cow]

Typo on the VRM section. Vishay SiC639A and the picture shows Vishay SiC629.