Board Layout

The ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero continues to use the tried and true classic ASUS design, a black PCB matched with black heat sinks and dark, but polished sliver accents over the chipset and rear I/O cover.


With this new LGA 1700 socket used for the Z690, new and old CPU coolers will need a new retention bracket if the mounting holes do not line up. At a glance, the area around the socket has capacitors strutted along all sides, which could interfere with cooler mounts. Along with the tall VRM heatsink, this is something to take note of for air-coolers.



There are three M.2 slots on the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero, all featuring full-coverage heatsinks. The two slots with a Gen4 x4 interface have thermal tape on both sides. The second M.2 socket between the PCIe slots is Gen3 x4, and the only one lacking thermal tape on the socket itself.

Included with the motherboard is the ROG Hyper M.2 PCIe card. When placed in the second PCIe slot, it will support PCIe Gen5 x4 on the first M.2 socket of the card. While no Gen5 M.2 sockets are on the motherboard itself, this will provide future support as Gen5 is set to appear among consumer products in 2022.

Note that the ROG Hyper M.2 card will operate in Gen4 mode if placed in the first PCIe slot as stated in the manual even though it is also a PCIe Gen5 slot. The manual also states that both M.2 sockets are only operational when placed in the third PCIE Gen4 slot. After testing this for myself, both drives indeed only show up in the PCIe Gen4 slot and must be manually enabled in the BIOS.


The three M.2 Sockets have ASUS Q-Latch, which is a screwless design. It makes swapping of M.2 drives without worrying about the loss of screws or needing to dig into the box a reality.


The ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero offers three PCI Express x16 slots, with the top two reinforced for extra stress support. PCIe slot one and two are PCIe Gen5 with a total of x16 lanes coming from the CPU. Slot one can either operate at x16 or x8. Slot 2 is wired for PCIe Gen5 x8 and will split the available lanes with the first slot if populated. These are backwards compatible, allowing older PCIe devices to work without issues. The third slot is also physically x16, but internally wired for x8 PCIe Gen4.


The board has a total of six SATA 6 Gb/s ports on the side, angled 90 degrees from the board. Raid configuration does not support ports 5 and 6, which are officially designated as E-Ports 1/2.


ASUS has added a PCIe release button for the first slot. This is something I have been hoping to see for a number of years now. With everything in such close proximity, just swapping out a video card requires either a poking stick for the pressure on the latch or removing the upper M.2 heatsink and sometimes even the CPU air cooler.


The ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero has a great I/O offering that includes an optical S/PDIF Out port, Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5 Gb LAN, and a pair of Type-C Thunderbolt 4 ports. It also has a Clear CMOS button, which makes recovering from tinkering with BIOS settings extremely easy.

• 2x Thunderbolt™ 4 USB Type-C® ports
• 7x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports
• 2x USB 2.0 ports
• HDMI port
• ASUS Wi-Fi module
• 1x Intel 2.5Gb Ethernet
• 5x Gold-plated audio jacks
• Optical S/PDIF Out port
• BIOS FlashBack™ button
• Clear CMOS button