ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Wi-Fi Review: The Tale of Two Motherboards

Board Features

The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero WiFi is an ATX motherboard and is a $400 model into the Maximus XII range of Republic of Gamers motherboards. There is nothing entry-level about it and represents the top end of the mid-range with plenty of features. Included in the feature set are three PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots with two that support SATA drives, while all three can accommodate NVMe drives. For SATA devices, there are six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays. The ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero WiFi also has a strong and highly competitive networking array with dual LAN consisting of a Marvell AQC111C 5 G and Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet controller, with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 interface with support for BT 5.1 devices. ASUS uses its Optimem III technology and has four memory slots with support for up to 128 GB of DDR4-4800. 

There is plenty of connectivity on the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero WiFi with a single USB 3.2 G2 20 Gbps Type-C, three USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. Users looking to expand on this can add a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports via the use of internal headers. In addition to this, the rear panel also has five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output powered by a SupremeFX S1220 HD audio codec, with an assisting ESS ESS9023 DAC designed to bolster the boards overall audio quality. A single HDMI 1.4b video output allows users to use Intel's integrated UHD graphics, while a Clear CMOS button and USB BIOS Flashback button are present to make users lives easier. 

Test Bed

As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.

Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.

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