Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero Review: Crosshair Goes Stealth for Zen3
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Dark Hero gets an update: Zen3 ready and 90A VRMs on an all black board.
Editor’s Choice
(Image: © Asus)
Tom’s Hardware Verdict
The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero goes dark with an all-black design, along with 90A VRMs (up from 60A), eight SATA ports, 12 USB ports on the rear IO, and no more chipset fan. The $400 price tag may be a lot to swallow, but compared to other X570 flagships, it’s a bargain.
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Using optimized defaults, the Dark Hero boosted our Ryzen 9 5950X over 5 GHz, so we’re getting exactly what we paid for. As expected, overclocking went without a hitch, running our CPU at 4.4 GHz with all cores and threads enabled, as well as happily running 32GB of DDR4 at 3600 MHz. If you’re into extreme overclocking, the Dark Hero has a lot left in the tank for both the CPU and Memory. Read on for more details about the board and its performance.
In the before times of mid-2019, Asus released its X570 based motherboards, including the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero. We reviewed the original and liked the 12 USB ports, appearance, and more. Fast-forward to today and, along with the release of AMD’s excellent but tough-to-find 5000 series CPUs, comes the ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero.
As the name implies, the Dark version goes all black, improves upon the power delivery, and eliminates the chipset fan on the previous version. It’s an iterative update on paper, but one that supports the new CPUs out of the box.
The matured Asus X570 lineup includes options from the TUF, Prime, Strix, WS (Workstation), and ROG lines, a total of 14 new boards. Since we last checked, Asus added a Mini-ITX option, which was the only form-factor missing upon release. Today, the product stack consists of a wide variety of motherboards in varying sizes, feature sets, and price points. There is likely something for everyone in the X570 lineup.
Asus’ Crosshair Hero Dark uses the same phase count (16) but upgrades to premium 90A parts instead of 60A in the non-Dark model. The 90A bits are some of the most robust we’ve seen and should easily handle any ambient or sub-ambient overclocking. Another significant difference between the Dark and the original Hero is the styling. The Dark tweaks things a bit with the heatsinks using a grooved pattern on the chipset/M.
2 covers as well as the VRM heatsinks around the socket. On top of the rear IO, it says “ROG” with RGB lighting, where the original said “Hero.” The other change that may not be so obvious is that the chipset fan is gone in the Dark, which will cause some users to rejoice — even though we found the fan on the previous model quiet.
On the performance front, the Dark Hero did well across most of the tests. There are some abnormal results in the PCMark10/MS Office suite; however, we’re chalking that up to run inconsistency. The clock speeds are where they are supposed to be with boards that perform much better in these tests, so it comes down to the benchmark or something else going on during this portion of the test.
- Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero (AMD Ryzen Download) at Amazon for $389.99
Specifications — Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
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| Socket | AM4 |
| Chipset | X570 |
| Form Factor | ATX |
| Voltage Regulator | 16 Phase (14+2, 90A MOSFETs) |
| Video Ports | ✗ |
| USB Ports | (8) USB 3. 2 Gen 2 |
| Row 6 — Cell 0 | (7) Type-A and a Type-C (10 Gbps) |
| Row 7 — Cell 0 | (4) USB 3.2 Gen 1 |
| Row 8 — Cell 0 | Type-A (5 Gbps) |
| Network Jacks | (1) 1 GbE |
| Row 10 — Cell 0 | (1) 2.5 GbE |
| Audio Jacks | (5) Analog + SPDIF |
| Legacy Ports/Jacks | ✗ |
| Other Ports/Jack | ✗ |
| PCIe x16 | (2) v4.0 (x16), (x16/x0 or x8/x8) |
| Row 15 — Cell 0 | (1) v3.0 (x8) |
| PCIe x8 | ✗ |
| PCIe x4 | ✗ |
| PCIe x1 | (1) v4.0 (x1) |
| CrossFire/SLI | AMD Quad CrossfireX and CrossFireX (2/3-Way) |
| Row 20 — Cell 0 | Nvidia 2-Way SLI |
| DIMM slots | (4) DDR4 5100(OC), 128GB Capacity |
M. 2 slots |
(1) PCIe 4.0 x4 / PCIe + SATA (up to 80mm) |
| Row 23 — Cell 0 | (1) PCIe 4.0 x4 / PCIe + SATA (up to 110mm) |
| Row 24 — Cell 0 | (1) PCIe 3.0 x4 / PCIe + SATA (up to 110mm) |
| U.2 Ports | ✗ |
| SATA Ports | (8) SATA3 6 Gbps (RAID 0, 1 and 10) |
| USB Headers | (1) USB v3.2 Gen 2 (Type-C) |
| Row 28 — Cell 0 | (2) USB v3.2 Gen 1 |
| Row 29 — Cell 0 | (2) USB v2.0 |
| Fan/Pump Headers | (8) 4-Pin |
| RGB Headers | (2) aRGB (3-pin) |
| Row 32 — Cell 0 | (2) RGB (4-pin) |
| Legacy Interfaces | ✗ |
| Other Interfaces | FP-Audio, TPM |
| Diagnostics Panel | Yes (2 character LED) |
| Internal Button/Switch | Start/Reset, CMOS reset, Safe Boot, Reset, Slow mode |
| SATA Controllers | ASMedia ASM1061 |
| Ethernet Controller(s) | (1) Intel I211-AT 1 GbE |
| Row 39 — Cell 0 | (1) Realtek RTL8125-CG 2. 5 GbE |
| Wi-Fi / Bluetooth | Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (802.11ax, 2×2, MU-MIMO, BT 5.1) |
| USB Controllers | ✗ |
| HD Audio Codec | SupremeFX ALC1220 |
| DDL/DTS Connect | ✗ / ✗ |
| Warranty | 3 Years |
Along with the motherboard, Asus puts a slew of accessories in the box. The stack includes the necessary cables and guides and Wi-Fi antennas, among many other items. Below is a complete list of the included accessories.
● User´s manual
● (4) SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
● Driver/software DVD
● ROG big sticker
● Q-Connector
● Wi-Fi Antenna(s)
● Extension Cable for RGB strips (80 cm)
● Extension cable for Addressable LED
● ROG coaster(s)
● ROG Thank you card
● M.
2 SSD screw package(s)
Image 1 of 4
(Image credit: Asus)(Image credit: Asus)(Image credit: Asus)(Image credit: Asus)
Unlike the ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition we recently reviewed, where there was a distinct change in the appearance, the Asus Crosshair Dark Hero takes a more subtle approach to its changes. All of the heatsinks are shaped the same way and cover the same parts of the board. The difference between them is the Dark Hero adding ribbing to the heatsinks where it used to be flat brushed aluminum. The lighter grey in the middle is now black, with the Asus ROG symbol lit up by RGB lighting from below. The other significant difference is the shroud above the rear IO. Here it says “ROG” lit up by RGB lighting (where the previous model said “Hero”). Overall, the board fits well into any build theme that doesn’t favor white.
(Image credit: Asus)
Looking at the top half of the board, we’re greeted by a large plastic shroud that covers the rear IO IC’s and part of the left VRM bank.
On top, it has the Asus ROG branding lit up with RGB lighting. Sending power to the CPU is a required 8-pin EPS connector and a 4-pin (optional). Cooling the 16-phase VRMs are two large heatsinks connected via heatpipe to share the load. As you’ll see later, this configuration worked well keeping the power delivery cool, even when overclocking our 5950X.
To the right of the socket are four DRAM slots capable of holding up to 128 GB of RAM. Speeds are listed up to a whopping DDR4 5100(OC), which is the fastest of all X570 boards. Just note that you will need a good IMC on the CPU, the right memory kit and a fair amount of tweaking to reach those speeds. AMD’s sweet spot is 3600/3733 while keeping the Infinity Fabric at a 1:1 ratio. You may see worse performance if you go higher than that.
Just above the DRAM slots are the first three (of eight) 4-pin fan headers. In this area are the CPU_OPT, CPU_FAN and AIO_PUMP headers. The AIO header runs are full speed by default. Two fan headers (W_PUMP+ and H_AMP) support 3A/36W, while the rest are more standard fare at 1A/12W.
Each header auto-detects if it has a PWM or DC (3/4-pin) attached. Just to the fan headers’ right is the Q-Code LED that displays codes during the POST process. This is handy for troubleshooting boot issues.
We spy our first set of ARGB and RGB headers on the far right edge (one more of each at the bottom of the board). Below that is the Start button used to power on the machine. Next is a more simple Reset button. At this price, I would like to see a proper reset button instead of the more basic implementation we have here. Continuing down the right edge is the 24-pin ATX connector to feed power to the board. To the right of this are multiple voltage read points, including Vcore, VRAM, SOC, Southbridge and PLL. While most people won’t use these, those who are into extreme overclocking who need/want to know exact values, this is a great feature. Below that is the front panel USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C header.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Power delivery on the Dark Hero retains the same 16-phase (14+2) setup but upgrades to 90A MOSFETs (compared to 60A in the original Hero) in order to better support the 5000 series CPUs.
Asus doesn’t use phase doublers, but “teams” the VRMs. In short, there are two power stages in parallel for each channel, which doubles the current-carrying capacity without using a doubler. Control is handled by an ASP1405 controller (x+y = 8), while the MOSFETs are a Texas Instruments X95410RR. Details are scarce, but we figure these are part of the existing CSD954xxx ICs. Details aside, this is one of the more robust VRMs on the market and easily handled our ambient cooled 5950X and would easily handle sub-ambient overclocking as well. Asus stepped up the power bits here.
(Image credit: Asus)
4-pin fan header
Swinging down to the bottom half of the board, we’ll start on the left-hand side with the audio. Hidden under the shroud and a faraday cage below it is the premium SupremeFX 7.1 channel audio codec (Realtek ALC1220A variant). Also hidden under the cover is an ESS ES9023P DAC for front-panel output along with a Texas Instruments RC4580 Op-Amp. In addition to all the ICs, the audio section uses several Japanese Nichicon audio caps said to produce a warmer, more natural sound.
Overall this is an excellent audio implementation that should be plenty good enough for a majority of listeners.
In the middle of the board, we’ll start with the PCIe slots. In this case, the top two slots are fed from the CPU sporting a total of 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes. If the top slot only is in use, it will get all 16 lanes. If a card is populating the second slot, they both break down to x8/x8. The third full-length PCIe slot is fed from the chipset and runs at PCIe 4.0 x4. The x1 slot (with an open back to fit larger connectors) is PCIe 4.0 running at x1 speeds. This setup supports AMD CrossfireX 2/3/4-Way and Nvidia 2-Way SLI.
Also located in this area are the two M.2 sockets. The first sits above the top PCIe slot, while the second sits next to the PCIe x1 slot. Both support PCIe and SATA modules, however, the top slot is PCIe 4.0 x4 while the bottom is PCIe 3.0 x4. Both sockets sport heatsinks to help keep the modules underneath cool. Due to the board’s configuration and available bandwidth, SATA ports do not get disabled when using both M.
2 devices.
On the far right edge past the chipset are eight SATA ports (supports RAID0, 1 and 10), front panel USB 3.2 Gen1 header and a chassis fan header. Just below the SATA ports are three additional headers part of the ROG Water-Cooling Zone. There are dual 2-pin temperature sensor headers, a 3-pin flow-rate header and a high amp 4-pin dedicated water pump header. All of these ports send data back to the AI Suite utility, so you can track coolant temperatures and the flow rate of your water loop.
Across the bottom are a bunch of buttons and headers, including USB ports and RGB headers. Here’s the full list, from left to right:
● Front panel audio
● 4-pin fan header
● LN2 mode jumper
● Safe Boot button
● Retry button
● TPM header
● 3-pin ARGB and 4-pin AURA header
● Node header
● (2) USB 2.0 headers
● 2-pin temperature sensor
● Slow Mode switch
● System panel header
(Image credit: Asus)
Last but not least is the rear IO area.
One of the first things you’ll notice on the integrated IO plate is that it’s packed with 12 USB ports. There’s a total of eight USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (one Type-C, seven Type-A in red) and four USB 3.2 Gen1 ports (blue). If this isn’t enough, you’re using too many! On the networking side is the 2.5 GbE Realtek and 1 GbE Intel LAN ports with two connections for the Wi-Fi antenna. The audio stack out back consists of five analog plugs and the SPDIF. Rounding out the rear IO are two buttons, the first for BIOS flashback and above it a clear CMOS button.
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Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero: Price Comparison
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Joe Shields is a Freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He reviews motherboards.
Performance Review — ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
It’s been quite a while since AMD launched its X570 chipset motherboards but despite being designed for the Ryzen 3000 series processors, it can also support the latest Ryzen 5000 series processors with a simple BIOS update. Though we haven’t seen any newer revision of the X570 chipset motherboard since its official launch, until very recently, with ASUS releasing its new ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero.
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The ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is a new revision that is based on the existing ROG Crosshair VIII Hero, with improved power design and cooling, as well as a new color accent that is pretty much self-explanatory. We don’t have a ROG Crosshair VIII Hero with us for comparison but we still have some of the previous X570 boards with us for some comparison.
Specifications
| CPU support | AMD AM4 Socket for AMD Ryzen 5000 Series/ 4000 G-Series/ 3000 Series/ 3000 G-Series/ 2000 Series/ 2000 G-Series Desktop Processors |
| Chipset | AMD X570 |
| Memory |
|
| Expansion slots |
|
| Storage |
|
| Network |
|
| Other Features |
|
| Back I/O Ports |
|
| Audio |
|
| Internal I/O Ports |
|
| Accessories |
|
| Form factor | ATX Form Factor (305mm x 244mm) |
C)
5G LAN (RJ45) port
2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps) connectorUnboxing
At first glance, we can immediately see the difference in terms of the design of the packaging. The red-black contrast isn’t as obvious as most of the ROG products we’ve seen in the past and it’s probably made this way to fit the color scheme and name for the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero.
Some brief introduction on the details such as the product specifications, features highlight can be found at the back of the box, but you can always visit the official product page to learn more.
Under the accessories compartment, you’ll find two different sections with different content: one with the usual user’s manual, ROG coaster, ROG case badge, ROG label stickers, and driver CD, and the other one with the RGB cables, SATA cables, screws and stand-offs for M.2 SSD, Q-Connector for the front panel buttons, and the Wi-Fi antenna.
The ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO
As mentioned earlier, we don’t have any ROG Crosshair VIII Hero with us for a side by side comparison but if you’re currently using one or previously owned one, the layout on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is definitely something that you’ll be really familiar with. For the design, it’s pretty much a darkened version of the Hero, replacing the gray accent with black to fit the name for the Dark Hero.
The most notable change you can see on the ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is the chipset cooling solution, which is now passively cooled. Most of the X570 motherboards we’ve seen so far are all equipped with a cooling fan for its chipset heatsink and the Dark Hero right here is probably the first X570 board to have a heatsink that doesn’t require an additional fan. So it’s somewhat safe to assume that ASUS has improved the design so the chipset will not run as hot as the rest during load.
The EPS12V is still in the same configuration as before, with only the 8-pin connector covered with the metal shield. It’ll look better if ASUS can consider covering the other 4-pin connector with the same metal shield.
The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero uses Daisy chain memory layout that is getting more common nowadays as compared to T-topology memory layout. As not many users are going with fully populated DIMM slots for their setup, most manufacturers are moving towards the Daisy chain layout that is more beneficial to two stick DIMMs, especially for memory overclocking.
From the specifications table, we can see that the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is capable of going up to DDR4-5100 but that’s only when it’s paired with the right hardware (CPU and Memory kit).
You’ll find plenty of buttons and switches on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, which can be really useful if you’re into a lot of tweaking. As the board is designed with overclocking in mind, these buttons and switches can come in really handy, especially the safe boot and retry button located under the lowest PCIe slots.
It might take a while to get used to if you’re jumping straight from the older ROG motherboards that still have the MemOK! button for memory troubleshooting but you’ll love the safe boot and retry buttons once you get the hang of it. I’ve tested quite a number of memory kits on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero and these buttons did help quite a bit when dealing with some of the commonly seen error code i.e F9, 55, 07, B1.
The VRM heatsink on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is pretty much similar to the one on the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero, with a plastic cover for the rear I/O and translucent ROG legends for the RGB lightings.
In case if you want to take it apart for cleaning in the future, taking apart the cover and heatsink is a breeze and the only thing you should worry about is picking the right thermal pads for the heatsink when the time comes.
For the power design, the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero features 14+2 ‘power stages’ according to the official product page, but it’s effectively a 7+1 phase in the usual teamed configuration you’ll find on some of the newer ASUS ROG boards. So you’re basically getting a beefed-up 7+1 phase board with 2 of each working in parallel in each phase, which according to ASUS, able to provide a much better transient response as compared to most of the conventional designs with phase doublers.
The PWM controller and MOSFETs used on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero are the ASUS Digi+ VRM EPU ASP1405I and the X95410RR from Texas Instruments. Some of you would probably know that the ASUS Digi+ VRM EPU ASP1405I is technically a rebranded Infineon IR35201 8-phase PWM controller which is commonly seen on the higher-tier ASUS ROG motherboards because of the quality and performance it can deliver.
As for the Texas Instruments X95410RR power stages, it has a rated power of 90A, which is slightly higher than the 60A IR3555 power stages used on the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero.
For the expansion slots, you’ll find 3 x PCIe x16 and 1 x PCIe x1 for the add-in cards and graphics cards. The top two PCIe x16 slots can support PCIe 4.0 but only one at a time if you want to run it at x16. The two slots will run in dual x8 mode if you install two graphics cards for either NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossFire. The most bottom x16 slot is a PCIe 3.0 only x16 slot that runs in x8 mode, but that’s plenty enough for most of the add-in cards i.e network card and soundcard.
There are also two M.2 slots on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero which according to the official specs, both support PCIe 4.0 x 4 and can be configured to run in Raid 0/1/10 mode. It’s also backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 x 4 SSDs and supports SATA mode, in case if you wonder.
ASUS also included a total of 8 x SATA ports on the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, not something many would appreciate, but it’s very useful if you’re using this board for your creative work and have a lot of SATA drives for your system.
For the onboard audio solution, the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is equipped with the SupremeFX 7.1 surround sound high definition audio codec, high-quality Japanese Nichicon caps, and the usual audio line shielding to provide cleaner audio as compared to the generic onboard audio solutions. It’s also equipped with a depop circuit and power pre-regulator to reduce unnecessary noise and disturbance for better and consistent performance.
On the rear I/O, you’ll find a number of useful ports and features that will come in handy for overclockers, especially for the clear CMOS button and BIOS flashback button. And guess what? You can perform a BIOS flashback on this board without having to install any CPU or memory.
If you need a lot of USB ports for all the USB devices you have, the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero has plenty of ’em – 4 x USB 3.2 Gen1 ports (blue), 7 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports (red), and a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port. For network connectivity, you’ll get Realtek RTL8125B 2.
5G LAN and Intel I211-AT for cable connectivity and Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 for Wi-Fi 6 if you have an 802.11ax WiFi 6 router for your home network.
BIOS Layout
Test System
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 5800X |
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO / MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE |
| Memory | G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3200 CL14 16GB / TEAMGROUP T-Force XTreem ARGB DDR4-3200 CL14 16GB / PNY XLR8 Epic X DDR4-3600 CL18 16GB / KLEVV BOLT XR DDR4-3600 CL18 16GB / XPG Spectrix D60G DDR4-3600 CL 14 16GB |
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT |
| Power Supply | Enermax MaxTytan 1250W |
| Primary Storage | Corsair Force Series Gen4 PCIe MP600 2TB |
| Secondary Storage | WD Black 6TB |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360R Liquid Cooler |
| Chassis | Streacom BC1 Open Benchtable |
| Operating System | Windows 10 64bit version 20h3 |
CPU Overclocking Performance Overview
For the CPU overclocking test, we are using an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and two different X570 chipset motherboards, the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE and the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero.
The test is started with the CPU settings set at default, just so we can if there’s any difference in the boost performance. On the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE, our Ryzen 7 5800X boosted up to 4.75GHz on specific cores during load. It’s pretty decent I’d say but the performance seems to be slightly better when we have it installed on the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, which boosted up to 4.85GHz on specific cores during load.
The highest clock we’ve achieved on the Ryzen 7 5800X is 4.7GHz, the same result on both boards. Going beyond that will require more Vcore and we’ll end up with an average 90ºC load temperature, which I personally don’t feel comfortable with. Though we did notice a slight difference on the Vcore required for the Ryzen 7 5800X to maintain at 4.7GHz without any signs of instability. On the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, a value of 1.262V is required on the Vcore to maintain stability throughout our stability test with ROG Realbench, while the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE requires a slightly lower Vcore at 1.
256V.
While exploring the BIOS, we’ve also noticed an interesting feature in the CPU Core Ratio section, known as the Dynamic OC switcher. It’s a rather new feature that we have yet to see on any of the X570 motherboards we’ve tried so far and can be really useful if you still want to get that boost feature when the CPU is on stock settings. Well, sort of.
How does this thing work? According to our observation, it will trigger the switch to the ratio you’ve set in this menu when the CPU load hits the threshold value, giving you that extra boost in performance when necessary. Of course, this also depends on how capable your CPU is. For our Ryzen 7 5800X, we’ve set the ratio to 48.5 and the threshold at 45A, allowing it to boost to 4.85GHz when we run games or program that is more demanding on the processing power.
The VRM and chipset temperature seems to be pretty reasonable throughout the stress tests and the highest temperature recorded for the chipset is at 54ºC while the VRM peaked at 51ºC.
Under normal load, the VRM and chipset temperature will only hit 50ºC and 46ºC respectively. As long as you have a well-planned airflow for your system, the VRM and chipset temperature is probably the last thing you need to worry about.
Memory Overclocking Performance Overview
Moving on to memory overclocking, in order to see how well this board can perform, we’re using quite a number of memory kits to compare the timings, and voltages required to achieve a specific speed. We didn’t manage to go very high with the memory frequency this time due to the quality of our Ryzen 7 5800X, but we manage to get some reasonable results for us to justify whether the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is just as good when it comes to memory overclocking.
Samsung B-die – DDR4-3200 CL14
Samsung B-die – DDR4-3600 CL14
Hynix DJR (D-die) – DDR4-3600 CL18
Based on our test results, we can actually see a very similar performance on both boards. The only notable difference here is probably the voltage, which for our case, the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero requires a slightly higher CLDO VDDP and CLDO VDDG on DDR4-4000+ as compared to the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE when using the same Samsung B-die DDR4-3200 CL14 and Hynix D-die DDR4-3600 CL18 kit.
FCLK 1900 and DDR4-3800 are the best settings we can get with our Ryzen 7 5800X but if you manage to get yourself a golden sample, you might be able to get FCLK 2000 and DDR4-4000 with ease. For the non-extreme use case, DDR4-3800 with FCLK 1900 is probably the recommended speed for now because 2000 on FCLK seems to be pretty difficult to achieve even on the new Ryzen 5000 series processors.
Final Thoughts
Just like the Crosshair VIII Hero, the Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is just too overkill for a basic gaming PC. The fancy RGB blings aren’t really my kind of thing but I’m definitely into the design and features that are catered for overclocking. If you don’t need the extra features and accessories on the flagship Crosshair VIII Formula, it has pretty much all the basic necessities and some extras you’ll need for all sorts of system tweaking and you can actually save quite a few bucks to invest in other parts.
As for the price, the buffed-up Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is also expensive than the Crosshair VIII Hero.