Asus sent their new motherboard for testing, the ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, this motherboard is similar to the Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), the difference lies in the all-black design, the ROG RGB light on the IO cover, 7.1channel sound card (unfortunately not 8 channel), and the Bluetooth module supports v5.1.

Package appearance
The whole package design of CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO
Package Front

Package Back

Package Side

Opening the box

The manual book, instruction guide and ROG sticker

The driver cd, coaster and metal ROG badge

The WIFI | Bluetooth antenna, SATA cable, m.2 screw and RGB extension cable

Product Analysis
The large radiator fins have been painted black and the ROG logo on the IO hood has been twill-printed to add a strong Retro touch
The front and back look

The top I/O includes 8+4-pin CPU power socket with ProCool shields and a total of 3 fan headers and Debug indicator

The side I/O – In this area of the motherboard, in addition to the 4 OptiMEM III supported DIMM DDR4 memory slots, RGB headers (12v 4pin & 5v 3pin addressable). Plus, a front USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type E sockets, 24pin power header etc

The bottom I/O, includes HD audio header, LN2 switch, safe boot and retry button, TPM header, RGB headers, Node header, USB 2.0 headers, Slow mode switch, 2 fan headers and fPanel headers

The rear I/O :
1 x Optical S/PDIF out
1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
1 x ASUS Wi-Fi Module
5 x Gold-plated audio jacks
4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 5Gbps) ports
8 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps) ports ()
1 x BIOS FlashBack™ Button(s)
1 x Anti-surge 2.5G LAN (RJ45) port
Anti-surge LAN (RJ45) port

The AM4 CPU socket

This motherboard includes 2 x M.2 SSD slots (Both supports SATA & PCIe 4.0 x 4)

The M.2 SSD and PCH heat sinks

The solid back shield with RGB lighting effects

The sound card SupermeFX chipset

Power button

The look after we removed all heatsink and covers

The AM4 bracket

The M.2 SSD heatsink cover

The Sound card cover

The PCH chipset metal cover with an RGB ROG eye

The VRM heatsink

The I/O cover with an RGB ROG logo

The processor power supply adopts a 14+2 phase CPU core power supply

The Wifi 6 and Bluetooth card – Intel AX200NGW

The PCH chipset

The ASUS SupremeFX supported sound card is ALC1220 from Realtek with ESS Sabre ES9023P, it also uses the famous golden capacitors from Nichicon

The Pericom PI3EQX16 PCI-E 4.0 re-drivers

The Asmedia ASM2480B is a PCIe lane switch chip used to split the PCIe x16 of the graphics card into PCIe x8 + x8.

ASUS TurboV Processing Unit chip

The BIOS flashback controller chip

The Asmedia ASM1074 is a USB 3.0 hub controller chip

The Intel WGI211AT Ethernet controller chip

The RTL8125 is based on a PCIe Gen2 x1 2.5G Gigabit Ethernet NIC

CPU in the socket

Overall
The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero as a twin model of the normal C8H is also an entry-level version of the ROG, but thanks to the enhanced overall specifications of the AMD X570 chipset, it can even rival previous Extreme boards. The large surface area of the complex heat dissipation module and the new ROG design language echoes the integrity of the extremely strong, 14+2 phase digital power supply, high-quality electrical components, the unique optimisation of circuit design allows it to more easily carry more performance.

In addition to this, Crosshair VIII Dark Hero owners can also be proud of the luxurious hardware package: 2.5Gb LAN, The latest PCIe Gen4 controller chip, As well as a variety of unique technical support such as Gamefirst, sonic radar, etc., this makes it a golden nugget on the outside.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 89.5/100

EPIC REWARD: DESIGN AWARD, EPIC RECOMMENDED AWARD

ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE