Earlier this year at CES 2026 ASUS was showing some new refreshed AM5-based motherboards and two that caught our attention were the ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial and the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero. For those not familiar the Crosshair series sits as flagship series when it comes to AMD ROG motherboards. Today we are having a look a the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero which features an all-black design, a 20+2+2 power phase design, two PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slots, five M.2 slots, USB 4 connectivity, both 5G and 10G ethernet, WiFi 7, and ASUS-specific features like NitroPath DRAM tech, AEMP, their new AIO Q-Connector, and of course all of their ease of use features. Read on as we take a look at this motherboard!
Special thanks to ASUS for providing us with the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero Motherboard to review.
Specifications of the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero Motherboard
| CPU Socket | AM5 |
| Chipset | X870E |
| Form Factor | ATX |
| PCB | 8 layers, 2 oz. |
| Power Architecture | 20(110A)+2(110A)+2 |
| Memory | 4 x DIMM, max. 256GB, DDR5 9600+(OC) NitroPath DRAM Technology |
| Display Output | 2 x USB4 ports support USB Type-C™ display output 1 x HDMI |
| PCIe | 2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 |
| M.2 | 2 x PCIe 5.0 3 x PCIe 4.0 |
| Networking | 1 x 10Gb Ethernet 1 x 5Gb Ethernet |
| Wireless | WiFi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Rear I/O | 2 x USB4 40Gbps Type-C™ 9 x USB 10Gbps (6 x Type-A and 3 x USB Type-C™) |
| Front I/O | 1 x USB 20Gbps connector (supports USB Type-C® with up to 60W PD/QC4+) 1 x USB 20Gbps connector (supports USB Type-C®) 2 x USB 5Gbps headers support 4 additional USB 5Gbps ports 3 x USB 2.0 headers |
| Aura | 3 x Addressable Gen2 headers |
| Cooling | 1 x 4-pin CPU Fan header 1 x 4-pin CPU OPT Fan header 1 x 4-pin AIO Pump header 4 x 4-pin Chassis Fan headers 1 x W_PUMP+ header 1 x AIO Q-Connector |
| Special features | 3D Vapor Chamber M.2 Heatsink Metal backplate Extreme OC Kit |
| ASUS Q-Design | WiFi Q-Antenna M.2 Q-Latch, Q-Release, Q-Slide Q-Code, Q-LED |
Packaging of the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero Motherboard
The ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero comes in a pretty standard motherboard box. On the front there is simply a ASUS ROG logo and it lets us know we do indeed have the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero motherboard. Flipping over to the back there really isn’t much, which is odd as most ASUS ROG motherboard boxes have quite a lot of information on the board on them. Opening the box up we actually find instructions on how to use the M.2 Q-Release, M.2 Q-Slide, M.2 Q-Latch, and PCIe Slot Q-release. Another new change to the packaging is a sort of drawer that pulls out from the bottom where you’ll find all of your accessories.
Talking about those accessories they include four SATA cables, WiFi 7 antenna, DDR5 fan holder, DDR5 fan, Q-connector, various M.2 accessories, ROG stickers, ROG VIP card, ROG bottle opener, and a quick start guide.
