Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero vs Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Formula – Which One You Should Choose?

For many years, Intel was ahead of AMD. Today, the tables have changed, and AMD is ruling the market. With the release of the 12nm update of Zen, the Zen+, many issues plaguing the AMD were sorted out effortlessly.

Thanks to the Ryzen 3000, AMD is set to make some noise in the market. This is a very competitive lineup it has. Intel should be worried, and rightly so. Only time will tell if Intel is really up to the task or not.

We are very excited because we are going to talk about two outstanding motherboards in the market today. They are the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero vs Formula gaming units. If you look around, you can find a new chipset being released in the market with the AMD Ryzen 5000.

We can bet that once you read all about the Dark Hero and Formula, you may not choose any other AM4 board. First, a little about the Dark Hero. Why the name? We do not know why, but we know that it was released in the market in 2016.

As of now, you may not find any more X670 chipset, but you can find the X570. Of course, shortly, you can find the Zen 4 processors infused with DDR5 memory support. This comes with an upgraded X570 motherboard.

You can find all the BIOS update that you want. There are also electrical layout tweaks and the PCB. It was designed to have Zen 3 processors in the design phase. We feel that it is the knight in armor among the X570 motherboards for Ryzen 5000 CPU.

Likewise, the Formula is rightly named because Asus seemed to have put in everything that they have got into this sublime motherboard. This is a top-notch board from the X570 motherboard product lineup.

It comes with the highly spoken EKWB VRM block. We cannot say that the manufacturer will consider releasing the Extreme in due period, which looks like a possibility if this one is well received in the market.

The powers in terms of speed and overclocking are genuinely sensational. This one provides gamers with an incredible experience for your Ryzen 3000 processors. It is infused with AX WIFI, 5 Gbps Ethernet, and liquid cooling blocks.

Additionally, it comes with specifications including PCIe 4.0 PCI slots, DDR4 A-XMP, and several PCIe 4.0 that are connected to M.2. slots. The size of the heatsink truly amazed us because it can handle anything that is thrown at it.

This pricey motherboard coming at roughly $650 can be pretty expensive. But, when you talk about features, there is nothing that it lags. As you can see, the list is simply endless. Why don’t we take a peek at these two robust motherboards and find out who the winner is?

Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero	Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Formula
PROS	PROS
The model has a clean design. The performance is simply marvelous. It has a 16-Phase and 90A power delivery. It comes with 12 USB ports. The board is infused with 8 SATA ports.	The model has plenty of native USB 3.1. It comes with an OLED display. The VRM and the EKWB heatsink are stupendous. It is exceptionally durable considering the materials used in making it. The board is a worthy investment for future use.
CONS	CONS
It is priced at $400, and that is a lot for a motherboard.	The model is pricey in the X570 motherboard segment.

FEATURES & LAYOUT

The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero comes with a top-notch design. Few users may even claim that it is quite bland. We felt that the features on the board had been placed nicely and sensibly.

We do not say this very often. Coming to the layout, it was done beautifully, and most of the ATX boards come with similar designs. There is not much to read or say about. We could find the primary M.2 slot above the PCIe slot.

You can find the second slot at the end of the board. There is also the heatsink making it sublimely placed. Users can seamlessly access the sockets without removing the heatsink assembly.

There is no chipset cooling fan found on the motherboard. This is a $400 motherboard that cannot be called cheap. But it is worth it when you compare it with the MSI Godlike or the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme.

All in all, the Dark Hero comes with a black design throughout, making it appear apt for it. There are also 90A VRMs, 12 USB ports, eight SATA ports, and many other features. Though some of you might consider the price challenging to swallow, it is a bargain for us.

Coming to the design of the Formula motherboard, it comes with outstanding VRMs and EKWB heatsink. You will be delighted with the 16 IR3555 60A power stages. They are more than capable of running your Ryzen CPU effortlessly.

We appreciate the fact that the manufacturer took the pain to install the water-cooling block from the EKWB. It can cool the VRM nicely. As this is a direct phase system, 2 power stages are combined into a single phase, and this immensely enables the heavy load to push smoothly.

It comes with several USB 3.1 10Gbps ports on its rear IO. When you compare it to other X570 boards, you would be surprised by it. They have set a new standard with this motherboard. There is also the OLED display ensuring that troubleshooting becomes simpler.

You can match the codes to the different components and customize them accordingly. Some of them include CPU speed and temperature. You can now work on it seamlessly and design your new PC using this stunning motherboard.

SOFTWARE AND FIRMWARE

The software on the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero motherboard is genuinely one of a kind. The manufacturer has provided you with many applications for performing several functionalities. A few of them could be system monitoring, RGB lighting control, audio, and overclocking.

Likewise, the firmware the options provided are outstanding. You can now find yourself better than most of the motherboards in the market. They also come with several options enabling you to set the board as you prefer.

Unlike most Asus motherboards that come with small text on manuals, this one had better readings. The BIOS update was a breeze and easy to follow. The EZ mode offers you sufficient data to ensure that the advanced part enables you to tweak them as you want.

When you change the first boot on the CPU, you are asked by a prompt. You have to either choose or avoid the Intel features. Then you can also make use of the other function buttons and decide your settings.

Likewise, the software in the Formula is phenomenal, to say. It comes with the latest LAN Speed Test via LST Server, AIDA64 (Stress Test), CPU-Z, and HWnfo 64-bit. It doesn’t get better than this.

The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Formula comes with decent software & firmware. We were quite impressed with the features. It comes with the stunning onboard Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) that helps you connect seamlessly.

When you have always wanted speedy internet connectivity with high-performance, then this is your ideal option. Besides, few users have also claimed that it works even in crowded regions too without a problem.

This offers with an exceptional online gaming experience. There is also accurate voltage monitoring that enables you to use single-ended sensing. This immensely helps in the ability to tune and overclock.

You can also use the LIVEDASH OLED that comes with a built-in OLED panel. All the information and details are displayed nicely. They come with customizable graphics. A distinct feature on this motherboard is the Node Connector.

It is a proprietary bi-directional interface that lets you work smoothly with the system components. This feature enables you to communicate with other system components that will allow you to find several options for system builders.

The board also comes with the TurboV Processing Unit (TPU). This is the intelligence that enables the tuning of the system automatically. Hereafter you do not have to do anything about it.

Besides, it can also tune the voltage, monitor stat, and even adjust the overclocking measures providing you with a stunning performance. Overall, the software & firmware of both the motherboards is incredible.

They come with the right kind of components embedded in them for phenomenal performance. If you are keen on seeing their powers, then you won’t be disappointed one bit. We were happy with the software and firmware aspect of the Formula board.

OVERCLOCKING

The overclocking speed for any motherboard is one of the most crucial functions. The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero does quite well in this aspect. We found it to be simpler than the manual overclocking.

You should be able to enable the AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). By doing that, you can make use of the 4.5GHz. However, during tests, it was able to run at 4.4GHz. This is quite good and enables you to reach sublime functionalities as and when you want.

We found that it comes with lightly threaded boosting. Our tester was also happy when he was able to get a multi-threading boost and not losing anything. The Infinity Fabric clock was able to hit the 2,066MHz.

It is something that most Ryzen 5000 boards have not done till now. The Dark Hero is truly a gem of a product manufactured by Asus. You can overclock the AMD platform as you want.

When you use the threads and the cores, you can then set the manual CPU multiplier. If the latter is able to peak the single-thread performance, then the all-core performance is immensely increased.

We can say that the unit can effortlessly take Ryzen 5000 series wherever the cooling has to. However, it may not be the best in overclocking, but it certainly is a force to reckon with. We are sure that it will work significantly well for you.

The overclocking on the Formula was genuinely fantastic. That is because it comes with the combination of the Zen 2 architecture. We also decided to make use of the 3rd generation Ryzen and found it exceptional.

The Formula was able to operate the CPU to 4600 MHz. Now, these are speeds that only you can dream of occurring on the older Ryzen generations. They also pushed Ryzen 3000 processor to 4.4 GHz on the threads.

This is simply amazing to say. Overall, the overclocking of the Dark Hero was good, but the Formula truly shined here. You cannot blame the Dark Hero because Formula comes with splendid features that can enable it to trudge ahead without much effort effortlessly.

PRICE

The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero will cost you $400. This is not cheap, but we felt that it is worth your price for the features infused in the board. The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Formula will set you back by $650.

This is quite expensive. But the X570 motherboard is truly marvelous, and we can proudly say that the manufacturer has done an exceptional job with it. It would help if you were an Asus fan to shell out so much money from the board.

The CPU performance of the Formula is much better than the Dark Hero. But the pricing of it takes it down badly. Even if you tweak it, you may not really extract much from it because it is, after all, the X570 board.

VERDICT

We have reached the end of our comparison review between the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero vs Formula. The Dark Hero is a sublime board to design your PC. It comes with exceptional features and also looks much better.

It is also priced nicely within $400, unlike the Formula motherboard. It is ready to enhance the CPU that you want immensely. We were highly impressed with the shot in the arm from 60A to 90A MOSFETs.

We did not find anything much to complain about the motherboard. The Crosshair VIII Formula is a particular unit. It comes with all the features that you can ask for. It comes with excellent M.2 performance, USB connectivity, eight SATA3 slots, and dual multi-GPU slots.

This X570 platform comes with the PCIe Gen 4.0 infrastructure offering you with better storage options and speed. We also liked its layout & design. When you search for units with high-end VRM, VRM water block, and many USB 3.1 ports, then do give this a thought.

Our winner in the comparison review between Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero vs Formula is the Dark Hero without a shadow of a doubt. The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Formula is a handy board, but $650 makes it very expensive.

There is really no justification for that in the X570 motherboard unit. The product has infused water cooling and outstanding technology. Besides, it does not come with 10Gbit LAN; most of the top-notch X570 units come embedded.

Please note that the Dark Hero board does not come with USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) ports and has only 2 M.2 sockets. If you are alright with that, we see no reason why you cannot like this refined unit to enhance your CPU performance to every last drop.