Today, we will be reading about two stunning motherboards, the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master vs Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero units. These two outstanding motherboards come with several features making them ideal for usage in gaming, coding, and designing.
The X570 motherboard series was a massive hit among the masses. Rightly so. It comes with superb features and is infused with tremendous specifications. This is a powerhouse of a motherboard that is not very behind from the MSI Prestige X570 Creation, priced at $450.
The box is kind of light, including some features, including the lack of fan-assisted M.2 expansion cards. What you get are the RGB extension cables, thermal probe cables, and Wi-Fi aerial.
You can also find a few exciting premium features infused in it. Perhaps, they included the PCIe 4.0 support to justify the pricing of close to $350. It comes with 3 M.2 ports that are embedded with a heatsink and other support.
The unit comes with PCIe NVMe SSDs and the SATA 6Gbps M.2 SSDs. Coming to the design, it is not as good compared to the Asus unit. However, there is a durable and glossy metal. Besides, we noticed that it comes with a decent finish too.
There is a fin-based VRM cooling above the 14-phase power delivery. If you are a professional gamer, then you would like to utilize this motherboard. The dual BIOS switches and the power buttons are well placed on them.
There are also reset buttons and a CMOS clear button. The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero is another exceptional unit that is priced above the $300 range. The board comes with extraordinary features infused, considering the fact that VRM count and quality are stunning.
It also comes with RGB LED light that makes it appear extremely attractive. You can also find exciting features, including 2.5G LAN, a powerful VRM, several USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, ROG SupremeFX premium audio, and the integrated Wi-Fi 6/802.11ax.
Let us read on to find out more about these two sublime motherboards and the winner that we have mentioned at the end.
GIGABYTE X570 AORUS MASTER | ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII HERO |
PROS | PROS |
The motherboard has an opulent design. It comes with a dual Ethernet with one 2.5GbE. It has Wi-Fi 6 for instant and eloquent connectivity for gamers. The 3 long PCIe and M.2 slots come enabled simultaneously. It comes slightly cheaper than the ROG models. | The ROG motherboard comes eloquently designed. It has onboard power and reset buttons. It comes with a Q-Code LED display. The unit has M.2 slots that include a heatsink. The model has 12 USB ports on the rear I/O. |
CONS | CONS |
The model comes with only 4 SATA ports available. | The model is quite expensive. |
FEATURES & LAYOUT
First, we will read about the features & layout of both the motherboards. As you know, the features and the layout form a crucial part of the unit. On the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master motherboard, you can notice 3 M.2 ports and come placed on a large heat spreader.
We liked this design because it works efficiently for cooling. This comes with one additional M.2 slot. This can also be found on the MSI Prestige X570 Creation. What happens here is that you do not need to get rid of the primary graphics card to look at the SSDs.
The main problem here is that the temperature can be slightly higher when operating on it. This makes it slightly cooler when you are not using the heatsinks. There is a lack of metal on the M.2 SSD that can affect the cooling performance from what can be got.
The brand has provided you with 4 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports present on the I/O panel. It comes made from 3 Type-A ports and a single Type-C port. If you see the Type-C and the Type-A ports work with the X570 chipset seamlessly.
However, the 2 CPU-integrated Type-A ports were not that good. The Gigabyte infuses Realtek’s ALC1220 audio that offers you with decent audio performance. Though you can find better quality in the market, it is quite good for the price.
If you look at the I/O panel, it comes with the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Gigabit port, and CMOS clear button. You can also find the USB BIOS Flashback. Using that, it allows you to update BIOS without using the hardware easily.
Overall, the features & design of the X570 Aorus Master board are good for the price. It could have come with a few more specifications, but that is manageable because you can work on it. Now, we will see about the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero unit.
The unit comes with an elegant appearance. That is because of the black PCB and heatsinks. Asus has always managed to impress us with the design and tones infused in their units. The ROG Crosshair too comes with stunning color combinations.
At the rear, you can find the Crosshair VIII name. Below that, you can find the words written in bold, HERO. To make it appear better is comes in RBG lighting. Besides, the ROG symbol that is present on the heatsink incorporates RGB lighting.
You will love working using the RGB control with the AURA software. It is quite user-friendly. You can also find black VRM heatsinks. There is the audio shroud and DIMM slots. We were delighted to see that the slots come with protection on it ensuring that it is durable.
The appearance is very sleek and friendly. It can easily fit into several themes without problems. At the left, you can see the rear I/O cover. They also come with 8-pin VRMs and an optional connection with 4pin.
It is sandwiched between the shroud and VRM heatsinks. Though the heatsinks are not the largest, they come conjoined with a heat pipe. The thermal load is shared between both of them.
You will notice that the power bits are within them. A notable feature in the board was the overclocker to read points. You can also find buttons for retry, USB headers, LN2 switches, and temperature headers.
The main flaw we found in the design would be the placement of the chipset fan. It is mostly closed off for dual-slot GPU. But the fan did not create much noise like the Gigabyte unit when testing it.
All in all, both motherboards come with a solid design & layout.
SOFTWARE AND FIRMWARE
Coming to the software and firmware of both Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master, it is quite good. Their EFI is relatively compact, and the menus are good. We found them to be simple to use. You can notice that the CPU settings, advanced PBO options, accessible through a single page.
In most Gigabyte models, you can find them scattered around. When you spend time using the board, it is an excellent place to be as the overclocking options are stunning. You can say that it comes with the ultimate fan control EFI section in the market.
Though Asus has done an excellent job with their product, the Gigabyte stands above the rest. Besides, users are given immense control over the motherboard’s fan. Likewise, the software cooling control from the maker was reasonable.
It comes with unmatched control for the cooling of your device. We also liked the alarm section that reports failures. Gamers can easily find out if anything is not working, like the pump, fan, or the temperatures getting high beyond a certain degree.
You can graph several data sources that come with an extended look for your PC’s stats. There set overclocking can be immensely applied on the EasyTune also. If you are somebody who is keen on using high overclocking, then this option should do.
You might want to limit the number of times you want to reboot. Users may want to reboot for getting the EFI when you require reducing your long-term overclock settings. We are pleased to let you know that the performance of the Aorus Master was exceptional.
It provides you with good single-threaded and multi-threaded usage. We could hardly find issues with the BIOS updates on the motherboard. The unit also came with a low single-threaded report.
The software and firmware of the Asus motherboard come with AI Suite 3, a software that provides extended functionality. You would prefer using AI Suite, including Overwolf, Armoury Crate installer, Ai Charger, and RAMdisk.
If you want to use the application, then you notice that a default screen comes in. This 5-way optimization provides you with a lot of helpful information. You find out all the current performance mode, fan speed, and Digi VRM information.
The TPU section on the unit can be used for both BCLK and CPU ratio adjustment. It comes with the DRAM, CPU Vcore, VDDP, VDDSOC, and others. You will love to work on the Turbo App of the board.
It is designed for use on several features. You can adjust the power saving mode and so on. There is also the Fan Expert 4. The ideal speed is detected by itself. The PC cleaner does a fantastic job in getting the unwanted files.
The EZ Mode offers you all information that you want. Few of them include details about the memory and processor. You also have the Advanced Mode and the Extreme Tweaker section.
You can also find the monitoring section. The details about the system are provided to you, including the temperature and the fan’s speed. Besides, you can also notice the pump headers and the other features infused in there.
On the whole, the software and firmware of both the X570 Aorus Master and the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero were quite stunning. We felt that the makers had done a magnificent job in designing them.
OVERCLOCKING
We will see the overclocking of the Gigabyte X570 AOrus Master. The unit provides you with exceptional speed. As you know, the board has to pass the test suite. However, we were given decent rates of 4.3GHz using 1.425V.
The same result was also found on the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero. The only other motherboard that is capable of reaching more heights was the MSI Prestige. Anyways, we will take a look at it another day.
The overclocking on the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard came with a stunning 4.224 GHz overclock with 1.32V. This is the average score for most of the other motherboards. We found that the VRM was able to manage the overclocking effortlessly.
You could also see that the VRM heatsinks did their work. It comes with voltage read points. We noticed that it comes with accurate CPUz and sets a voltage of 1.33V.
PRICE
The Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master motherboard is priced at less than $360. That makes it $20 cheaper than the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard. The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard is priced at less than $380.
Our tester felt that both the motherboards are adequately priced. However, we did think that the Asus model was a little expensive. Most of the ROG is priced a little higher because of the high-quality parts used and the reliability.
VERDICT
The Ryzen 3000 designers who require more slot and onboard storage will be delighted using the X570 Aorus Master. It comes with an additional 2.5Gbps Ethernet controller. This can be used as a pleasing extra.
It is slightly expensive at $360 but is priced less than the other models in the same feature range, like the MSI Prestige and the Asus ROG Crosshair. The board runs optimally on the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X with aplomb.
This unit comes with several features and provides exceptional functionality. It has been improved due to the new BIOS. Now updating is a breeze. There is no noise coming from the chipset fan.
The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero comes loaded with features. There is no denying that. After all, it is a ROG model, and you can expect the usual specifications, including a 2.5G LAN port, 12 USB ports, 8 SATA ports, and an integrated Wi-Fi 6.
It also comes with a top-end design. Sadly, the overclocking was reduced due to the heat and not the unit. Besides, the model comes with many ports in the rear. It offers 8 SATA ports that have 2 M.2 slots.
You can also find the 2.5G Realtek LAN port that is much quicker than the Gigabit NIC. It comes with a sophisticated appearance, exceptional power delivery, and a feature set. It is definitely worth being listed in the $350-$400 price range.
The winner in comparison review of Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master vs Asus Crosshair VIII Hero motherboards is the X570 Aorus Master. Gigabyte has designed a winner here. Though the Crosshair VIII Hero board comes with spectacular features, the Aorus was able to beat it.
James Smith has always been intrigued by electronic products since his childhood. After his post graduation in electronics from a popular university, he decided to pursue a career in the electronics sector. But his calling for writing about these marvellous pieces of work got the better of him. That is how UBG was started. With a writing career spanning more than 12 years, James has worked on several hundred product reviews. During his free time, he like to spend time with his pet dog and relax in the swimming pool.