Pros: I did a lot of reading of professional reviews before I pulled the trigger on this purchase. I could have saved just a little bit of money going with another board, but it was money well spent. This is clearly a case of you get what you pay for. This motherboard is top notch and should appeal to both a serious overclocker and someone who just wants an overclocked build. They refer to the Hero as the entry level to the Maximus VI line. Don’t let that fool you. This board is all muscle. The more expensive models are above and beyond in my opinion. I don’t want to repeat what you can read in the professional reviews, so I’ll try to express key points that may be of interest that aren’t highlighted in those reviews. Asus created this CPU level up feature to programmatically determine if its stable to run your CPU at 4.2Ghz, 4.4Ghz, or 4.6Ghz. That’s pretty awesome! You can set the level up in the BIOS or by using the AI Suite software. You can also manually tweak the settings in the BIOS if you’d like to get exactly what you’re looking for (and able to achieve). I typically feel the utilities and apps that come with motherboards are bloatware, but I don’t feel that way with what came with the Hero. The Asus AI Suite III provides the ability to profile all of the fans connected to motherboard and to manage them efficiently; it provides a lot of detailed information about voltage, temperature, fan speed, energy usage, and more; and it has an overclock easy button so you can enable the CPU level up feature. There’s also a Windows app that allows you to restart and enter the BIOS without needing you to hit DEL at boot time. It comes with a few other helpful utilities to help you tweak for speed. The board is Intel XMP ready so it recognized my overclocked memory easily. The BIOS has a built in SSD secure erase feature. You won’t know how valuable that is until you’ve had to do it another way. It can be a pain to find and then boot from a utility CD just to secure erase (format) an SSD. Upgrading the BIOS has never been easier. I used the USB Flashback button with the latest BIOS on a flash drive. Be patient. I didn’t think it was doing anything at first, but it worked. I appreciate that they took the effort to design the built-in soundcard to be isolated from the mainboard. I’m not an audiophile, but I do appreciate every effort to achieve quality. I haven’t really cranked it up, but it does sound pretty good. I’m not big on flashy since my case is not see through, but I do like the look of it. It definitely looks like its made from quality components. It is packaged well and comes with all the appropriate pieces needed to install. Installation was easy both times (see other thoughts).

Cons: I didn’t think much of the GameFirst II software that is supposed to reduce lag for gaming. I have a pretty bad Internet connection so every bit of bandwidth is precious to me. Using this software reduced my Internet performance. I suppose I could have spent more time trying to figure it out, but I don’t believe it would have given me any noticeable edge. You don’t need to use it and the only reason I put this note in the con section is because I don’t think you should base your decision on this being bundled with the board.

Overall Review: Remember to insert the back I/O port shield into the case before installing the motherboard; otherwise you’ll have to unscrew the umpteen screws to take the motherboard back out. Oopsy. The BIOS defaults to the advanced screens which can be overwhelming the first time, but there is an EZ section. I didn’t get this board to overclock right away. I was going to wait until years down the road when software began to put a strain on the performance and a replacement CPU wouldn’t be that expensive. I’m waffling on waiting now. I want more speed since its so easy to do. Not all CPU’s are created equal. One i7-4770K might be able to work at 4.6Ghz and a different i7-4770K might not be able to run at 4.2Ghz. This is a characteristic of the CPU and not the fault of the motherboard. Unfortunately, there’s no way of telling how fast your CPU can go until you try. CPUs are not cheap, so you may want to evaluate the value of Intel’s Performance Tuning Protection Plan if you intend on taking the CPU above specifications. I am a ROG fan now and I think you would be happy with this motherboard. Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz LGA 1150 Quad-Core CPU Corsair Hydro Series H100i CPU Water Cooler Asus Maximus VI Hero Motherboard G.SKILL Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 2400 Memory MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 770 TF 2GD5/OC Video Card Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold Series 1000W Power Supply Corsair Obsidian Series 550D Black Case

Pros: This motherboard hits the nail on the head when you look at it for what it is. It's an ASUS ROG series board for about $200. You get the ROG suite of tools, the overclocking ability, premium components, and excellent on board Sound and the "cool design" factor. Coming from an X58 board and a 1st gen i7, this thing is leaps and bounds ahead of what I was dealing with. Though my x58 was an ASUS P6T with ZERO issues, the UEFI is so much nicer to work with and navigate. Booting to the UEFI is fast and even booting to the OS is pretty quick compared to other boards, or older boards. The on-board sound is hands down the best sound I've ever heard coming from a motherboard. I am coming from a Creative Labs XtremeGamer PCI card and sadly can't use in most boards because they lack a PCI slot. I use a decent set of BeyerDynamics headphones and this has NO issue powering them with very good sound. I would not say this can substitute a dedicated card for larger speakers, higher resistances headphones, or large surround systems. You simply can't beat a dedicated board, however, for what it is it does an amazing job. I was easily able to OC my i7-4770K to 4.3GHz however, I think it was basically luck of the drawl that I can not obtain a stable clock over this, due to how Hasewell is dished out. I'm sure I can squeeze out 4.4 GHz, but the effort to do so is not worth it. 4.3 was effortless.

Cons: My only complaint is no E-SATA port. This is my one complaint and with it was included. Other than that I feel this board cuts costs where needed in order to deliver the premium components and essence of a ROG board without to much fluff.

Overall Review: This is a NOT FLUFF board. One HDMI output, not ESATA, minimal expansion slots, and a few other trimmings in order to give you an "Enthusiast on a budget" board. SPECS: ------------ i7 4770K @ 4.3GHz(1.23v) Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme cooler Asus MAXIMUS VI HERO Z87 CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB DDR3 1866 ASUS GTX 680 Intel 330 Series 240GB SSD PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w Quad PSU

Pros: What a great board, I had no problems with this board, overclocked a 4770k to 4.2 with no effort, I probably could have went higher but what for. It works well with my Asus gtx680 DCU2, I have these both on water and I got some old Crucial 1600Mhz memory to 1870, which I am fine with.

Cons: none at the moment, I haven't used the onboard audio as I have a Creative 3D Recon that I use, Bios Updater was so simple, so is the the updater for there GPU's ASUS is a great Company I originally had a Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H that was giving to me but it ended up the trash because of bad GPU issues that Gigabyte refuse to admit!

Overall Review: I got The Refurbished one because it was only $150 I have bought many other Asus Quality Refurbished parts before,2 laptops, a GTX770DCU2, and now this, Newegg labels these as Open Box so be on the look out!

Pros: - Great features. - Great value. - Decent support from Asus. - Easy to setup and use. - Cool color scheme and LEDs - UEFI is amazing. - Quick to Post and get in windows

Cons: Bios freezes and hangs from time to time *Probably not a hardware issue.* Doesn't have a clear CMOs button and opps for the cr@ppy jumper method instead. Doesn't have switches to kill PCI-e ports or RAM Dimm slots. Bios update changelogs are too vague. What the heck does "Improved Overall System Stability." really mean?!? Onboard Audio drivers need a TON of work... *Pops and hisses galore! And a bug that sets the volume at 100% every boot... This was all noted using Optical Audio. and a Z5500 5.1 system.* No onboard WiFi.

Overall Review: Overall I really like and enjoy the value and feature of the Hero Sku. wouldn't mind spending another $20-30 for a bit more though... They need to add some things for their next go at it but I'm satisfied overall.

Pros: I've been using ROG boards (Maximus) for 7 years and they never fail. They never return errors, crash, or die. They just work: Perfect and always! I have been an ASUS customer for well over 10 years and they are always my go-to motherboard manufacturer, and the VI Hero maintains their supreme quality standards. I can't say enough about the BiOS on these boards; every feature you could possibly imagine and then about a hundred more. The ROG website has a very thorough guide explaining every feature, the CPU Level Up is amazing -- my 4670k is running stable @ 4.4 GHz right out of the box and all I did was change one setting. The sensor monitors are actually accurate! All of my BiOS temp/voltage readings are matching the software readings I'm getting in windows. Hallelujah! I was going to harp on ASUS for the ridiculous red LED on the board, but you guessed right... Even it can be disabled. ASUS continues to remain the best motherboard manufacturer in the industry.

Cons: While well-featured, I had some initial difficulty navigating the BiOS. It seems to be riddled with sub-menus, probably due to the complex nature and wide variety of features offered. Navigating through each category is confusing, the UI doesn't really provide much feedback as to your current whereabouts in folders. Additionally I still can't figure out how to get Favorites to work, and some of the menus mentioned in guides online are completely missing, though this may be due to outdated BiOS version. There are some caps very, very close to the CPU mounting area, as well as the heatsink. If you're going to be installing any clip-based coolers, you might have a hard time. Additionally, any tower-based coolers (Hyper 212, etc) you might have issues with heatsink fan hitting your RAM modules! This is a fair warning: Ensure your cooler mount/heatsink/fans will fit in the relatively SMALL area around the CPU socket.

Overall Review: 2 of the SATA Ports are powered by a separate controller, ASMedia. I had some "issues" related to these 3rd-party ports with previous Maximus boards and I still don't know why ASUS does this. I had tremendous issues with the previous JMicron controller so it's probably a good idea to avoid these ports as well. Package did not contain a sticker! I need my stickers, ASUS.

Pros: Lots and lots of tweaking options. Tons of control over basically everything you would want control over. Easy to over clock CPU. Have i5-4670K at 4.2GHz with this board with an EVo 212 at around 32C idle and 50-60 max load. Also this board looks fantastic and has a great build quality. The software it comes with is great and the on board audio is good as well. There are so many options in the bios that it can take hours to go oever everything in there.

Cons: None so far. Will update if I come across something

Overall Review: Really recommend this board for people looking to jump into haswell and dont want to spend 400 dollars on a gaming board. The price alone is what crew me to the board but the features this board has for its price sold me on it.

Pros: Very nice layout. The board looks very nice. The Supreme FX audio is great (see Other thoughts). Booted up 1st time, no issues. The LEDs are a nice touch. Seems like a very solid, stable board.

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: Okay, I see a lot of other people complaining about the the lack of high end features such and wifi, toggle switches to disable PCI-E slots, etc. and docking eggs for it. This board was designed for people who wanted a great performing mobo out of the box (which it does), not for people with Maximus VI Extreme taste and a Maximus Hero budget. It has a great BIOS with TONS of options, great overclocking ability, and a great audio setup (out of the box). If you want wifi, buy a Maximus VI Formula. If you want to disable PCI-E slots with on board toggles, buy a Maximus VI Extreme. If you already have a dedicated sound card or don't like overclocking, buy something else. Truth is, this board is great out of the box and performs VERY well with the features it has. I love this board BECAUSE it doesn't have wifi, mPCIe combo II, pointless armor, and all the other stuff that I'll never use. It has whats important to gamers, not elitist. Just sayin.

Pros: Really affordable way to step into the Republic of Gamers (ROG) product line. Multiple layers of options, both within the truly fantastic UEIF bios and the AI Suite software. Both are specific and enhanced to the ROG set and offer many many more options, especially overclocking. Included new software including the Sonic Radar might seem a little gimmicky, but it does what it says and provides additional directional feedback. The sound chip on this board has been a nice upgrade compared to previous generations, especially since some other manufacturers are still offering the older with new z87 motherboards.

Cons: None so far

Overall Review: No knock on the board or Newegg, but would have loved to seen the Asus Z87 Forumula variant at launch.