ASUS Maximus VII Hero Review

Overclocking and EFI

As we saw with the Ranger, the updated ROG EFI is excellent. One highlight is the intuitive Fan Xpert 3 fan control, which has a graphical interface and can be used with both PWM and DC fans. The EZ Mode tutorial for RAID set-ups is also handy for newbies and experts alike, and throughout the EFI you'll find tonnes of options allowing you to customise your set-up almost limitlessly. Despite this, the layout is logical and intuitive – we never had trouble finding things, and you can also easily add options to a favourites list (MyFavorites). Other nifty features include SSD SecureErase and RAMDisk.








Dedicated tweakers will be thrilled by the amount of options and voltage control the Hero offers when it comes to overclocking. It's also very easy to name, save and load overclocking profiles for quick retrieval, with up to eight profile slots available for storage. With our Core i7-4770K, we managed an overclock of 4.8GHz using a Vcore of 1.27V. This is a bit better than the Ranger, which required 1.28V for the same feat, but it's no better than the other motherboards that we saw in our four-way round-up. Still, it is a better showing than the vast majority of Z87 boards (we only ever saw one Z87 board hit 4.8GHz), and for whatever reason Z97 definitely appears to have a small advantage over the older chipsets when overclocking.