Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero review: A solid 12th and 13th Gen Intel foundation

When choosing a motherboard for a 12th- or 13th-generation Intel processor, you'll have various options since it's possible to go with an LGA 1700 socket motherboard with either an Intel 600 or 700 series chipset. Here, we're looking at one with the former, the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero, which released in 2021. Despite its age, it's still worth considering for your next PC build.

The Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero was released alongside the new LGA 1700 socket and 12th-gen Intel processors, helping to form the company's premium line-up of motherboards for team blue. It has more ports than you'll know what to do with, all the internal connectivity you could ask for, and excellent overclocking capabilities, making this still one of the best motherboards you can buy for either Intel CPU generation.

Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero: Pricing and availability

• The Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero is one of the company's high-end 12th Gen Intel motherboards and is currently priced at $540.
• It's available now as an alternative to the Z790 minor refresh, supporting the newer 13th-gen Intel processors.

Asus launched the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero alongside the 12th-gen Intel processors in October 2021, which makes this a motherboard that has been readily available for two years. Having said that, you'll still be expected to pay just shy of the MSRP since this motherboard also supports 13th-gen CPUs.

An Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero with the newer Z790 chipset from Intel has been released, but it costs considerably more at nearly $800. The Z690 version we're reviewing today still has support for DDR5 RAM, PCIe 5.0, 2.5GbE networking, and a beefy 20+1 power stage design for supplying electricity to the processor and other vital components.

Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero: Design and features

• The Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero has an aggressive, yet sleek gamer-inspired motherboard design.
• There's RGB lighting, a customizable pre-installed I/O shroud, and an all-black PCB.

You'll feel right at home with the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero if you've used an Asus motherboard before. Being one of the company's ROG-branded products, you'll find plenty of RGB lighting, a gamer-inspired design, and an all-black PCB finish. As well as the motherboard itself, Asus includes a PCIe expansion card with two M.2 slots. This can be used to add PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots to the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero.

There's also an antenna for Wi-Fi 6E, some cabling, and a USB drive that can be used for anything, including the manual installation of UEFI BIOS updates. Whether you're building a PC from scratch or are replacing an older motherboard, you'll have everything required to get up and running. Being a Z690 motherboard with an LGA 1700 socket, there's full support for 12th- and 13th-gen Intel processors, everything from the Intel Core i3-12100 up to the flagship Intel Core i9-13900K.

Having four DIMM slots, the motherboard is capable of supporting a capacity of up to 128GB of RAM and speeds of up to DDR5-6400, though you could push this further with XMP or manual memory overclocking. Three full-sized x16 PCI slots are located on the left-hand side of the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero, two operating at PCIe 5.0 and the third at PCIe 4.0. Six SATA III ports are at hand for 2.5- and 3.5-inch drives, as well as three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots (not including the two on the expansion card) for faster NVMe storage.

Audio is handled by the Realtek ALC4082, a decent mid-tier codec. Networking is excellent on the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero with 2.5GbE for those who are fans of cabling and Wi-Fi 6E for everyone else. The rest of the rear I/O is solid, consisting of BIOS FlashBack and Clear CMOS buttons, as well as two Thunderbolt 4 ports, six USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a single USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, two USB-A 2.0 ports, one HDMI port, Optical S/PDIF, and five gold-plated audio jacks.

Being an Asus ROG product, this motherboard has RGB lighting and headers for attaching (and controlling) any RGB lighting accessories you may have installed inside your PC case. The VRMs are covered by a solid heatsink that looks like it'll actually dissipate some heat as well as look good. An Asus error code display and LEDs for troubleshooting boot failures are located in the top-right and are ideal for those who will be toying around with overclock settings.

I'm also a big fan of the quick-release button for detaching the GPU from the primary PCI socket. This makes the process of removing your graphics card from the motherboard much less tedious. This motherboard almost has it all, making it well worth the asking price if you're serious about building a competing Intel PC.

Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero: Performance

• Excellent performance and in line with competitor offerings at this price point.

Testing the performance of a motherboard and comparing it against other boards with similar specifications and the same chipset will yield unsurprising results. We put this board to the test against some other Z690 and Z790 motherboards and the results were as expected. This isn't a negative on the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero since it allows even the Intel Core i9-13900K to be overclocked and produce some excellent numbers in synthetic benchmark tests.

Still, we kitted this motherboard out with the best hardware at hand, including a DDR5-6400 kit from G.Skill and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 to see what it's capable of in daily use. For gaming, you'll have no issue running the latest and most advanced graphics card, nor will it disappoint by limiting the CPU, both of which were able to run as designed. We booted up Mount & Blade II, Grand Theft Auto V, X4: Foundations, and Ashes of the Singularity. Performance was as expected with such a combo.

Interestingly, even with the GPU and CPU pulling a lot of power, the motherboard didn't seem to break a sweat with temperature and voltage readings stable throughout our testing. Granted, much of that power was delivered directly from the PSU to the GPU, but it's still a lot of electricity running across such a thin PCB. Overclocking with the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero BIOS is a painless process, as is the case with almost all Asus motherboards. It's incredibly easy to push your PC components to their limits.

ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero: Should you buy it?

You should buy the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero if:

• You plan on using a 12th- or 13th-gen Intel CPU.
• You want one of the best Z690 motherboards in terms of value.
• You plan on overclocking an Intel processor.
• You will be using DDR5 and PCIe 5.0.

You shouldn't buy the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero if:

• You already own DDR4 RAM and don't wish to purchase new modules.
• You aren't going to overclock the CPU.
• You're planning to build a budget-friendly PC.

The Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero has plenty going for it. Sure, it's pricey, coming in at less than $600, but it's well worth the price if you plan to use all the available features and functionality. It has all the bells and whistles from the 12th Gen Intel launch, including DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, plenty of USB connectivity, 2.5GbE networking (and wireless), as well as a beefy 20+1 phase power delivery system.

What all this means is the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero is ideal for PC builds where you're planning on overclocking. If you want to attach a liquid AIO cooler to the CPU and crank up some ratios or apply an automated profile in BIOS, this motherboard will be able to keep up with the power demand and ensure everything runs smoothly. There are plenty of fan headers too, so you can install this board in a compatible chassis with countless fan mounts, especially when using splitters.

Even more than a year since its launch, the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero offers a lot for those who are either in the process of buying or owning a 12th- or 13th-gen Intel CPU. It's a little cheaper than its successor, and you likely won't notice a difference by choosing this older board. It's one of our top-recommended motherboards for this reason.