They are nice motherboards but as an owner of a Maximus Hero VII (Z97) a couple of points. 1.The second PCI slot is too high up on these boards. I have a Soundblaster Z card and the closeness of the slots mean I can't really slot it in-between my two 970's for cooling reasons, it has to go in the very top PCI-E slot which isn't ideal from an aesthetic stand point, the new MSI Gamer boards are better in this regard as they have their second PCI slot lower down which would allow for placement of the soundcard beween the two GPU's or any other expansion card (SSD) you might have. So bear that in mind. 2. The LED lighting on the board sounds nice but in reality once you've filled up your case you can't see them in operation, so don't let that sway you into a final decision about purchasing the board. ..on the plus side, my Hero board has been totally 100% reliable for a year now and gives solid overclocking of my 4690K to 4.6Ghz at 1.25vlts and Asus boards do tend to hold their value better than other boards in the 2nd hand market.

You call this a review? This is not a review of the VIII Hero. This is mostly just a recap of the Z170 chipset, some skylake performance numbers and a short introduction to the product in question. Large chunks of text has been copy pasted from earlier articles. The article barely qualifies as a preview. If this was a review I would expect you to try out and critique specific Asus features. Does Keybot II work? Gamefirst technology performance? GPU Boost any good? How does the new dedicated waterpump header work? Sound quality. FFS! Guru3d has always had great articles for the audiophile! What about the software suite? I am very disappointed.

This is not a review of the VIII Hero. This is mostly just a recap of the Z170 chipset, some skylake performance numbers and a short introduction to the product in question. Large chunks of text has been copy pasted from earlier articles. The article barely qualifies as a preview. If this was a review I would expect you to try out and critique specific Asus features. Does Keybot II work? Gamefirst technology performance? GPU Boost any good? How does the new dedicated waterpump header work? Sound quality. FFS! Guru3d has always had great articles for the audiophile! What about the software suite? I am very disappointed.

Looking at the review, quite obvious HH spent some time and effort on it, going through all the benches, main features and OCing potential of it. Basically covering the main points of interest for people interested in performance motherboards, so looks a job well done on that basis and in line with other major review sites. Maybe if you ask him nicely he can look into the extras you mentioned, but doubt being disrespectful will achieve anything.

Looking at the review, quite obvious HH spent some time and effort on it, going through all the benches, main features and OCing potential of it. Basically covering the main points of interest for people interested in performance motherboards, so looks a job well done on that basis and in line with other major review sites. Maybe if you ask him nicely he can look into the extras you mentioned, but doubt being disrespectful will achieve anything.

Well I disagree, and I was not being disrespectful. My comment was honest and to the point. I certainly hope HH has thick enough skin to not take offense from my post. In my opinion a review should emphasize and present features that set the board apart from other models and brands and this article fails to do so. I think for most enthusiasts and gamers, performance numbers on motherboards are only interesting if they deviate significantly from "normal". CPU quality and choice of cooling solution play a much much larger role in OC results.