ASUS to launch X870E refresh motherboards - Glacial & Dark Hero

ChocAndGray

ChocAndGray

ChocAndGray

Associate
Joined
4 Oct 2017
Posts
1,716
Asus have announced their X870e refresh motherboards. One of which is the flagship Glacial, the other being the Dark Hero.

The thing that stood out most for me is the fact you'll now be able to run two gen 5 NVMe drives while retaining 5.0 x16 mode for your graphics card.
I did wonder if that was a part of the refresh across all manufacturers like the 64MB bios but it looks like the likes of MSI's Unify X that's launching still won't allow you to run two gen 5 drives without sacrificing other PCIe lanes.

Some other changes are the new 3D vapour chamber heatsink for your main NVme drive, and all NVMe heatsinks are now quick release. They've also now gone back to a button to release your graphics card. I know there were complaints about the Q-Release slim causing damage but touch wood I've been ok with mine so far.

rog.asus.com

ROG CROSSHAIR X870E DARK HERO | ROG Crosshair | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

The ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero is ready for Advanced AI PC. It makes builds soar with 20+2+2 power stages, hyper speed DDR5 support and the latest PCIe® 5.0
rog.asus.com rog.asus.com

rog.asus.com

ROG CROSSHAIR X870E GLACIAL | ROG Crosshair | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial, AMD E-ATX motherboard, 24+2+2 power stages, DDR5 slots, two PCIe® 5.0 x16 SafeSlots, seven M.2 slots, Dual Realtek 10G Etherne
rog.asus.com rog.asus.com


Meet the new ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial and Dark Hero motherboards






 
Last edited:
The glacial looks beautiful but it’s weird how you need to remove that lower cover to put in a GPU. Why didn’t they just make that cover a little shorter. I’m assuming this will be horrifically expensive.
 
Great to see new developments and progress, however, the x870E Apex looks like it remains the best overclocker!
 
rare said:
The glacial looks beautiful but it’s weird how you need to remove that lower cover to put in a GPU. Why didn’t they just make that cover a little shorter. I’m assuming this will be horrifically expensive.
Click to expand...

RRP hasn't been confirmed yet but it'll likely be 4 figures like the extreme. I think the official RRP will be about £1299.

There's a closer look at the Glacial board on the YouTube video below. JJ talks about the cover plate at around the 6 minute mark. I find it funny that he talks about how great it'll look aesthetically for anyone that doesn't use a GPU, as I doubt anyone buying a board like that will run it off of integrated graphics...

The board does look great but there's nothing that warrants spending over a grand for me on any motherboard.


sativa said:
Great to see new developments and progress, however, the x870E Apex looks like it remains the best overclocker!
Click to expand...

I wonder if they'll launch an Encore version like they did previously on Intel refresh.
 
Last edited:
ChocAndGray said:
I find it funny that he talks about how great it'll look aesthetically for anyone that doesn't use a GPU, as I doubt anyone buying a board like that will run it off of integrated graphics...
Click to expand...

Exactly, absolutely no one will use it that way.

At that money it’s a no go, way too expensive. I would have preferred a white Hero tbh. Then again, I think the X870E Hero was a step back over the X670E in some areas so no great loss.
 
You can now run 2 gen5 nvme drives while keeping all 16 lanes for your GPU. What they don't tell you is you m2_2 slot for you 2nd gen5 drive shares bandwidth with the rear usb_c 40Gb ports whether you have anything plugged into that port, thereby cutting the speed of your nvme to 2 lanes, so it's no faster then a gen4 drive.
 
Last edited:
It just says Wifi 7, so I wonder if it’s using the same wifi 7 card as existing boards (Like my x870i gaming) which has a Mediatek 7927 which isn’t compatible with Linux.
 
Last edited:
HoneyBadger said:
It just says Wifi 7, so I wonder if it’s using the same wifi 7 card as existing boards (Like my x870i gaming) which has a Mediatek 7927 which isn’t compatible with Linux.
Click to expand...

Yeah they’re still using the same module. Links to full spec list below

rog.asus.com

ROG CROSSHAIR X870E DARK HERO | ROG Crosshair | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

The ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero is ready for Advanced AI PC. It makes builds soar with 20+2+2 power stages, hyper speed DDR5 support and the latest PCIe® 5.0
rog.asus.com rog.asus.com

rog.asus.com

ROG CROSSHAIR X870E GLACIAL | ROG Crosshair | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial, AMD E-ATX motherboard, 24+2+2 power stages, DDR5 slots, two PCIe® 5.0 x16 SafeSlots, seven M.2 slots, Dual Realtek 10G Etherne
rog.asus.com rog.asus.com
 
Last edited:
As I think I mentioned earlier you can now have 2 m2s at gen5 speed while keeping your GPU at 16x lanes but the 2nd m2 shares bandwidth with usb4 so really only runs at half speed, sane as gen4 nvme. Even if you don't have anything plugged into USB 4. A limitation of the number of lanes available to CPU. I like the look of the Dark hero but can't think of any reason to change from my current x870e board
 
Last edited:
Glacial thought it might have come with a mono block, don't think anyone has done them in a few years, couple for Z690 I think was the last.
 
Toasty said:
Glacial thought it might have come with a mono block, don't think anyone has done them in a few years, couple for Z690 I think was the last.
Click to expand...

I seem to recall they had a bit of a disaster with them? They probably decided it isn’t worth the hassle these days as the amount of people doing ‘proper’ water cooling setups has no doubt fallen big time.
 
Yeah I suppose so, I think the forumla with the optional water cooling VRM heatsink used aluminium so had corrosion issues as well.
 
Wonder how much the Glacial and models below will cost in the UK. The Glacial is available for pre-order in America at a whopping $1200 :eek: I want either the Glacial or Strix Neo as they're the white models

Edit: UK Asus is up, £913 for Glacial and £615 for dark hero
 
Last edited:
xtremedetailz said:
Anybody know when we can expect these ?
Click to expand...
ASUS has a Resident Evil 9 promo where you get the game for free if you buy any eligible ASUS product before 19th March including the Glacial, so I'd hope sometime before then

America has been receiving their Glacial motherboards for the past week or 2 though, so maybe soon? Still waiting on the AIO that's supposed to pair with this motherboard

Edit: Another retailer has preorders for 2nd march
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom