PCB and connectors:
Tools for clocking:
Why is the ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme such an excellent card for overclocking? Firstly, because it comes with a number of tools inserted directly into its PCB that will make your life much easier.
- The power button: used to power up the motherboard.
- The FlexKey button: by default, this restarts the motherboard in the event of failure, but you can give it another function via the BIOS.
- Safe Boot: allows the board to be rebooted even if the parameters selected in the BIOS do not allow booting. This avoids having to do a CMOS Clear and therefore losing your settings.
- ReTry Button: during cold tests, sometimes the OS freezes and a reset doesn’t restart the motherboard: the only solution is to hold down the START button for 6 or 7 seconds. Pressing the ReTry button restarts it immediately.
- CMOS CLR: clears BIOS settings in the event of a boot failure.
- Q-Code LED: identifies the component responsible for the boot error, and also displays the CPU temperature and voltages.
- Status LED: depending on their colour, you can identify a problem or find out the voltage level of the component.
The PCB of this ROG Crosshair X870 HERO :
Our ROG Crosshair X870 HERO is based on an 18+2+2 phase power supply. The part in charge of the CPU is made up of 18 phases, and on this model there is no doubler, but the phases are placed in parallel, so there are really 9 of them. The controller here is a Digi+ ASP2205 chip.
The 18 mosfets are all 110A Vishay SIC850s. The mosfets in the power stages generate the most heat because they are responsible for voltage conversion and delivery to the CPU from the 12-volt EPS connector. There are also two SOC phases with Vishay SIC850 chips and two other phases for the VDD_MISC, but here with Vishay SIC629 chips. The controller here is a Richteck RT3672EE chip.
Ultra-complete connectivity:
Our Crosshair X670E Extreme comes with a comprehensive range of connectors. First of all, the Clear CMOS and the button for flashing the BIOS from a USB key.
Then there are two USB4 Type-C ports, eight 10Gbps USBs(6 x Type-A + 2 x USB Type-C), Wi-Fi antenna tips, a 2.5Gb and a 5Gb Ethernet port, an HDMI port, an optical S/PDIF Out and the various audio outputs.
Now that we’ve taken a look at the ROG Crosshair X870E HERO and its PCB, you’ll have to wait a few more weeks to discover the inner workings of its BIOS and the performance of this new chipset combined with the Ryzen 9000.
