The ASUS ROG brand has morphed from a purely hardware centric build that featured everything including the kitchen sink, with ASUS now introducing lower entry points into the ROG line-up with slightly less hardware bells and whistles. ASUS pays attention to the feedback given online in any number of forums to get a good idea as to what its customer base is looking for in terms of feature set and reliability. The Maximus VII Hero is ready for sale at e-tailers at $229 and expands on the feature set for the gamer. The board is released concurrently with the Maximus VII Ranger and Gene, with Formula and Extreme models to follow in the future.

ASUS ROG Z87 offerings were excellent performers in their own right and now Intel and its board partners have introduced the Z97 PCH-equipped socket 1150 offerings, which includes the Maximus VII Hero I have here today. Not only do you get improvement through the Z97 PCH, but you get software updates to the ROG standbys, along with new implementations including Keybot, a new UEFI BIOS interface, and improved hardware.