ASUS Launches ROG Crosshair X870E Hero BTF To Build A Pristine Ryzen Gaming PC
The "BTF" in the name is ASUS' moniker for its hidden-connector design, or more specifically, for motherboards and related hardware that route most all their wiring through the back of the motherboard and case, making for a build that are both more aesthetically pleasing and easier to assemble.
Besides putting nearly every standard connector at the back, the ROG Crosshair X870E Hero BTF also has a 12V-2x6 connector at the back that passes juice onto the "gold fingers" connector in front of the main PCIe slot. This means that if you use a corresponding ASUS BTF graphics card, you don't need any power cables at all; all the power goes through the motherboard. One such example is the recently released ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 BTF.
Being a variant of ASUS' existing high-end X870E models, this board has most every accoutrement you can think of. Its power delivery is made up of a 18+2+2 stage setup, 10 of which are 110A. There are heatsinks with heatpipes running over the entirety of the CPU VRM, and all the main power connectors are ProCool II solid-pin models.
For storage purposes, you get three PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, along with two PCIe 4.0 M.2 connectors. All these reside under heatsinks, and some have ASUS' Q-Latch mechanism that eschews the thrice-damned tiny M.2 screws (personal note: there should be an executive order about this). For networking, you get a choice of MediaTek Wi-Fi 7, Realtek 5 Gb, or Intel 2.5 Gb adapters.
As for how many USB peripherals you can plug in, the answer is basically "all of them". There are two USB4 ports at 40 Gbps, and eight USB 10 Gbps connectors (two USB-C, six USB-A) on the I/O shield alone. The onboard connectors let you wire up six more ports, including 20 Gbps USB-C front-panel ports. A SupremeFX ALC4082 sound chip with Dolby Atmos support coupled with ESS ES9219 DACs ensures pristine audio delivery. All told, this board should be more than sufficient for even the craziest and cleanest of builds.
