Can someone clear up misinformation on the Z390 XI Hero's power phasing?

[jackflynn]

Greetings,

There's a buzz currently on Youtube and Reddit regarding some comments made by Steve from techtuber channel Hardware Unboxed, surrounding comments he made about what he called "fake 8-phase that's really a 4-phase VRM" power phasing on the Maximus XI Hero.

Initially in his video he doesn't reference the Maximus XI Hero by name but shows a slide of it describing it as a motherboard packing a "measly 4 phase VRM"

https://youtu.be/NGHiRrQ2AAo?t=213

Bizzarely enough, he then makes comparisons of the XI Hero to the 4 phase Z370 PC Pro and infers that the problems with the XI Hero are due to it's inferior VRM's - so somehow making an equivalency between the Z370 PC Pro and the Z390 XI Hero. but there's more ....

Further below in the comment section he describes the XI Hero as having "fake 8-phase that's really a 4-phase VRM" basically implying both incompetence and deception on Asus's part. He later apologized for that in the comment section but as you can imagine the damage was done.

The Reddit threads lit up and further picked up on this and a slew of impressionables are rushing to cancel or return their XI Hero's and XI Code's..

Can someone please link me to info regarding the power phasing on the board?

I have this from overclock.net
https://www.overclock.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=223640&d=1539304287

which led to this description of the Vishay SiC639 power phasing
https://www.vishay.com/docs/76585/sic639.pdf

but it kind of conflicts with this info from Dutch site Hardwareluxx.de
https://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f12/lga-1151-mainboard-vrm-liste-1175784.html#z390

which describes it as 4 +2

So ... which is it? And what info is the correct info to clear this up?

Thanks

[markuaw1]

Benchmarks 9900k and Maximus X Hero Z370 https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/9t5mnv/9900k_and_maximus_x_hero_z370/

[markuaw1]

der8auer
ASUS MAXIMUS X HERO https://youtu.be/CoUtA7DKXhU https://imgur.com/bvfgX79 /// https://imgur.com/x2YgtLw

[willburstyle06]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLO-vYjJN-I

Asus needs to pay for this lie, worse then when Nvidia lied about the 4gb vram with the gtx 970

[BLACKSAMA]

Gamersnexus unmask Hero FAKE VRM, including pictures from this forums, they unmask everything, time to move on, nothing else to watch here except Asus lies.

https://youtu.be/bLO-vYjJN-I

You know I never realize how deceptive Asus was with the hero line VRM, until I gave back my motherboard (still unopened, thank you Intel) and the store seller told me I was making a huge mistake because this was a SIXTEEN (16) phases mother board, when I asked for a explanation he said it was as stated by Asus as a TWIN 8 - PHASES therefore 16.

I will just skip this generation and concede to Gigabyte and check again in one/two years how it has improved.

[ffletchs]

Just canceled my Hero XI order, whats the z390 mobo to get then?

[bobbagels]

Nuts, not good.
Does this mean all Maximus XI boards are 4 phase ?

[mdzcpa]

Good grief.

9900k is a hot mess with ridiculous thermals. 2080 TI are cards dropping dead...assuming you can even find a Strix OC Gaming version anyway. And now the Maximus XI line appears to have a mediocre VRM design that needs to handle a power hungry overclocked 9900k for years reliably. Looks like I picked the wrong cycle to upgrade.

If I assemble the kit I have sitting here I think I will be forced to actively cool the VRMs on this Hero XI. Something I dislike doing as I enjoy the aesthetics of my rigs. I was even going to try the ROG Ryujin 360 AIO as it comes with active VRM cooling built in....but that's still not for sale anywhere in the USA either LOL.

I've been running ROG exclusively since X79 and I don't mind paying a premium for premium product. But this VRM implementation looks less than premium to me. I was supposed to be enjoying the process of building today...now I'm staring at these parts with more than a tinge of buyers remorse.

[Zammin]

Wow... This is incredibly disappointing. Now we have to choose between great BIOS and presumably a lower cost VRM and mediocre BIOS and better VRM on Gigabyte and ASrock.*

Honestly I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I still can't bring myself to choose a different motherboard. The Formula meets all my feature requirements and aesthetic for my build, the Aorus Master and Taichi ultimate just don't fit the picture for me despite having a better VRM design. I read some reviews of the Formula and none of them were bad, they all got 5Ghz out of the 9900k pretty easily which is what I'm after, I don't plan to OC higher than that due to CPU temps. Hopefully Asus at least used some higher quality components outside of the MOSFETs and voltage controller on the Formula and Code even though they have the same basic VRM design. The underlying board looks different to the Hero, but obviously there is no up close analysis to confirm this.* I'll keep my order for the Formula and if I have any trouble with it I'll be sure to post here about it.*

[willburstyle06]

Hopefully the XI Extreme will not have the same problem. Not sure when its set to be released tho

[Zammin]

willburstyle06 wrote:
Hopefully the XI Extreme will not have the same problem. Not sure when its set to be released tho

The Extreme and Gene definitely have a superior VRM. They are expected to be in stock here in Australia this week. The extreme is $819 AUD but it's also E-ATX so it won't fit in some mid tower builds like mine.*