ASUS is ringing in 2026 the way only ROG can: by quietly taking the already high-end AM5 motherboard stack and shoving it further into “ridiculous flex” territory with the new ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial and X870E Dark Hero. These aren’t just incremental refreshes of the existing X870E boards — they’re essentially ASUS saying, “Okay, you’ve got your Ryzen 9000, now here’s the platform to actually push it.”​

The story really starts twenty years ago with the original Crosshair, the board that set the tone for what ROG would become: overbuilt power delivery, deep overclocking controls, and just enough hand-holding in the BIOS that even a first-time builder could get something stable and fast without spending all night in submenus. The new X870E Glacial and Dark Hero lean hard into that legacy, but layer on modern obsessions: PCIe 5.0 everywhere, DDR5 at silly speeds, AI-assisted tuning, and quality-of-life touches for people who are constantly swapping GPUs and M.2 drives.​

On paper, the Glacial is the new king of the hill — a full-fat EATX flagship that looks like a sci‑fi concept build more than a consumer product. It carries a 24+2+2 power stage design (each 110A), riding on an 8‑layer PCB with 2‑ounce copper to keep high current, high frequency, and high temperatures in check when you’re abusing a Ryzen 9000 under liquid nitrogen or just a big 420mm AIO. ASUS is also leaning into its NitroPath DRAM tech here, with server-grade PCB etching and back-end tweaks that let you stretch DDR5 up to a quoted 9600+ MT/s overclocked, assuming your IMC and kit are up for it.​

But what really separates the Glacial from normal “enthusiast” boards is how aggressively it rearranges PCIe real estate for modern workloads. If you’re building a straight gaming rig, you can run a PCIe 5.0 x16 graphics card at full bandwidth while also feeding two PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives from the CPU with no compromise. If you’re the type who needs a capture card for streaming, the second slot drops into PCIe 3.0 x4 in that configuration — enough for capture without stealing lanes from the GPU. And if you decide to go full AI or content creation and run two GPUs, the board can flip into an x8/x8 setup. Populate all of the included ROG Q‑DIMM.2 and ROG Hyper M.2 add‑in cards and you’re looking at up to seven M.2 slots in one system, which is wild for anyone sitting on multi‑TB game or media libraries.​

Cooling, unsurprisingly, gets almost as much attention as the lane map. Earlier Extreme Glacial boards were defined by their integrated full-cover waterblocks; this new X870E Glacial intentionally pulls back from that, embracing air cooling and a clean white aesthetic instead. The showpiece on the functional side is the 3D VC M.2 heatsink — essentially a vapor‑chamber‑backed M.2 cooler connected to extended heatpipes via a temperature equalization plate, giving PCIe 5.0 SSDs room to breathe even under sustained transfers. Crucially, ASUS made it hot‑swap simple: you tap the release to lift the heatsink, drop your drive in, and snap it back without touching a screwdriver.​

The other standout for cooling nerds is the new AIO Q‑Connector. Traditionally, adding an AIO meant a small rat’s nest of fan, pump, and RGB cables that had to be routed across the board. On these new Crosshair models, ASUS has created a contact interface on the motherboard that lets compatible ROG Strix LC IV AIOs draw power and control signals simply by physically sitting on that contact patch — no separate cable from the pump block to a header. It’s a subtle change, but it directly addresses one of the biggest visual pain points in modern builds: cable spaghetti around the CPU socket.​

The Glacial also arrives with an almost absurd amount of cooling and accessory support baked in. With the included splitter cables, you can run up to 13 case fans directly from the board, alongside dual W_PUMP+ headers for custom loops and an extra flow fan header for more granular control. ASUS even throws in a tiny ROG Memory Q‑Fan, a magnetically attached fan that snaps to a preset spot and blows air between your DIMMs without screws or extra cabling. The strategy is clear: rather than forcing you into a specific cooling ecosystem, it tries to be a capable hub for whatever overkill you want to bolt on.

From a usability angle, ASUS is finally acknowledging that not everyone wants to live in Advanced Mode. The updated UEFI has a much more capable EZ Mode, with the most common dials and health indicators front and center, plus a new Essential Mode for first‑time builders that surfaces key info and basic OC tools without burying them under jargon. Advanced Mode still exists for veterans, but the overall experience now tries to meet most people where they actually are. The board’s ROM has also been bumped from 32MB to 64MB, giving ASUS room to support future Ryzen chips while still baking Wi-Fi drivers directly into the firmware — a small touch that makes Windows installs on a fresh build way less annoying.​

Connectivity is exactly as unhinged as you’d expect from a modern flagship. Around the back, the Glacial packs two USB4 40Gbps Type‑C ports flanked by twelve 10Gbps USB ports (eight Type‑A, four Type‑C), plus headers for up to two 20Gbps front‑panel Type‑C ports and four USB 5Gbps Type‑A. One of those front USB‑C headers supports up to 60W Quick Charge 4+, which means your gaming PC can basically double as a fast charger for your phone or handheld. Networking is equally overkill: dual 10GbE ports plus Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, which is honestly more bandwidth than most home networks can saturate right now, but that’s kind of the point.​

Then there’s the way it looks. The Glacial goes all‑in on a silver‑white theme with a five‑inch full‑color LCD planted on the I/O shroud — big enough for custom animations, system telemetry, or whatever GIF you feel like looping in perpetuity. Around the edges of the board, ASUS hides cables under a set of magnetically attached armor pieces; pop them off to route headers or power cables, then snap them back on once you’re done. There’s even a large cover over the lower half of the board, hiding PCIe slots and other functional ugliness. The message is that ASUS expects this thing to live behind tempered glass; it’s designed as a showpiece, not just a part.​

If the Glacial is the clean, all‑white show car, the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero is the stealthy daily driver — still very much high‑end, but in a more conventional ATX footprint and with a darker, gamer‑centric aesthetic. Think smoldering black surfaces, nickel‑plated accents, and a refined Polymo Lighting II module built into the I/O shroud, pushing layered RGB patterns through the ROG logo. Underneath that skin is a 20+2+2 power stage VRM (again, 110A stages), backed by ProCool II connectors, MicroFine alloy chokes, and 10K black metallic caps — more than enough muscle to keep a Ryzen 9000 Series CPU happy under sustained boost or manual overclocks.​

Memory support on the Dark Hero matches the broader AM5 refresh story: four DDR5 DIMM slots up to 256GB total, with NitroPath DRAM tech, an 8‑layer, 2‑oz copper PCB, and back drilling to clean up signals and improve stability at high frequencies. ASUS’s own notes reference “hyper speed” DDR5, and third‑party listings spell out support for DDR5 in the 8000+ MT/s OC range, though, as always, the silicon lottery on CPU and DRAM will decide your real ceiling. The end result is a board designed so that memory isn’t the bottleneck when you’re chasing frames or render times.​

Storage and expansion are modern and straightforward: two PCIe 5.0 x16 SafeSlots and five M.2 slots, two of which are PCIe 5.0 and three PCIe 4.0. ASUS continues to roll out its M.2 Q‑Latch, Q‑Release, and Q‑Slide mechanisms, which collectively mean less fumbling with tiny screws and more quick‑swap convenience when you inevitably buy “just one more” NVMe drive. Like the Glacial, the Dark Hero gives the primary M.2 slot a 3D VC vapor‑chamber‑style heatsink, so your best drive gets the best cooling.​

Networking on the Dark Hero is a bit different from the Glacial’s twin‑10G approach. Here, ASUS pairs a 10G Ethernet port with a 5G Ethernet port, positioning the board as a versatile option whether you’re wiring into a single high‑bandwidth NAS or juggling multiple network segments. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 are along for the ride, and the rear I/O mirrors the flagship mentality: two USB4 40Gbps Type‑C ports, nine more 10Gbps USB ports, HDMI for iGPU output, and buttons for BIOS FlashBack and Clear CMOS. Inside, three internal USB 2.0 headers reflect a very 2026 reality — a lot of high‑end AIOs, fan hubs, and RGB controllers still live and die on humble USB 2.0.​

Cooling and quality‑of‑life features show a lot of common DNA between the two boards. The Dark Hero also supports the new AIO Q‑Connector, so you get the same cable‑free AIO hookup provided you pair it with a compatible ROG Strix LC IV cooler. Fan support is slightly more conservative than the Glacial, but you still get CPU, CPU OPT, AIO, multiple chassis fan headers, W_PUMP+ and the Q‑Design suite — Wi-Fi Q‑Antenna, M.2 Q‑Latch/Q‑Release/Q‑Slide, Q‑Code, and Q‑LED — so troubleshooting and upgrading remain far less painful than on budget boards.​

Taken together, the X870E Glacial and Dark Hero are less about chasing one headline spec and more about raising the baseline for what a premium AM5 experience should feel like. Both are built around Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 support on the AM5 socket, PCIe 5.0 across GPU and storage, Wi-Fi 7, and a USB spec list long enough to make most laptops blush. The difference is really in personality: the Glacial is for people who want a centerpiece build with dual‑10G, up to seven M.2 drives, a 5‑inch LCD, and armored cable covers, while the Dark Hero targets those who want most of that capability in a more understated ATX board that still means business.​

Zooming out to ASUS’s broader AM5 strategy, these boards sit at the top of a refreshed X870E and B‑series lineup announced around CES 2026, which also includes new ROG Strix Neo and TUF Gaming boards and a ProArt option for creators. Across the stack, ASUS leans into the same core themes: improved DDR5 compatibility, an 8‑layer PCB with 2‑oz copper, more USB 2.0 headers for modern accessories, and that AIO Q‑Connector as a push toward cleaner, less cluttered builds. If you strip away the marketing language, you’re left with a consistent idea: AM5 isn’t just about supporting another generation of CPUs — it’s about making the whole building, tuning, and living‑with‑your‑PC experience feel more premium. The Crosshair X870E Glacial and Dark Hero are just the most unapologetic expressions of that.