Introduction

If the halo tier ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Extreme was going to leave your wallet feeling a little too anemic, but you're still in the market for an overclocking-focused Socket AM5 motherboard and have a significant budget, then ASUS does have a slightly less lavish alternative. The ROG Crosshair X870E Apex is the latest incarnation of this thoroughbred overclocking motherboard that stretches back a few generations on Intel platforms, but this is the first time it's ventured into AMD territory.

Think of it as a trimmed down ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Extreme with a focus purely on performance, or a slightly less mainstream ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero, with less of an emphasis on being a daily driver. That said, the ROG Crosshair X870E Apex is still a perfectly capable everyday board, but is more than happy to switch to extreme cooling to bring the best out of your CPU and memory, offering all the tools you need to do so.



The $750 price tag does mean you get most of the premium features you'd expect at this price, but a lot of that cash has been funneled into an array of overclocking features. You don't quite get the same lavish mainstream feature set as other boards at this price, or those that are offered by its more expensive Crosshair Extreme sibling. The question is whether the Apex is so niche it appeals to even fewer people as a result, or if it's a better, cheaper alternative for extreme overclocking fans.

Specifications