ASUS Z490 ProArt Creator or Maximus XII Hero

[Anannyo]

Hey, I am building a video editing and rendering rig with i9-10900K. So I have come down to these 2 ASUS motherboards. I like ASUS ProArt Z490 Creator a lot as it is primarily built for media creation tasks but it lacks extreme overclocking and VRAM and some other processor boosting features comparing to Z490 Hero. I won't use this build for gaming; lots of adobe softwares and browsers and workstation purpose. And I don't care about Thunderbolt 3 ports or 10Gbps LAN. And I will get the DisplayPort in my GPU. So I care about best heavy task performance and want suggestion about which motherboard will be best for my build? Please suggest!!

 

Note: I know I would get better workstation performance with an AMD build and it is very tempting but I have chosen i9-10900K already for some specific reasons and have already discussed about it quiet a lot. So don't wanna discuss about AMD on this post and want suggestion on choosing between these 2 motherboards for my build.

[Mateyyy]

The Hero is very solid. Afaik the only notable thing the Creator brings is 10G LAN, and that's on a separate add-in PCIe card, so yeah.

 

You could very well get away with spending a little less than $400 on the board though (or at least that's what I remember the Hero being priced at).

My other two recommendations would be ASUS' Strix Z490-E and MSI's Z490 Unify (though this won't be a viable option if you need QuickSync, since this one doesn't have iGPU power). In fact, I'm pretty sure the Unify actually has an even more powerful VRM configuration compared to the Hero.

Both are more than capable of running an overclocked 10900K and really, compared to the Hero, you're just missing out on extreme overclocking oriented features which you're probably not going to use anyway.

[Anannyo]

10 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

The Hero is very solid. Afaik the only notable thing the Creator brings is 10G LAN, and that's on a separate add-in PCIe card, so yeah.

 

You could very well get away with spending a little less than $400 on the board though (or at least that's what I remember the Hero being priced at).

My other two recommendations would be ASUS' Strix Z490-E and MSI's Z490 Unify (though this won't be a viable option if you need QuickSync, since this one doesn't have iGPU power).

Both are more than capable of running an overclocked 10900K and really, compared to the Hero, you're just missing out on extreme overclocking oriented features which you're probably not going to use anyway.

I need iGPU for QuickSync, so yeah can't get Z490 Unify. I can gain 20% more CPU performance with overclocking and I am confused about one thing: why all extreme over clocking motherboards are called gaming motherboards? How workstation can't gain from overclocking!!? I like MSI Godlike and Maximus XII Extreme but I think both of them are too pricey and can't justify in terms of performance gain to extra money spent ratio. So yeah, I want a motherboard that will let me utilize the power of i9-10900K to the fullest.

[Mateyyy]

34 minutes ago, Anannyo said:

I need iGPU for QuickSync, so yeah can't get Z490 Unify. I can gain 20% more CPU performance with overclocking and I am confused about one thing: why all extreme over clocking motherboards are called gaming motherboards? How workstation can't gain from overclocking!!? I like MSI Godlike and Maximus XII Extreme but I think both of them are too pricey and can't justify in terms of performance gain to extra money spent ratio. So yeah, I want a motherboard that will let me utilize the power of i9-10900K to the fullest.

Because "gaming" sells I guess.

The Godlike and Maximus XII Extreme are overpriced and pointless unless you plan on doing LN2 overclocking, and you could sort of say that about the Hero too but maybe at a lesser degree.

 

In that case I'd say Strix Z490-E, or if spending extra doesn't mean you'd have to sacrifice on RAM or some other components, Maximus XII Hero or the Aorus Z490 Master which I actually forgot to mention (which also has a ridiculously overkill VRM, even for an overclocked 10900K).

[Anannyo]

2 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Because "gaming" sells I guess.

The Godlike and Maximus XII Extreme are overpriced and pointless unless you plan on doing LN2 overclocking, and you could sort of say that about the Hero too but maybe at a lesser degree.

 

In that case, I'd say Strix Z490-E, or if spending extra doesn't mean you'd have to sacrifice on RAM or some other components, Maximus XII Hero or the Aorus Z490 Master which I actually forgot to mention (which also has a ridiculously overkill VRM, even for an overclocked 10900K).

Actually spending 100 extra won't be an issue for me. I actually want to have a bit overkill so that I have breathing space for anything in the future. I think I will get Maximus XII Hero or Aorus Z490 Master; will research on these 2 boards a bit more extensively before I pull the trigger

[Guest]

My vote goes towards the Hero.

[Mateyyy]

6 minutes ago, Anannyo said:

I think I will get Maximus XII Hero or Aorus Z490 Master; will research on these 2 boards a bit more extensively before I pull the trigger

Yeah that's a good thing to do considering the price of these boards.

Buildzoid has a PCB breakdown video on YouTube of the Z490 Master, so I'd suggest checking that out. He hasn't done one on the Hero yet unfortunately, just a more general (but still detailed) overview.