ROG Crosshair 2006 hands-on: the charm of retro

The box looks rather nice, with a presentation that suits the product’s anniversary theme. But once it is open, the board itself is what really catches our attention. Its weight is immediately noticeable, and the finish gives a real sense of solidity. It feels like a high-end board in the hand.

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The heatsinks and their copper-coloured finish contribute a great deal to this impression. One clarification: ASUS describes a copper colour, without confirming that the heatsinks are made of solid copper.

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First it is the colours that take us straight back to the original Crosshair, then the old Republic of Gamers logo. The combination of copper, blue and white works really well to our eyes. It gives this board an instantly recognisable identity, without having to read its model name.

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We have no particular complaints about its looks. The challenge will be choosing the other components: these slightly old-school colours will not be the easiest to match in a modern PC. You will need to like the style and build the rest of the system around it, especially if the components are clearly visible.

We tried the M.2 SSD retention mechanisms and the graphics card release mechanism. They struck us as well designed. ASUS has offered this kind of assembly aid for several years, and we appreciate finding familiar solutions here. When the principle works well, why change everything?

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ASUS pairs the X870E chipset with socket AM5 for compatible Ryzen 7000, 8000 and 9000 processors. The board uses the ATX form factor and supports four DDR5 modules, up to 256 GB. The maximum advertised overclocked memory speeds depend on the processor and memory; we have not verified them.

Storage connectivity consists of five M.2 slots and four SATA ports. With a compatible Ryzen 7000 or 9000, the first two M.2 slots can run at PCIe 5.0 speeds. Note that M.2_2 shares bandwidth with USB4; configuring it for x4 disables those USB4 ports. The fifth M.2 slot only accepts the 2230 form factor and operates at PCIe 4.0 x2.

Connectivity includes 10 and 5 Gb/s Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7 and two 40 Gb/s USB4 ports. There are two internal 20 Gb/s USB-C headers, one supporting up to 60 W with the required auxiliary power connection. A 2-inch OLED display rounds out the package. These details come from ASUS’s specifications, not from tests conducted by our editorial team.

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While preparing this overview, Absolute PC quoted us a price of around €800 including VAT. The quality in the hand is in keeping with such a high-end product: the weight, finish and solidity impressed us. That does not make the price any easier to accept, though.

We would have preferred to see this Crosshair priced at around €600. At €800, it remains an exclusive board whose design and nod to the original will inevitably weigh heavily in the buying decision. We really like the tribute; for us, the main reasons to hesitate would be its price and the difficulty of matching its colours to the rest of the PC.