GoKawiilAsus' retro-themed ROG Crosshair 2006 hits you in the feels the moment you see it, but the nostalgia isn’t for nostalgia’s sake — there’s some serious modern hardware underneath. If the limited-run retro aesthetic speaks to you, it’s worth the premium. Otherwise, buy the Dark Hero and pocket the difference.
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Back in 2006, several Asus engineers and enthusiasts got together and announced a new division within the company, dubbed Republic of Gamers, dedicated to equipping gamers with high-performance, tweakable PC hardware that’s “...loaded with style and indulgent extras.” The first product to kick off 20 years and counting of ROG was the original ROG Crosshair motherboard. As you may have guessed by now, the original featured a huge copper heatsink connected via heatpipe for the VRMs, Northbridge, and Southbridge (remember, those were separate), ending with the first ROG symbol, the orange and white “G.” All of the slots, including DRAM, PCIe, as well as the ATX power, IDE connector, SATA ports, and some of the headers at the bottom used a blue and white color scheme on this old school ROG board.
Fast-forward to today, and in the lab is the limited edition ROG Crosshair 2006 ( $799.99 ). On it, we clearly see the retro-inspired aesthetic has made its way to a motherboard with modern underpinnings – a "restomod" if you will. We see the copper-colored heatsink (not made of copper) for the VRMs, M.2, and chipset. The large plate-style M.2 heatsink on the bottom half brings back the original ROG symbol, and the company brought back the blue and white accents on the DRAM and PCIe slots, as well as the SATA connectors and some ports along the bottom edge. The design isn’t what we are used to these days, with many boards adopting a monochromatic look, but it has grown on me since we first saw it. When you have it in your hands, you’ll realize that the images don’t do it justice. If you were an enthusiast back then, the board really hits you in the feels and takes you back to a simpler time of overclocking, when gains were much more significant, and AI was more of a concept in a movie than a reality.
Outside of the throwback aesthetic, there’s high-end hardware underneath. In fact, it’s based on the ROG Crosshair X870E Dark Hero we reviewed earlier in 2026 that received 4/5 stars, and is a “...compelling premium choice for high-end builds.” Hardware-wise, this board is nearly identical and packed with premium features. You get five M.2 sockets (two PCIe 5.0), fast networking with 10 GbE and 5 GbE ports and Wi-Fi 7, a robust power delivery solution with 24 total phases and 110A MOSFETs, five USB Type-C ports on the rear IO (including two USB4/40 Gbps), and a flagship-class audio solution. Asus crams in several software features, like its AI (Overclocking, Cooling II, Networking II, Cacheboost, Advisor), EZ PC DIY features, and an updated BIOS, cementing the Crosshair 2006 as a well-rounded premium mid-range solution.
Performance testing went as expected and was quite similar to the Dark Hero; in fact, even with a newer BIOS and AGESA, a couple of benchmarks scored the same. Overall, it performed well across most of our tests. It was competent at gaming and also above average at most productivity tests (as we’ll see in detail later), so there's nothing to worry about in terms of performance.
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