Urghh 2020 should be renamed to the year of waiting

As if waiting to die from COVID wasn't enough. At this rate I'm gonna die from waiting for my hardware first.

Congrats on managing to grab that 5900X, viv. They don't seem to be easy to find.

What are the differences between the Hero and Dark Hero (apart from 4 additional USB 2.0 and lack of support for Picasso)?

The two main things are that a) It's fanless b) It's the only motherboard that we know of so far that allows Single Core boost to work when you do an all core overclock. With Ryzen including 5000 series, when you overclock every core to say 4.7 Ghz, you no longer get that Single Core boost to 5Ghz when running Single Core heavy tasks. So depending on the game and application, you could "lose" performance. But with the Dark Hero, it does auto switching. So when you have an application that is heavy on mutlicores, you get the OC clocks and when you have an application that is heavy on Single Cores, you get that 5Ghz boost on the single core vs every other motherboard that's one or the other.

Since it's supposed to be $20 more than the regular hero wifi, it's well worth it if you are looking in that price range. Especially afaik, Aorus X570 Xtreme is the only other X570 that's fanless but that costs $750 and doesn't have the other feature vs $400sh for the Dark Hero.

Guess I should make an effort now to get my other components.Still not entirely sure about the cooling and the PSU. For the PSU I had the Corsair HX850i but it's not really available anymore. I really want a digital PSU for my new PC. For the cooling I currently have the Lian Li Galahad 360, but I'm not sold on it yet. A trusty Noctua D15 is also not out of contention.

It's incredibly how, in order to keep pushing its thermals and power consumption in check, Intel has paired with (as far as I've seen) EKWB and Coolermaster to launch TEC coolers for its processors:

Cooler Master Introduces MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero TEC AIO
https://www.techpowerup.com/274501/cooler-master-introduces-masterliquid-ml360-sub-zero-tec-aio

EK Launches QuantumX Delta TEC Water Block Featuring Intel Cryo Cooling Technology
https://www.techpowerup.com/274472/ek-launches-quantumx-delta-tec-water-block-featuring-intel-cryo-cooling-technology

It will be great if it works fine and they extend that tech to support other processors other than those on the LGA1200 socket, but I wonder how much power they use.

A lot more watts than a couple of 5W fans lol. Doesn't look great when Intel are readying TEC coolers in anticipation for their new lineup. Interesting tech but not very practical when you're dumping 200W into cooling your CPU. Only for the hardcore overclockers I guess and those who don't have energy bills to worry about

And

If you look at the EKWB block, the black tower has an 8-pin power connector, so it uses 175W at most. Plus the power for the pump and the radiator fans that will cool the TEC unit.

It certainly isn't for everybody but, at 350 €, this is for the most enthusiastics among gamers... that have a hefty PSU to power that and, most likely, a 10900K and a 3080 or higher.

You won't need a heater anymore.