This has been an excellent board for me so far, offering all of the features I need, without any unnecessary extra clutter. The board features a good I/O layout, even going as far as including a USB Type-C connector. The Haswell-E platform has been succeeded by Broadwell-E, but that doesn't mean the older chips aren't worth buying, especially if you can score a good deal on them. This board has been stable, it was easy to work with, and it feels very "premium" both in aesthetic, features and performance.
The UEFI on this board is easy to read, opting to use a mesh between "basic" and "advanced" in its default layout. This means that you don't need to switch modes, and also that any new user will feel comfortable working inside of the UEFI to change common settings like boot priority. I was able to flash the board to the latest version in a matter of moments, and the entire process was painless and quick.
So far, the board has been completely stable with the hardware I'm pairing it with. My 4x4GB kit of 2800mhz DDR4 LPX RAM from Corsair was stable right out of the gate, even after enabling XMP. Plus, I was able to overclock my 5820k to 4.0ghz at 1.2v without doing anything more than dialing in my voltage and multiplier. I could take it further, but my cooling is inadequate for anything higher.
Do note that the board is E-ATX and also uses right-angled connectors for most of the connectors on the board. This means that cases that support E-ATX may not necessarily support this board due to its angled connectors. I was able to install this board in the Phantom 530 by NZXT only but plugging in all of my connectors before screwing in the board. Afterwards everything was fine, but this is definitely something to take into account with your case.
The board comes with an I/O cover that screws on with two screws, a handful of SATA cables, as well as a handy 4xUSB 2.0 add-in card that uses two of the board's USB headers and mounts into one of your PCI brackets in the rear of the case, or in one of your 5.25" bays. This is a really nice feature, but it would have been nice ot see the ports being 3.0 / 3.1 instead of 2.0. Still, for free it's a nice piece ot have if necessary, and I feel the board is worth its $250 price tag whether or not this piece is included.
Overall, this is an excellent board that has been exactly what I'm after. My old board (the ASUS X99-A/USB 3.1) has been unstable, and nothing short of a nightmare to deal with. Not to mention I had to RMA my first one. This board, however, has been perfect thus far.
| Processor | core_i7 |
|---|---|
| RAM | DIMM |
| Memory Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 6 |
