Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsAsus, bad, bios, gpu, error, missing accessories, conflict, expensive, difficult,
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2018
Update 18/12/2018
I came to conclusion that the unit that Amazon shipped to me is defected and two transistors is lose and I found them in the box. I contacted amazon and replaced the unit, unfortunately I won't be able to test till I after I come back from holiday 10/1.
What I would like to add that I contacted Asus support L1, 2, & 3 and I would like to share some of the informations which it might be alarming for some.
NVME: they confirmed that this MB is only tested with 850 Samsung, so they have no reference to 960 & 970 PRO.
Gpu: GeForce Aorus 1080ti is not tested
Fans: if fans runn at full speed this means that you are connecting them to the Aux and yoh can't calliberate that.
When I knew that Asus didn't do any test on nvme Samsung 960 and 970 pro, and 1080ti I was like what wrong with them!!! This MB is released in 2018 Q4, and you are testing it using 850ssd!!!
I will update more as soon as I open the other box and let you know.
Original post:
This board by far the worst motherboard I have bought ever, its more like Plug and Pray instead of Plug and Play.
I upgraded from Strix 270e and i7 7700k to ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula with i9 9900k and boy I regret it.
Bios is horrible and conflicting with Aorus Waterforce 1080ti, I'm not able to run the workstation...
Basically bios take nearly 2 minutes to load showing (GPU Loading) on MB screen, and after few mins only keyboard and mouse start!!! In many times it just hang and I have to wait hours to try again to get bios to load.
What went wrong:
The system refused to work on my earlier Windows setup, I tried fixing windows loading option and failed, the only way was to format my m. 2 960 Pro and install windows again and lose all my data 😢.
I have long experience with Asus MB but this bios is bad, it's Conflicting with the GPU and fans.
GPU: basically the gpu displayport output is not working my Samsung 49" CHG90 QLED Gaming Monitor.
It was working fine on my Strix 270e with no issue.
I noticed that the driver of display is generic monitor, I checked online for all sorts of solutions from forcing the driver and u deleting driver, changing nvidia driver and updating wi. Dows, all the way to format and fresh install the system 4 times without any result.
HDMI do work Sometimes, and most of the times bios fail to load if the gpu is connected!!! With displayport!!! Still couldn't figure this out...
M. 2 nvme: I have Samsung 960 Pro 512, it was working fine on the other board, this bios does not recognize it, it recognize it as HDD, I can't install the original driver stating there is no nvme installed!!! Tried all possible ways in bios and no solution.
It has issue working by itself, after I switch the worstation off in 30sec it start by itself. I changed some settings in bios and it stopped.
Fans:
On start, they work at full speed, very loud.
I tried to callibrate the fans In bios in both modes low/high speeds, however the Thermaltake fans LED stopped working, and corsair fans continued at full speed!!!
Missing items:
It's mentioned in the installation manual that there is accessories and mounts to mount the board, however I was not able to find them!!! Luckily I used my earlier board accessories. But I want to contact Amazon about that.
Strange: I found two small lose transistors in the box, between the paper gaps, couldn't tell if it's spare item or broken part of the MB!!!
This is my first finding of this MB, missing items, bios is all over the place, Gpu 1080ti not compatible and fans calibrations issue.
I don't recommend anyone to buy it, till Asus release couple of firmware to fix all these bugs and assure that it's working fine.
