Pros: -This board runs cooler than my Rampage IV, and that was really surprising. -I heard complaints in reviews about it being hard to overclock. I set my 3930k to 4.5Ghz only using 3 settings and it is 100% stable on the first try. -It only requires two power inputs (atx and either a single 8-pin or 2-4pin connector). -NO PCH FAN. This was a major selling point for me. -10 sata ports, and 6 of them are 6GB/s. Much better than some other, more expensive, boards. -The optical output on the back supports coax. -A fan connector at every corner -Supports 4 graphics cards. The spacing works with dual slot gpus.

Cons: -Unless using XMP, it board forces my ram at 9-9-11-24 timings when it's 9-9-9-24. Even when set manually it doesn't fix it, that is until I used XMP. Then it was fine. -I noticed that plugging in one drive after setting the boot order seems to wipe out all boot order settings. -YOU CAN'T DO 4 WAY RAID AT 6 GB/s. A major selling point for me also was that both the description and manual made it look like the lowest 4 slots (2 vertical and 2 horizonal) can be raided together and they can't. If you want 4 way raid, you have to use the intel ports, of which only two are 6 GB/s. I was very disappointed to find this out, as the 4 bottom ports are grouped together when talking about raid. If you want to use them for raid, you have to make 2 separate sets. -I can't get the Easy Tune software to run at all, nor can I get the bios flashing software for windows to install. Neither of these accomplish something you can't do in the bios, but it may be worth noting. I'm using windows 8.

Overall Review: I went from a Rampage IV Extreme to this, and I don't regret it at all. It may not have the features of the other board, but I like simplicity. To me, the more simple a board is, the less features there are to malfunction. The price is right and this board as all of the features I can imagine anyone needing, though I do miss the diagnostic led readout and the on/off switches for the pci-e slots to diagnose problems. That being said this still worked perfectly on the first try, and I can't say that about the rampage. I didn't mention the features like USB 3.0 and some other features like other reviews, because that's part of the x79 spec and as far as I know, all boards of this chipset have them.

Pros: I bought this in an attempt to future proof any new builds for the next few years. It booted on the first try and made my system seem much snappier (coming from 2133mhz DDR4). All sticks passed memtest without errors, and they seem to run cool. I love that they don't have massive heatsinks, so they fit nicely under my cpu cooler (Cryorig R1 Ultimate).

Cons: There's only one XMP profile. I assumed that I wouldn't be able to run these at 4000mhz, but that's the only setting for XMP: otherwise it defaults to 2133mhz. I was hoping to have lower timings when I couldn't run it at full speed, but that would take a lot of testing and tweaking, which I didn't find worth it. I ended up not being able to boot at more than 3600mhz with the same timings as 4000mhz. Thankfully my motherboard let me load the XMP profile and I could just set a lower clock speed.

Overall Review: I actually bought 2 of these kits for 64GB of ram. They're expensive, but I plan on using them for many years to come. I didn't deduct any eggs because reaching 4000mhz is going to vary by both motherboard and cpu. Most cpus only support up to 2666mhz ram as stock. I'm using a i7-8700k with an Asrock Z370 Extreme4.