ASUS AMD AM4 Pro WS X570-Ace ATX Workstation Motherboard with 3 PCIe 4.0 X16, Dual Realtek and Intel Gigabit LAN, DDR4 ECC Memory Support, Dual M.2, U.2, and Control Center

I recently completed a build using this board to support an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU. And it is a powerhouse.If one does their homework, one finds that out of the box, the ASUS X570 motherboards do not support the AMD 5 series CPUs. There are a lot of horror stories out there about needing a lesser CPU just to update the firmware. PLEASE! This is NOT the case! Read on for the good news….I had absolutely ZERO issues updating this board with the 5950X installed. It was quite easy, one simply needs to visit the ASUS site and download the most recent firmware for this board ahead if time, and load it to a USB flash drive of some kind (I just used a brand new thumb drive to minimize any possibility of data corruption) as a <file name here>.CAP file.CAVEAT: Install your CPU WITH COOLER before you power up this board even if the firmware is not yet updated. The CPU will still try to throttle and - with no cooler, could overheat (this board will shut it down in an overheat scenario, but a 5 series chip is a lot of cash to be gambling with). With a CPU cooler installed there should be no need to worry. The board however will not power without a CPU installed.I simply inserted the thumb drive with the most recent .CAP file on it, powered up, used the <DEL> key to enter the BIOS (F2 works as well) - then followed the instructions in the included manual. The update worked the first time, and this has been - hands down, the most stable build I have done to date. I’ve never before built a system that just came up on the first try with NO issues…(ok, Windows loaded to the wrong drive the first time, so I may have missed a configuration detail in the BIOS - my fix; unplug every drive except the one I want Windows on and re-install…done. Reconnect the other drives - one may need to use a command line series to recover secured sectors on the original “windows” drive…easy to Google. Done. Works perfectly). Honestly, just learn from my mistake: only connect your target drive until Windows is installed. Then the rest is easy peasy.The X570 chipset unlocks more bandwidth on the PCIe Gen 4 lanes. Still, if you plan to use PCIe on the second M.2 memory, then it will have to share bandwidth with anything populated into the PCIe Gen 1 slot. Probably not a big deal, but something to be aware of. I recommend loading your OS onto an M.2 in slot #1 configured for PCIe. I also recommend a PCIe Gen 4 compatible drive for that slot in order to take full advantage. These use an M.2 with an “M” key in case you’re shopping for that as well.This is billed as a workstation board, hence the WS in the name. It is more accurate to describe it as a “workstation lite” board. It has an additional PCIe Gen 4 slot so it will support more horsepower than the usual gaming board, but it still is limited to 128 GB of memory. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still a LOT, but serious workstations for professional engineering and design applications may be more hungry for a 256 GB option. For that however, one is looking at about a 3X price premium over this board (and probably a 2X on the CPU). That said, this board provides a lot of horsepower per dollar. PCIe Gen 4 is a recent standard, and this board has a lot of it. Personally, I’m pretty happy with mine.This board DOES have:- PCIe Gen 4 x 16 in three PCIe Gen 4 slots. It’s PCIe Gen 4 X8 if all three X16 slots are occupied and cross-talking. But if those are all GPUs, then you would effectively have 3 GPUs sharing an X24 lane superhighway. So if running CAD files or similar is your thing and you somehow managed to find 3 up to date GPUs in a blockchain dominated market, make sure you get a desk chair with seatbelts to go with that :-)- Two M.2 slots that will work on either PCIe Gen 4 or SATA. Conceivably this would also support a dual OS setup with a startup choice. I personally haven’t tried that, though.- 4 SATA 3 connections.- 2 U.2 connections which can be configured as an additional 4 (total) SATAs.- Plenty of USB 3 connections as a mix of 3.1 and 3.2. There is only one native USB C however.- Very Stable DC delivery, good component monitoring, and a plethora of over-clocking options.- I have to admit, REALLY good sound built in.- Robust heat sinks throughout.- Really stable BIOS and native software for configuration. CAVEAT: If you’re a power tweaker this board has just about every option. But if you’re a power tweaker wanna-be, this board can help you spend a ton of cash. So please know what you’re doing of you access that part of the BIOS - the BIOS doesn’t have a lot of protection for those who do not. It does however have a lot of assisted options to get one with lesser knowledge where they want to be, tuning wise. (Already screw up? There IS a factory reset option for the BIOS, but it won’t bring back any damaged components).This board does NOT:- Have a front facing USB C connection. if you have a case with a front USB C (generally understood to be a 3.2), then you’ll need an adapter to use it, and it may cost you a PCIe slot to do it. One can use a USB C adapter to connect the front lead to one of the board’s USB 3.0 slots and then the port will function, but then it won’t be a true USB C.- Have any native RGB control such as AURA. If you want the light show you’ll need a third-party driver. These often come with fan kits etc. “But wait, you have LED lighting in your picture!”…oh, you saw that…I used a Phanteks case that happened to come with its own LED driver, and I put in a third party LED signal distribution block (pay attention to native voltage if you do this). Originally I was going to dispense with LED altogether, but since that feature came with the case anyway…. So, that is one option if you want LED lighting with a motherboard that doesn’t support it.- Have any Thunderbolt connections. The ASUS B550 ProArt Creator does - as of this writing it is the ONLY motherboard I know of with Thunderbolt 4 (for this build I looked at a LOT of boards). But it also uses the 550 chipset - not a bad set, but lacks PCIe bandwidth that X570 provides. So you may need to make a choice (like I did) between more workstation type features or Thunderbolt 4. In the end I decided I needed the higher motherboard more. You of course have your own needs and work methods to consider.- Have any WiFi or Bluetooth built in. There are really good options for cards that plug into the PCIe 1 slot - but that will require the M.2_2 to share bandwidth - so plan with that in mind. If one only cares about Bluetooth, one can just use a USB Bluetooth adapter- about the size of a shirt button and perhaps about $15.- Support simultaneous use of SATA on all the SATA ports AND the M.2s should one choose to use the M.2 ports in SATA. In fact, I don‘t know of a motherboard on planet Earth that will. Just be aware of this for the configuration you are planning in your head - save yourself aggravation down the road with this knowledge.- Have 10 Gigabyte internet interface. Some boards do, but not this one. Most of the time that won’t really matter because even if you have a 10 Gig switch in your house, you probably don’t have that bandwidth once it goes outside your walls. If you are looking at this as a workplace option, that could be a factor. 10 Gig is available on a card, but….you guessed it… costs you a slot. Just be aware. All of that said, the two 2.5 Gig ports are pretty robust for most uses. 10 Gig only really matters if one needs to send engineering, CAD, Survey-grade Imagery data etc. over the internet or intranet. If you want it for gaming, one may consider a gaming board with that feature.Would I buy it again? Absolutely. In fact I kind of did - the first one had evidence of tampering in the box. Amazon was really great about exchanging it. But otherwise, I just don’t build systems every day. But as a low-cost option for workstation-like functionality, this board is a really good choice. It doesn’t appear that ASUS is looking to upgrade any of the above “doesn’t have…” anytime soon. Ideally, I’d love to see the child product that would come from marrying this board to the B550 Creator (so long as the X570 gene is the dominant one)…. With a worldwide chip shortage in play, I’m not holding my breath for a lot of new products this year. This board however did facilitate a pretty robust media creation system at a reasonable budget. I see lesser systems for sale right now, using lesser boards, at $2K over what it cost me to build on this board - and I maxed out the DRAM. All told, this board provided a straight forward build, straight forward initial power up, and a system in full service the same day…it really doesn’t get much better.

This has been running for a month with a 3800X and 32GB non-ECC ram in my secondary workstation which I use for CAD, FEA and data acquisition and I haven't had a single issue with it. The build quality is rock solid- I have the z390 WS motherboard as well in another machine and I think that this is a more solid board despite being in the same product line. The lack of RGB, tacky plastic IO cover and ROG logos makes this board look as good as it preforms. My one concern is the longevity of the chipset fan, but this is unavoidable on x570 boards- only time will show how well it holds up. I am planning to try ECC ram in the next few months and I will update my review accordingly, but until then I have to say that I am very impressed. Well done Asus. Now if they would only make a board in this series for X399...

Some complain about its lack of RGB items, but 1) that's clear from the ASUS marketing information about it and 2) it is a workstation motherboard. Its lack of pointless lights should come as no surprise.The one complaint I have about the board--and it is a large one--is that it allows you to downgrade firmware levels with no alerts/alarms indicating such a decision would mean the currently-installed CPU will not work. With it only being text and not needing much space, ASUS should be including the list of compatible CPUs in each firmware, and have the system run a check if the firmware to be used is compatible with the installed processor. Given I've written this all this, it should not be surprising that I own two of these motherboards. One that is fine running a 5900X, and its predecessor that was accidentally downgraded, rendered useless for most 5xxx CPUs, and will run a 3900X one day in the future.The system currently uses 4 x 16GB DIMM and has only crashed twice in ~18 months. Both times were probably because of a mod incompatibility in Fallout 4 and not the computer's fault.nVidia 2080 graphicsASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card (excellent, by the way, you should get one)various and sundry nvme and rotational hard drives (~32TB total)

Do not buy this unless u have deep knowledge of making a system for 3D graphs with heavy data sets, and concept rendering in real time. The slot for ur graphics card is terrible, Quadro P4000. The getting to the BIOS is even worse. The battery to clear the cmos is not accessible unless u take out the graphics card. The graphics release clamp is made of plastic, on a pivot. If you get into the bios , it will crash when saving. Seeing a white LED on the board will also stop it from booting. I'm getting another one and trying it again with different memory.