ASUS ROG STRIX X399-E GAMING AMD Ryzen Threadripper TR4 DDR4 M.2 U.2 X399 EATX HEDT Motherboard with onboard 802.11AC WiFi, USB 3.1 Gen2, and AURA Sync RGB Lighting

My system:CPU: AMD Threadripper 1900XRAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200GPU: Radeon R9 270 (I know, but i'm not a PC gamer)PSU: Thermaltake - Toughpower Grand RGB Sync Edition 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power SupplyCooler: Thermaltake - Water 3.0 Riing RGB 360 40.6 CFM Liquid CPU CoolerFans: Coolermaster Masterfan 240Case: Thermaltake Core X5Drives: NVME SSD, 2x 2TB hard drives, 1x PNY SSDInitially, I ran into several problems with the motherboard and automatically assumed it was a bad motherboard. But it was not. Basically, my G.Skill RAM would not post as 3200 clock speed. It would post at 2133. So I went into the bios and changed the speed to 3200, saved and rebooted. At that point, the bios screen would never come back up. The error codes on the motherboard were random and didn't make much sense. I had problems flashing the bios at this point. Eventually, after many tries, I was able to flash the bios and reset it to factory settings. I was also able to get the RAM to post at 3200 clock speed! I was missing the extra step of enabling DOCP mode in the bios, which appears to be the equivalent of Intel's XMP. Once I enabled DOCP and rebooted, the RAM was recognized and the bios displayed the correct RAM speed and timings. I went through a lot of trouble here, but it was my inexperience with AMD. Perhaps the bios could have warned me that just setting the speed to 3200 without enabling DOCP might cause an issue. Either way, I learned something.Now, on to Aura Sync. This feature lets you control the rgb lighting on any Aura Sync enabled device. I am a sucker for RGB lighting. Setting up Aura sync was pretty easy, as long as you buy compatible parts. I used pcpartpicker.com to help me choose the right components. The stock Thermaltake case fans were replaced with Coolermaster rgb fans so they could be controlled by Aura. The fans came with a controller, but I didn't need it because I am taking advantage of Aura. Each one of the Coolermaster fans has a cable with split ends. One end connects to a splitter cable that is hooked up to an rgb header on the motherboard. (I have an rgb light strip hooked up to the second rbg header) The other fan cable hooks up to a fan header on the motherboard. This way, the fan can be powered/controlled by both Fan Xpert and by Aura Sync. The Aura Sync software is easy to use, but a bit clunky. It works for the most part. Sometimes, I have to re-apply the Aura settings. For example, the RAM had stopped lighting up for some reason, and i had to reset it. My Thermaltake AIO cooler is not Aura Sync enabled. I almost returned it, but I could not find any other coolers at Microcenter that were Aura Sync enabled. So I decided to give it at try. I was able to match the colors of Aura Sync and it pulses nicely with the rest of the system. So I am ok with it. Moreover, the motherboard has it's own rbg LEDs on it, and it looks very nice. Like I said, I am sucker for rgb for some reason.I really like:1. Overall look and style2. Qcode display3. Reinforced steel pci-e slots4. Tons of USB 3.x ports (one type c port that I don't need yet) A total of twenty usb ports, I think.5. Two fan headers for a future water pump I will install6. Etc, etc.The motherboard is pricy, but so are most of the other X399 motherboards. No built-in wifi, but I don't need that. I have not really tested out the Crystal Sound 3 audio, so I can't speak to that. So far, I have been using the system for a week. Everything on the motherboard is working as expected. The entire system is much faster than my old i7 2600. That's not a fair comparison, but it's what I had. Initially, I assumed it was bricked because of the issue I explained at the top. I wonder how many customers return motherboards because they screwed up the bios settings, and they didn't really have a defective motherboard. Overall, I am very happy with it.

Seriosly, if you get an earlier motherboard with the Foxconn CPU socket, do not even take it out of the package - RETURN IT! There have been a ton of bad reviews on it. My 1st board came in DOA and I spent hours trying to troubleshoot it. The CPU was almost impossible to get seated and locked down with the Foxconn socket. I contacted Amazon and they let me return it since it was DOA. The 2nd board had the Lotes socket and was very easy to install - no problems at all!There are a ton of features on the board and the built in audio does sound great, but since I am a video editor and have to process hours of audio, I always use an add in card for audio.I highly recommend the ASUS ROG Strix X399-E gaming motherboard...IF you get the Lotes CPU socket.

To start off, there are no seals on packaging. I didn’t bother using the first one they sent me, I got a replacement but it was the same. It seemed like it has been opened before, there were no seals whatsoever. I did not want to wait for another replacement so I went ahead and started building, big mistake. It shows an error for Ram sticks that are DDR4 3200, even though it is rated for up to 3800. The rams are perfectly fine, I tested them on another computer. It would not post, and if you arrange the RAM sticks the way it on the manual, it would get stuck on an endless cycle of boot loops. It’s just not ready for 2990WX. I’ve only used Asus motherboards for all the builds I made in the past because I know that I could rely on them, this was a total let down. I think it makes sense that a lot of the packages are unsealed, I feel like everybody has been sending them back.

I use Ubuntu for an OS and use virtual machines quite a bit. For years, I've struggled to have the CPU / Memory bandwidth to run Windows virtually. My previous workstation running an FX8320 would lockup, requiring me to reboot and fiddle with settings for Virtualbox, but regardless of my adjustments, Windows would run painfully slow. Well, my struggles are over now as I'm using this truly excellent motherboard and the following components for my mean virtualization machine build and wanted to pass along some information to others building a system using the Threadripper TR4 socket especially as related to memory modules not being detected.My build:CPU: 1950xRAM: CMD128GX4M8A2666C15GPU: 1050NVMe SSD: 960 EVO M.2 1TBMy recent PC build using the above components, was worth the wait, but I ran into a few issues along the way. One of the issues was how much torque you use when installing a Threadripper CPU. In order to save yourself from a lot of pain, consider purchasing a torque wrench that allows you to tighten the screws used to hold in the TR4 CPUs to the proper / recommended torque. There's lot of folks out there complaining that their memory sticks don't work with a Threadripper board, but it's not the board, it's the amount of torque you use tightening down the processor. I went round and round with this issue and thought that I had a bad board, bad RAM, etc. I did call support but we didn't really get into the weeds or get down to this level of granularity which if you think about it is not surprising given that if you take on this type of project you should be prepared, which I was not. Essentially, this is a high performance workstation from a CPU point of view and that's not conveyed quite enough in my opinion when it comes to seating a TR4 in the socket.After re-seating the CPU multiple times and countless adjustments to the BIOS including an update, returning RAM modules, I decided to tighten it down just a bit more to see if that would help. AND YES IT DOES HELP!. I was also sure to purchase RAM listed on the QVL for memory that is compatible with this board and did purchasing a KIT (meaning all the same batch of sticks =128GB), so that's another thing to consider rather than just trying to add random memory sticks.Well, hope this helps someone out there struggling with RAM not being detected on their high performance workstation builds using the Threadripper TR4 sockets. Before you think that your RAM is bad, or the board just be sure that you have the CPU tightened enough so that it detects all the RAM in the first place. And no this doesn't mean that you need to crank down mercilessly on the CPU socket, you need to be tactful in tightening down as it's a fragile electronic item and it's just downright expensive. Unfortunately, for the first week or so after having this board and the 1950x, I did not do that, I just tightened the CPU screws slightly as I didn't want to damage anything.Whew, over the last few weeks I wished several times that I had just purchased a bare-bones PC delivered after being installed and tested, rather than doing the build myself. I do love a challenge and I'm pretty geeky and have built my own PCs for the past few decades. However, none of them were as challenging as this one. The precision of components has gone up and the cost of components makes it risky for the novice PC builder. Unless you are up for a real challenge and have torque tool for electronics and have the time to understand the newer hardware available, it may be best to have a pro just build your box, unless your like me and love the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The reason I built my own workstation is to get exactly what I wanted for a limited amount of money. I'm pretty sure if I had bought my current workstation from a vendor it would cost approximately 4 to 5K. My guess is that I saved approximately 500 to 1K, by doing the build myself and reusing various components like my old Antec case.