Asus ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi) ATX Motherboard with PCIe 4.0, on-Board WiFi 6 (802.11Ax), 2.5 Gbps LAN, USB 3.2, SATA, M.2, Node and Aura Sync RGB Lighting

Paired with a 2700X, Sapphire NITRO+ RX580 8GB, 2x8GB (dual-channel) Corsair Vengeance 3GHz memory (was in QVL), and an ADATA SX8200 XPG SSD (not in QVL, but previous model was). All of this is powered by a Cooler Master MasterWatt 650 Watt PSU.Everything is working perfectly, running Arch Linux. Getting the memory timings applied from the XMP profiles was not intuitive at all, I had to poke around in the BIOS a long time to figure out how to do it. However, once that was done everything has been smooth.Have not played with overclocking or other fine tuning tweaks for now, will save that for another time.CPU runs under 40C at idle and moderate loads. CPU fan controls are very nice, the RGB controller is there and works (can't configure it much on Linux). WiFi worked out of the box. The M.2 SSD heatsink is a nice touch, and mated up with the ADATA NVMe SSD perfectly (it came with its own heatsink as well, which I didn't use). Built-in I/O panel worked great, this motherboard has a lot of really slick features (BIOS recover switch, BIOS code LED display), lots of USB ports (including USB Type C), and two M.2 slots (the 2nd only supports PCIe, and uses up some of the PCIe lanes, which really won't affect much, even if you run a crossfire GPU config...8 lanes of PCIe 3.1 is an insane amount of bandwidth). Audio quality is excellent, and also worked out-of-the-box on Linux.The one drawback (for some) is no built-in HDMI/DP, meaning no support for on-board graphics for APUs (G-series chips). Not an issue for me, just something to be aware of.The big differentiator between this and lower-end boards is the quality of the VRMs, including the multi-phasing aspects, more sophisticated BIOS (the GUI is pretty nice), and overall build quality.Everything just "works" for Linux. It's great to be able to run cutting edge hardware on Linux without a bunch of hacking (this was not the case even 5 years ago...).

This board is awesome. There is so many things on here.... I doubt I will even use them all. The one thing that is was lacking was USB 2.0 headers, but this was easily fixable with an NZXT adapter.If you really want an in-depth review gamers nexus does a fantastic job of going over the specs of the board.For me the big selling point was the how future proof this board is. Also their BIOS is fantastic and easy to navigate even for a noob overclocker like me. Finally... can't go wrong with a little RGB. :) Aura Sync is also really easy to use as well.Overall: Do you really need a board this expensive for your build?.... Honest answer.....no! Is it overkill? YES! But, if you have some money to spend and building a rig for long term use. then this one will have you covered. It is really well thought out (for the most part) and I would truly give it 4.5/5 stars if possible (because of the lack of USB 2.0 headers)...but because I was able to fix that myself with an adapter I rounded up.If you are going for a more budget conscious build there are definitely other boards out there that will give you everything you need without spending an arm and a leg. Thankfully when I bought this it was $70 off which cushioned the blow.Included pic of my Rig :)

UPDATE:There have been some issues with the RAM overclock I believe. The PC shuts down unexpectedly and I believe that RAM might indeed be the case here. I restored the settings to auto in order to check if that was the problem and now the system runs smoothly. Although, I believe that with 1.4v instead of the initial 1.35v that I had, the problem will be fixed. Unfortunately I don't have time to test it now but as soon as I do will update my review again. Also, when I tried to overclock my RAM above its advertised speed the PC wouldn't post and the settings were reverted without any problems.General thoughts:I installed this board today with a Ryzen 7 2700x processor and a 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance RGB 3466MHz kit (CMR16GX4M2C3466C16). My PC booted from the start with no issues whatsoever. First thing I did was update the BIOS to latest firmware using ASUS EZ flash 3 (easy as pie). The process in general went through without any problems. The board looks fantastic and the provided software works like a charm.RAM:After updating the BIOS, I used the DOCP feature to overclock my ram kit to its advertised 3466MHz speed. I have never fiddled with RAM speed before but it was very simple to do so. The BIOS also comes preloaded with memory profiles for Samsung B-Die RAM kits with speeds up to 3600MHz that you can use. The PC posted with no issues and my RAM was running at 3466MHz which provided a very nice boost to benchmarks and framerates.Issues:The only issues I had were regarding third party control software. These were Corsair Link and Speedfan. Corsair Link couldn't let me customize the RAM leds but otherwise it worked as intended. Speedfan couldn't recognize the motherboard PWM ports so I couldn't use it to set fan speeds.Workaround for issues:I believe though that it's not the boards fault. Most probably the software were not update for the X470 platform. Instead, I used the AURA sync software to control all the RGB components of my system. It was pretty easy to figure out and does it's job pretty well. Regarding fan control, the Fan Xpert 4 software from the AI Suite 3 worked wonders. I used it to automatically tune the fans based on their individual RPM. After that there's no need to further adjust the fans but if you want, each PWM fan port provides an RPM chart that can be adjusted from the software. The software also created four profiles for all the fan speeds: Silent, Standard, Turbo, Full Speed. These can be easily cycled through the software.Conclusion:Admittedly, this is just the first day of use of the new system but I felt the need to post this review because this board is in my opinion the top X470 that you can buy right now and with fore coming BIOS update it can only get better (I hope :p ).