Good motherboard with great layoutArvosana 5/5
Paired this motherboard with the Ryzen 5 7600x processor, 2 x 16 GB of Kingston Fury (KF560C30BBEK2-32), Kingston KC3000 2TB, M.2 SSD, Corsair RM850x PSU, and a Phantom Spirit 120 SE cooler. Mounted in a Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact.
First impression:
Wow, feels sturdy, that is a lot of heatsinks/shields.
Nice features:
Pre-installed IO-shield, a total of 9 USB-A ports on the back (only one USB-c), 3.5mm audio jacks for your oldish 5.1 system (front, rear, center/sub), optical spdif...
Building:
All fan connectors are in really good positions. Really easy to get the cables to the right place on the motherboard through the openings in the case. The only difficulty was the USB connector for the front panel. The port points to the side, which is really close to an angled edge in the case. Took a lot of wiggling and I accidentally bent a pin (got it straightened out and everything still works) before the plug seated properly. This is however something that is mostly due to the compact case.
The heatsink fan is above the RAM sticks, no clearance problems with the ones I have, but it is close. If you have higher sticks, you might need to offset the fan slightly.
The "quick lock" for the M.2 is quite nifty, however you still need a screwdriver to remove and replace the heatsink. Don't forget to peel off the protective plastic from the thermal pad on the m.2 heatsink by the way.
Booting:
Luckily I had read about memory training, otherwise I'd have been quite nervous about the long first boot. Once it is in the bios, you want to activate the EXPO profile to get full 6000MHz for your RAM (if that is what you have). One other thing that is good to activate is the Memory Context Restore in the BIOS. This shortens the boot time considerably.
Practical things:
The WiFi needs drivers if you want to install Windows over your wireless network (just download them beforehand on another computer and put the on an USB stick).
On the first boot to Windows, an installer comes up wanting to install tools and utilities for your motherboard. Make sure to check and uncheck things you want/don't want. I did not want Norton on my system.
Conclusion:
So far so good :) Great features, not too expensive, easy to build (apart from the front USB connector).
asmand