A (nearly) perfect motherboard

After I purchased my last year a PC "out of the box", I had then became disillusioned with that the construction and placement of the elements was just ridiculous. The graphics card was for example next to the hard drive and an Airflow was virtually non-existent in the case. Now hard drives tend to be happy to warm and the graphics card was already in normal circumstances as loud. Together they gave a computer concept, which was so loud that you could also equate a vacuum cleaner then. Long story short: My assignment so it was clear: I wanted to build a machine that is powerful, affordable and above all quiet! Basically I wanted to reuse as much of the old computer. CPU and memory were still relevant, ergo I could reuse my motherboard. However, there was a problem: The mainboard was designed to fit the body and a re had more problems than good causes. A new mainboard was needed.

After prolonged Browse the net and Amazon me this board is repeatedly stabbed in the eye. The presentation is pretty, SATA connectors DAC optimized and generally everything is processed fairly solid. With one interconnect going away from the CPU and lying to a mounting bore an almost 90 ° stunt. (Occupational disease that has nothing to do with the vote.) A lot of heat critical areas are occupied with heatsinks that are very flat and also optically what pounce. So if you have a little window in the housing, has got something here for watching. Because Asus has also glow on the printed circuit board areas during operation. Also light up doing two seven-segment displays which output any error codes. Perfect, something I've always wanted, so I decided once for a slightly more expensive board. What has given me a bit of trouble, is the location of the connector for the CPU cooling. this is located at the top and if the case is something up just because, connecting is quite act. In my case, "tweezers meets screwdriver" .. As I said, the installed heat sinks are very flat, yielding large CPU cooler (apart the connection) can place playing easily and without drama. So much for the electro-mechanical part.

The BIOS is opened class and offers many adjustment possibilities and also a DAC mode, want to break something nothing, if one has only dangerous smattering of knowledge. Here can be controlled via the LEDs, if you want to have no lights. In my case it was supposed to finally be quiet mainly glass and is a great conductor of sound, which is why I could just turn this.
The included software offers a broad package. Among other things, an overlay for Shooter. Because the motto of this brand series is well known, "Republic of Gaming" which sounds a bit silly. And here we come to the last aspect, which is pushed with something sour. I am a self-confessed and convinced Windows 8.1 users. Everything worked perfectly during the installation of Windows 8, but ran the upgrade from 8 to 8.1 not entirely accident free. After the upgrade of the Ethernet controller is no longer recognized. A simple "Above and install" the driver stop unfortunately nothing. At the network I had done nothing. The solution was to manually uninstall the Ethernet driver manually in the device manager and reinstall. Whether this is now a Microsoft or a hardware problem, I can not say exactly. However, this proposed together with the somewhat misplaced CPU cooler connector to the negative assessment. The negatively evaluated by other users English manual was not matter to me. Who hangs out on the Internet and gaming, which should get the series.

In short, a solid, pretty Board, which plays priced in mid range. Four out of five stars.