ASUS AM3 Plus Motherboard

Works fantastic with my setup. I love everything about it except the lack of Sata3. I bought it because it was cheap at the time and the value was incredible and since I didn't at the time have a SSD, I wasn't too concerned about the lack of sata3. Now that I am upgrading to a SSD, I will simply buy an expansion card that has internal SATA3 ports and connect my new SSD to that.Besides that everything works great. Plenty of ports for anything you need. Had integrated video if needed, but also has a port for a single graphics card. Plenty of sata2 ports, 2 classic PCI ports, USB headers to connect USB to your front panel, and even a PS/2 port in case you want to use an old keyboard or mouse. Also, the BIOS is already updated to the latest and it is very user friendly.It was super easy to hook up. All of the cables leading to the front panel are clearly marked and easy to hook up. The only thing I would change about it is there isn't much room between the CPU and the RAM slots. My CPU's heatsink was kind of big (the stock one) so it made it hard to hook up ram to the first slot. I changed the heatsink though, which was admittedly pretty large, and now all of the ram slots are easily accessible. I don't know if this would be an issue for any other CPU heatsinks since I'm not familiar with most others, but something to consider.Overall I am extremely happy with my purchase since it was the cheapest motherboard I could find that was AM3+, USB3, had PCIx16x, and has 4 ram slots to upgrade the ram to 32GB. The only thing I would have wanted is the Sata3, but I am easily fixing that with a PCI card for about $12 dollars.

I bought this motherboard almost a year ago and it has done it's job well. I bought the motherboard for two reasons. The first reason was because I have frequent power outages where I live and I noticed that this board was surge protected and I wanted to make sure I had all my bases covered. The second reason is because it was one of the cheaper motherboards advertised as USB 3.0 and I wanted a 3.0 motherboard so I could use my front panel USB 3.0 ports. The motherboard did the first job flawlessly and has saved me multiple times, but it unfortunately was not able to perform the second job I wanted it to. I didn't really read between the lines and I thought this motherboard would support front panel USB 3.0 but I was mistaken. All in all, this is a good motherboard if you are building your first PC and want a decent motherboard. Like I said earlier though, this does not support front panel USB 3.0, so if you plan on using your case's front panel USB 3.0, find a different motherboard, if you don't mind, this motherboard is a good buy.

Got this to replace a gigabyte motherboard that a faulty video card fried. I shouldve bought this in the first place. Going from a GA-78LMT-USB3 to this was actually a great change. I like both brands...but having a high end Asus board in my main comp...this was a nice change...even though i had to rebuild my system from ground up to replace the fried board.The power button overclock is a nice feature (im using an 8320 on this board.) No more trying to use software to overclock or trying to adjust in bios....just make your OC selection ( fast..faster...or top speed) and thats it. Push your power button and its like the old school turbo buttons of days past to get the extra power or to turn it off. Way easier way to OC and to turn off when u want to take it easy on your CPU. Board went in flawlessly and runs great...like all Asus boards ive used in past. Usb 3.0 on back and a front header...sata 3.0 is plenty if youre not using an SSD. Even if you are...3.0 is plenty though. Im very happy with this board...features and style.Fyi...this is in an HTPC/backup lower end gaming rig...16 gb of ram(4x4) and a gtx 650ti i had to go back to since the 970 i bought was DOA) i literally just swapped the parts, rebooted, loaded asus disc software, and it worked like nothing (windows needed keys verified again) and that was it. Runs smooth. Im definately buying this board again for budget micro atx builds in future. I hope asus utilizes some of this board's features in future boards. I cant say enough about how cool the push button OC feature is after having to mess with software OC options only for so long..or buy sepate case hardware to mimic. Buy this board if youre on the fence about it. P.S.....blue hardware looks good with blue led case fans.

Bought this with an 8350, it fits and the system turns on, but the cpu WILL get throttled when you start playing games or a heavy application like video rendering. I learned the cause of the throttling: poor VRM cooling. It's just not designed to handle an 8-core cpu. If you still want an FX processor with this board, I suggest going with the FX 6300. It's only a six core, but that is pretty much the maximum horsepower you'll be able to run stable at as far as I can tell. The board itself is actually really great for the price, if I was building a small workstation or media pc for a family member, this would be the first board that I would think of using. However, it's just not enough for my needs as a gamer, so three stars for me. It's a 4 or even 5 stars for the person that just wants a cheap pc to type up papers, watch Youtube and check email or social media.