My mobo has had one of the lights burnt out since the second or third day I've had it. This really shouldn't be an issue, since I don't really use any of the RGB rainbow effects, but I did just want to leave them all white, or maybe reactive to heat or audio. If I try to set it to white, it goes orange-ish. Any color I try to set above the IO Shield, it isn't correct, since the center LED is burnt out (assuming it's a blue or green light?). I usually wouldn't really care about this, but considering the fact that I spent $200 on this thing, it's a bit frustrating.
Outside of that issue, the motherboard has done the job I expected of it. The BIOS is incredibly full-featured, however it's difficult to navigate. There is a very steep learning curve when it comes to using this thing to its full potential. I'm manually OCing my RAM so they're 3400/CL16 (a very modest OC), because I was having a difficult time getting XMP to work properly. That's almost certainly on the RAM manufacturer, and not the Mobo. The CPU is OCing easily enough, but there are a LOT of options here, and a lot of nested options you'll need to search for.
The ports are decent. Some (the USB 3.1 gen 2 header) are located in frustrating places, making it hard to utilize them, but I haven't found anything impossible to access yet. I do sincerely wish they moved the location of that USB 3.1 Gen 2 header, though.
The Realtek Audio Driver is also incredibly frustrating to use. I actually prefer to use this without updating to the driver from the Asrock website. If I use the driver Asrock recommends, you get a popping sound whenever you adjust the volume, the volume will automatically adjust, so full volume and minimum volume will sound almost identical, etc. I can't even list all of the problems i had with the Realtek Audio Driver, and the best solution I had was to just avoid using it. Without the recommended Realtek driver, I can plug my headphones into the front panel connector, the computer detects this change, stops playing audio from my speakers in the back, and starts playing audio from the front panel connector (my headphones). That's perfect for me, and exactly what i want. I'm sure i can change this in the settings as well if I'd like it to play out of my speakers and headphones, but I haven't tried because I don't see the purpose.
All in all, I'm giving this 3 stars because, with a $200 motherboard, I'd expect it to work properly. This isn't my first rodeo, and I'm incredibly frustrated that I can't use the lighting on parts of my board. What's more frustrating is that this isn't a big enough issue to disassemble everything and ship it back, wait a few weeks for a new board, and be forced to use my laptop while I wait. It's like the situation with a parking ticket. It's just inexpensive enough to not want to waste a day off contesting, but still enough to sting.
With the RGB issue fixed, this would be a 4/5. With the audio issue fixed (with the suggested drivers), this would be a 5/5.
This board does what want under the hood, but the "extra features" just don't, and I wouldn't call that acceptable for a $200 board. If this were $120, I'd be giving it 5/5.
Will update this in a couple weeks with some pictures and updates.
| RAM | DDR4 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 2400 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11g |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
