ASUS Prime X570-Pro AM4 Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 & 3rd Gen Ryzen ATX Motherboard with PCIe Gen4, Dual M.2 HDMI, SATA 6GB/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 Motherboard

BOTTOM LINE:If you're an overclocker, this is not a board that's going to hold your hand. It doesn't have the diagnostic features that less confident system builders have come to rely on. This is old school overclocking, and as someone who has been building/overclocking systems for 17 years, I LOVE this board. I did need to use another CPU to flash the BIOS to accept my Ryzen 5 3600X, so keep that in mind if you're buying this for a Zen2 build. A bit of a pain, but for the great price of this board, who cares?VRM COOLING:As others have said about the VRM heatsinks, they're not the best thing out there for sure, but work great with some airflow. I have a 120mm low speed fan blowing over the socket because I'm watercooling my CPU with a custom loop, and with Prime95 the VRM's stop heating up at 61c after 45 minutes. The VRM cooling is fine for a 6 core or 8 core, but a 12 core is probably not ideal on this board, but it would definitely run one, just don't expect to be hitting 5GHz (obviously) and give the VRM's some airflow.RAM compatibility:RAM overclocking on this board was a pleasure. Just make sure to move your case reset switch to the CMOS jumper on the board to save yourself the headache of shorting the CMOS pins with a screwdriver to clear the CMOS if you push too far and the board won't boot. I was able to get my Ripjaws V 3200Mhz to 3600MHz pretty easily on 1.38v, and could probably run 3800MHz, but don't see the need as I'm already getting better results than just about every similar 3600X build I see.OVERCLOCKING:Let's be real, overclocking is dead on Zen2, however, RAM overclocking is very much alive and worth it. But I was able to get an all-core overclock of 4.3GHz at 1.36v with my 3600X, but ABBA BIOS has my CPU hitting 4350MHz all-core with stock settings + PBO, so manual overclocking is pointless and only does better in certain situations, with much higher temperatures and voltages. Not worth it.FEATURES:This board probably has all the features you need, so here are the *relatively* important features this board lacks for overclockers/storage needs: No BCLK adjustment, No PCI-E spread spectrum adjustment, and obviously no PCI-E Ver. 4.0.AUDIO:The onboard audio, while better than most, is still barely passable. It's very flat and dry, and lacks the clarity and dynamic range you'll have with a good sound card. Believe it or not, sound cards are still relevant if you care about good audio, because coming from an old school X-Fi Platinum, this doesn't even come close and I'm finding it very hard to enjoy music like I was with the X-Fi. I'll be adding a sound card to this system, it needs one.RGB:Ugh, who cares? Yes, it has RGB. Yes, it works. Yes, the software works too. I set it to a static color because anything else just pointlessly eats up CPU cycles in the background. Honestly, I would've rather had more money put into the audio solution versus this stupid trend of pretty seizure inducing LED's. More power to you if you like it, but personally I think the board looks excellent with or without it.CONCLUSION:I'm very happy with the board apart from the very average audio. Everything else has been great, and this system is monstrously fast for the price, and it's rock solid stable with my RX 5700 XT. It leaves my old Xeon X5675 @ 4.8GHz build in the dust.

One of the cheaper ASUS motherboards for the new Ryzen 9 AMD X-570 chipset. Wasn't my first choice, was looking at the TUF-Gaming boards, but they were out of stock. I wasn't disappointed. It worked great out of the box. I was a little concerned as the motherboard box did not have any kind of seal on it, nor did the static-package. I carefully looked over the board, took pictures, and found no apparent damage or signs of previous use.I've build a couple of dozen systems in the past 20 years. This board is great. I am guessing most of the negative reviews are user error and/or an occasional fluke. I've yet to have a problem with an ASUS motherboard. My M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 from 2010 is still rocking away just fine...although barely starting to slow down.With regard to the Memory DDR4 mounting brackets being "cheap", only having one moving locking end, as one reviewer commented on--I honestly can't imagine that being a problem. Pushing straight down on the DDR4 DIMM as the manual shows works great, and the locking pin is secure. Honestly one of the easier DIMM insertions I've done. I don't treat my cases with kid gloves, and move systems around a fair amount, and I can't imagine the DIMMs coming out. My verdict on that complaint is that it is unfounded/exaggerated.The box is sparse on mounting hardware. Not sure if ASUS is cost cutting, or if this is because it is a lower end ASUS board (and no ASUS board is junk, they just have cheaper options), but the only fasteners included were the spacers and screws for the M.2 port. Fortunately for me the Rosewill case I bought came with mounting hardware, and I had leftover screws and such from previous builds. That said be aware if your PC case doesn't come with the motherboard mounting screws, you may be delayed in your build.They do include the ASUS "Q-Connector" in the box, which makes connecting all your PC Case's front I/O cables (Power switch, Power LED, Reset Switch, Drive Access light, Front Audio etc...) much easier.Only 2 SATA Cables come in the box.No ASUS Sticker : (Seems cheesy, but my biggest gripe is no stickers. Guess you have to buy ROG or Tuf-Gaming to get an ASUS sticker included in the cost. Seems like their marketing folks should spring for a few cents to support brand loyalty and brand pride (I'll be ASUS until I get burned--and not by something dumb I do, but by shoddy products, which I've yet to experience--as long as they stay quality they've got a customer for life, with or without the sticker).THE UEFI BIOS worked great. I was able to update the BIOS Firmware directly from within the BIOS over the internet before I installed Windows 10. Worked like a champ. Updated to version 1005 dated 8/12/2019 without ever leaving the BIOS or having an OS installed.The only install hiccup I had was more likely due to my older defective LG BH12LS35 SATA Blu-Ray burner. It has been acting odd, not wanting to read/burn DVD's sporadically. The UEFI BIOS recognized it fine, but it seems as if there were mechanical problems. Ended up using the Windows 10 Media Creation Tools to make Thumb Drive installation media, which worked great.I was a little concerned that my new Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 M.2. SSD (one of the fastest drives currently available for consumers, one of the few devices early adopters can play with PCIe 4.0 with) may not cooperate well with the motherboard, and Windows 10 install. Here ASUS could have made the motherboard manual more clear. I am not sure if I understood the instructions correctly, or it just worked.Pages 1-13, 1-21, 3-14, and 3-15 of the motherboard manual are the sections that pertain to setting up PCIe 4.0 drives (you can download the motherboard manual off of the ASUS website to pre-view this--or any other ASUS board you are considering).1-13 briefly mentions selecting either AHCI or RAID mode for the SATA connectors. Here I was a little confused as the M.2 sockets can run in either PCIe 4.0x4 or SATA mode, and I wasn't sure if changes made in the BIOS section for the SATA changed anything on the PCIe drive, as there didn't seem to be a settings page for PCIe drives. In the end I reverted back to AHCI mode, as I needed the Blu-Ray Burner to work. My previous boards allowed some ports to run RAID and others AHCI, this did not seem to be an option. Perhaps the RAID controller software is sophisticated enough to allow some ports to run as AHCI. I don't know for sure.I briefly considered using both M.2 sockets with 2 Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 drives in a RAID configuration...but that just seems silly. In the forums some users have talked about the fact that there is nothing you can really copy from this drive to, that would take advantage of its insane speed. It does boot fast LOL.Page 3-14 references NVMe RAID mode. Here I am not sure if running the PCIe 4.0 Sabrent Rocket in RAID would be selected here, I think so. It is just an enabled/disabled option. I believe I enabled it, despite only having one drive.Finally on page 3-15 the manual mentions the PCIEX16_2 Bandwidth ( the physical PCIEX16_1 slot is the one closes to the CPU socket, and the one they recommend using for a single GPU and putting a 2nd SLI GPU in PCIEX16_2, see pg 1-7).The two options for PCIEX16_2 Bandwidth are [X8 Mode] or [PCIe RAID Mode].The explanatory note for [PCIe RAID Mode] states "The Hyper M.2 x16 card and other add-on M.2 devices all run at x4 mode, which allows you to create a PCIe RAID array."A further note below that states "Use PCIe RAID Mode when installing the Hyper M.2 X 16 card or other M.2 adapter cards. Installing other devices when using PCIe RAID mode may cause your PC to fail to boot up."I am using an other M.2 adapter card, so that is why I selected PCIe RAID mode for this setting and elsewhere. It is still not very clear to me what I was supposed to do, but she is up and running.I've yet to tweak my Memory to get the full speed out of it, currently in the default setting not using the XMP profile for the JDEC values. Benchmarking everything on defaults with Passmark puts the CPU and Sabrent Rocket in the 99th percentile both.So good job AMD with the Ryzen 9 3900X and this board seems to "play well" with that CPU right out of the box, as well as the new Sabrent Rocket (not listed on the QVL). I wasn't going to wait around for Samsungs PCIe 4.0 solution. So far very pleased with this configuration.