ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero (WiFi 7) LGA 1700(Intel 14th &13th&12th Gen) ATX Gaming Motherboard(PCIe 5.0x16, 5xM.2 Slots,DDR5,2X Thunderbolt 4 Ports, USB Type-C Front-Panel)

Really Good Solid Board for Intel Raptor lake Processors. Finally Asus Releases a Solid board for Raptor lake chipset, Bettee than Extreme. Very good power levels.

OK, I know there is a lot of competition out there in the market of motherboards. There are absolutely better deals that can be found in regards to price to performance comparisons. Mother boards used to be cost conscious; now their prices are getting to extreme levels for those of you who are enthusiasts. If you are on a budget or want a board that has great performance, but won't hit your wallet so hard, this mobo might not be for you.With that said, if you have the budget, or if you've been saving for a computer build and you know what you want and you want to have options to explore now or grow into down the road, this board is AMAZING! If you are a gamer, get this board. If you want to explore water cooling, get this board. If you want to use plenty of m.2 drives rather than sata ssds, get this board. If you're into RGB and want plenty of configuration options, get this board. There are so many features, you won't be disappointed.And now for a few caveats. Scalpers have gotten bad. Not only do they scalp gpus, but aspect scalping mobos have become a thing. This board is already expensive enough. Scalpers but up the available stock and try to resell for $150-$600 over msrp. DO NOT BUY AT THIS PRICE! You can find much better boats for that price if you desire. But if you are patient, you will be able to find this board for msrp, so wait it out, purchase from a trustworthy source, and then enjoy all the possibilities this board brings.Next, the Armory Create software is a little buggy. It might be better to update your drivers one-by-one from asus website rather than using armory create, but I've noticed this isn't always the case for everyone. Personally, I feel Armory Crate comes with a lot of bloatware, and I found myself deselecting several programs during installation. But, whatever you do, absolutely upgrade your BIOS firmware. This board can handle DDR5 RAM at higher frequencies, but to utilize the XMP settings without compatibility issues, make sure you have the latest BIOS version. Updating is not as scary as people make it out to be, and it will ensure you have the latest security features and compatibility with the latest RAM.Another worthy mention is that I haven't upgraded my system in 7 years. The mobo I'm coming from is the old ROG z290 Maximus Code IX. It was a great board for the time, but that bugger is long outdated. Going from that board to this one is night and day. It cannot be stated how much of a performance boost this board allows for. But as there is such a huge leap in technology, I'll admit I'm a little biased because dang-near anything would have been a huge upgrade for me.TL;DR: If you have the money and want plenty of options and are an enthusiast, this board will be great for you; if you're on a budget or don't need all the extra functionality, there are much better options out there.

I've been using Asus ROG motherboards for several years when I build a computer and all have been of the highest quality, the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Formula is no exception!It is one of the heaviest motherboards I have ever put into a computer build but I am not complaining. I mounted the Formula into a Corsair 5000D case, so I had plenty of room, mounting the MB was easy, standoffs matched the MB screw holes perfectly. Installing the 2 M.2 2TB SSDs was easy (Samsung 2TB 990 Pro), make sure to remove all of the protective tape on the M.2 heatsinks. First SSD I forgot to remove the protective tape; second SSD I did then realized I did not remove it from the first SSD I installed so I had to go back and remove the SSD, and the protective tape. If you are wondering why I used 2, 2TB SSDs instead of one 4TB, well it was price, the 4TB cost more than 2 2TB SSDs combined. I also prefer to keep data files on the D drive and programs on the C drive.For cooling, I used a CORSAIR H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler. Many times, the CPU cooler that mounts on top of the CPU is a bit cumbersome to mount because of there not being enough space due to the MBs design; this was not the case with this MB, cooler mounted easily with plenty of space for the water lines to route to the radiator.It's nice to have the extra PCIe 4 M.2 slots (4 total) plus one PCIe 5 slot. As I am sure the reader knows that PCIe 5 is new technology and is pretty pricey, so, because it's new tech, and pricey, I'm going to hold off on that for now.For memory, I installed 64GB of Corsair Vengeance 6400MHz DDR5 RAM.I am referencing the components I used in this build because too many people go high-end on some components and cheap on other components in the same build. If you are going to build a high-end machine and spend this kind of money, do it right, spend the extra money for the good stuff!I'm not go into all the specs of the new machine I built, but suffice it to say, it is fast!! My old machine, i9 9900K with a ROG Formula XI MB, and 2 Samsung SSD 860s, its fast but the new machine is super-fast. I copied files to a flash drive on the old machine, took about 6 minutes, I copied the same files from the flash drive to the new machine, they transferred in less than 15 seconds.That's it for now, I hope this helps others if they are considering this motherboard.