ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-H Gaming (WiFi 6E)LGA1700(Intel14th,13&12th Gen)ATX gaming motherboard(DDR5 7800 MT/s, PCIe5.0 x16 with Q-Release,4xPCIe 4.0 M.2 slots,USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C,front-panel connector)

I like everything about this board, well, except one niggle.Overall this board offers 4 NVME drive slots, 4 SATA ports, all in a good looking package. This is a compromise board, cutting out a position between high end boards and entry level units. It offers a lot in an affordable package.The niggle... I was an idiot and didn't check for compatibility between this board and the Dark Rock Pro 5 cooler. I found interference on the edge side of the board and the plastic cover over the heat sinks. After some very careful inspect, I determined that the plastic over this section did nothing but look good and if anything may have hindered air flow, so I very carefully cut it off. The cooler tubes now had clearance, and all is well.I have built hundreds of computers in over 30 years.. so I can say I know what I am doing.

Excellent motherboard to pair with an i9 13900k and has four M.2 slots all with their own heatsinks. My only issue was during the windows 11 installation. I had to manually install intel Optane drivers in order for the motherboard to recognize the SSDs. Didn't just stop there unfortunately, as I also had to install ethernet and Bluetooth drivers as well.If you cannot connect to the internet while installing windows 11, open the command prompt during installation (while you're at the internet connection part of the setup) with SHIFT + F10 and type in OOBE\BYPASSNRO to bypass this step and setup a local account. Once you're done installing windows, install the ethernet drivers and let windows do the rest.Aside from that, everything is running smoothly. From easily setting XMP, to enabling rebar, and just navigating the BIOS was simple to do.everything in my PC:Intel Core i9 13900kASUS TUF Nvidia RTX 4080 OC editionCrucial 32gb 5600mhz GDDR5 RAMSamsung 970 EVO Plus 2tb x2 m.2 driveCrucial 4tb PCIe gen 4 m.2 driveSabrent Rocket 1tb m.2 driveSamsung 870 EVO 4tb SATA III SSDCorsair RM1000x Fully Modular Power SupplyA Blu-ray drive and a Card Reader all stuffed in to a Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Glass.

This motherboard made for a super easy upgrade. Hardware install was simple, with good instruction manual tips, booted without any issues on the first try. The BIOS was easy to navigate and had really solid defaults (REBAR was on by default for example), easy overclocking / XMP profiles / iGPU settings. This mobo also recognized my windows boot drive and automatically set that first in the boot order.Upon initial boot, ASUS software automatically loaded and installed basic drivers, such as my ethernet adapter, then allowed further updates. Windows pulled in previous SSDs and kept the mapping from my previous build without trouble.Having 4 pcie gen4 lanes with m.2 ssd adapters, all with heatsinks will allow this motherboard to be useful far into the future.If you are looking for a painless upgrade of an older system, this motherboard has familiar base features and makes for a seamless experience.Tip: Create a Microsoft account to bind to your windows license key to avoid having to buy another. Changing hardware invalidates the existing install's license.

I have encountered the same defect in both an Asus TUF Gaming z690 motherboard and this ROG Strix Z790 motherboard. I am doing my build with an Intel i5 12th gen processor that does not have integrated graphics, so I have to use a separate graphics card. After having an issue with the TUF Gaming motherboard, I started to pay close attention to the sequence of events as they occurred.During POST, I've observed the white QLED light comes on, indicating the motherboard was unable to identify VGA, I guess this is expected since the processor doesn't have integrated graphics. What happens next in a perfect world is the white light goes off, I assume when the motherboard detects the installed graphics card, then sends instructions that all's well, continue with the boot sequence. What's happened to me though, for the first motherboard after a month and 4 days of use and on the second motherboard after only 4 days of use, is that suddenly the motherboard refuses to continue with POST after the initial VGA detection fails, regardless of the video card installed (I've tried multiple when the issue occurs). It's like the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who refuses to let anyone pass.What then occurs, not just to me, but I've seen other reports of this, is a comedy of trial and error. In one case, I read moving the video cable from one port to another may resolve the issue. In another case, I learned reseating the video card may resolve the issue. In another case I saw it reported that the system would give the one long beep and three short beep error indicating a VGA detection issue, but then boot up anyway. In my case, moving the video cable and reseating the card only helped temporarily and the next day the problem would reoccur. Talking to Asus support, they seem to want to default to RMA'ing the motherboard, I don't know if this is just the easier route, or they know this is an issue. In the other cases I read about, I don't know if they are all using processors with or without integrated graphics, so it may or may not be related to what I encountered.I did my best to work through this issue, I am a die hard Asus fan, as I have done multiple builds over the years and like to hang onto my systems for a long time. Asus seems to have always been the best for reliability. Not sure what is going on here, or if technology has become so complex it's simply difficult for manufacturers to build with the same dependability as before to keep up with the technology. At this point I'm contemplating all my options, including switching to another brand such as Gigabyte or MSI as I'm reading others have been doing.