Even before hooking this up to anything, I could tell this was a huge upgrade…great quality construction and aesthetic value. The feel of the construction can be felt in the weight and how it felt solid construction. When I decided that this would be the cornerstone of my upgrade (moved from AMD to Intel)…I wanted to keep it economical I went with i5-8400 and G Skill Rapjaws (ECC, 2 x 8GB). Although it lists that it only works with non-ECC RAM, the instructions that come with it does say you can do 1 strip. I would go with Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 2400…it was suggested by crucial.com as guaranteed compatible.
I got this upgrade to play WoW, I would get huge lag in large battlegrounds. I do plan on getting my ram to 64 GB and upgrading the chip later on. The i5-8400 defaults to 2.8 ghz, before I dabbled on overclocking I went to test the new system in a BG. All tests where fantastic and works better than my AMD that I had at 3.6 ghz (same video card and was using 32g ram), I used the provided wifi antenna. I was in close range of about 50 people in the BG and so no lag. This is a very nice motherboard with many options and love the layout of where all the extras plug in.
The provided sata cords are lengthy enough to support a mid-tower and possibility a max tower. 4 cords are provided, with 2 of them have connectors that are L-shaped on one side…great for keeping the plug-in flat against the power port. The one thing I can provide criticism, the connection on the motherboard sata are positioned paralleled to the board and facing to front of your machine. So once the MB is installed it can be a challenge to plug in your sata cords, especially if you don’t have the ability to remove both sides of your case.
Pluses of this motherboard: wi-fi (with a provided antenna), quality sata cords with a decent length (with L-shaped connections), the connection panel on the rear has it’s own panel (no open space), supports 8 and 9 gen intel chips (can go economical to pricey), fits snug in ATX case, multiple fan power connections, case connections (power, LED, etc) are quality connection), and nice aesthetic value.
Criticism of this motherboard: placement of sata connection might be small challenge for novice, lack of easy bios instructions, yellow-colored illumination (if you can change, I don’t know…most of my color scheme is red), and a challenge to read small text labels for case connections (but really what else can you do, had to read manual to see which was which).
| Processor | core_i9_9900x |
|---|---|
| RAM | DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 4400 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
