There were no reviews on this, so I felt like I was taking a bit of a risk, but considering the ASUS Z370-A MB was popular in reviews, I went for the Z390 Prime-A. I am glad I did. I am not a gamer, I work with DAWs and rendering video. I loaded it up with the i7-8700k and 16GB of G.Skill RAM, and the first boot (which I expected to be a disaster) ended up working flawlessly. I didn't expect it to have AURA RGB lighting, that was a fun surprise, but so far it is living up to all of its product description without any problems. The only trouble I ran into was installing drivers. For some reason, the included ASUS DVD would not let me install LAN or audio drivers, I had to find those driver directories on the DVD-ROM and install them by clicking "run as administrator."
I went with ASUS because their BIOS gives you complete control over your PC by letting you change anything you want. It has an excellent GUI whether you aren't sure what you are doing, or you are an advanced user. The overclocking software and fan control software are very easy to use, and probably the best (and safest) way to learn how to control your PC hardware.
UPDATE - 1 year later
I recently damaged this motherboard, and had to replace it. I looked through ASUS' other products, and determined, this was still the BEST choice for my needs and ended up replacing it with this exact one. It has tons of USB 3.0 and 3.1 ports, I have had no hassle with any of its features, except for the sound. I use 2 Mackie powered monitors for speakers, and I have a 1/8 stereo --> 2 RCA Y cable going into them. I would continually get buzzing noise interference from the GPU through the speakers. Replacing the GPU made no difference. Replacing the motherboard also makes no difference. If you end up with this problem, here is the fix: Buy a Ground Loop Noise Isolator (for car stereos) for $8 on Amazon. It may be a defect, or it might just be the wiring in my house, but if the ASUS folks are paying attention, you should build these into your systems!
The AI Suite Software turned out to be ridiculously dense - full of options and features to control your case fans and CPU cooler, OC your CPU (and GPU if it's an ASUS make), conserve power when you don't really need all the speed, and it will even call up OC settings when you open specific apps. This should be a much bigger selling point than it appears to be.
Other quirks - The RGB is 12V only! If you end up getting something with a 3 pin connector, or Addressable RGB, I found this amazing adapter if you search: DeepCool RGB Converter ($15) and you can plug other RGB devices in don't work with Aura, and it will let you use them with your RGB headers on this motherboard. The 3 orange fans in the attached photo are "addressable RGB" fans that aren't compatible with Aura, but are now controlled by Aura.
This is probably the best motherboard when it comes to people like me who do a lot of work with DAWs, Video editing, and occassional gaming with one GPU. Apparently if you use the other PCIE port, it only runs at 8x native instead of 16x. This is fine if you're not trying to reap all the performance you can out of 2 video cards.
It is also nice to have an upgrade path for the day I want to beef up my system in the future. I'm already making my plans for a X-series processor when they're "old" and affordable a few years down the road. I am still very satisfied with the unit and plan on using it for years to come.
| RAM | DDR4 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 2400 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
