About mid-January I purchased a barebones kit from TigerDirect.com (still my favorite place to buy computer 'stuff'). In the kit was this motherboard. The current configuration has 8GB RAM, an AMD Quad Core processor, and 5 HDs (all SATA) , one as the main(500GB), and 4 in a Raid 5 array, working flawlessly.
The main use is as a work box. I wanted to be able to run multiple VMs for different processes for work simultaneously. I run 2-3 most of the time continually. One Win Server, one Ubuntu, and the other changes a lot.
Initial setup with the raid config was a challenge. It requires the use of a floppy dirve. (Do they still get used? YES!) Luckily I had one laying around from an old box and was able to throw it in. Once the boot disks were created I was able to get the raid config done pretty easily. The ASUS utiliy disk that comes with the board is great for getting the drivers, but the utilities seem bloated somewhat, so I rarely use any of them.
I have WinXP 64 bit as the main OS, and it screams. I am using onboard graphics, which was also nice. It comes with a VGA add-on port that works flawlessly, and a built in HDMI port. The HDMI works GREAT and I have once or twice hooked it up to my 52" Mitsu LCD. Excellent quality.
I have not yet been able to get the ExpressGate feature to work on this build. It was working once before I got the RAID array configured, but doesn't seem to cooperate anymore. Not much of an issue as I never really do much out of the main OS anyway.
Overall, I would recommend this motherboard to an advanced user. I have only used 5 of the available 6 SATA ports, and I didn't find the RAID config to be all that difficult. If your technical, it's a breeze. If not, get a friend who is. The onboard RAID controller works great, and is well worth the effort. I have a 1.74TB array. Very nice.
4/5 - Excellent features, very powerful, very fast.
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