Pros: ASUS X99-A LBA 2011-v3, i7-5820K, G-Skill V series DDR4 3000/PC4 24000, ARCTIC Freezer i11 cooler.

Everything worked right out of the box. BOIS was up to date. Default BIOS setup resulted in PassMark about 6% higher than average for 5820K.

I found it difficult to over-clock beyond ~10%. Mostly failed Prime95, or over-heated very quickly. Settled on ~10% over PassMark average. 14K+

I'm guessing the closer you get to the max clock-rate of the series, the more intel is selling them at the rate they can actually run... K series or not.

Idles at about 30C. Prime95 goes to 70C.

Still an ASUS fan. (except their monitors, they always die...)

Cons: Over clocking control is a little confusing. ASUS spent too much time making it look cool, and not on simplicity of use. and, I wish I could have over-clocked to 20%.... oh well.

Pros: Well it works kind of but it is super buggy.

Cons: Memory is set to 2133mhz default and it is still after setting X.M.P.
Only works with intel rapid storage enabled, which sets the sata ports to raid mode making boots seriously slow.
Fixed in the latest bios but was an issue, you had to go in the UEFI and disable USB boot or the board would get stuck at windows splash screen and just crash after a while.
Like others have stated already overclocking is not possible even using their buggy AI suite III.
Asus has let me down with 100% of their products including my old X79 Rampage IV extreme and my now sold G751 laptop.
awful quality control more concerned with looks than anything else. Oh forgot to mention the incredibly hot r9 390 that I have. I will just steer clear from the for the foreseeable future.

Other Thoughts: Do not buy this joke of a board Go with another brand if you can. Now to see if I can sucker someone on e-------bay have been running this board since December waiting for Asus to release a proper bios but i guess they really just care about taking your cash.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for taking the time to share your review. Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience in regards to your memory. Which BIOS version are you currently operating on? What is the part number to the DIMM kits you are using? Are you using 1 or 2 pairs of DIMM kits? Try testing your motherboard with 1 RAM installed and insure stability and testing for potential defective RAM. Increase System For improved system stability please update you UEFI to verison 2101 located on our Online ASUS Help Desk: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/X99AUSB_31/HelpDesk_Download/. Download the BIOS and extract the file to a fat formatted usb stick. Then navigate in bios to the tools menu and use the EZflash utility to do the flash. Let your system update the firmware as needed. Do not power down even if your system sits with a blank screen for 10 minutes or so. If you have any further questions feel free to contact me at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160386044 as reference to this case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty – US Support

Pros: -Price not too bad
-Plenty of slots
-Aesthetics
-Compares well with similar price range boards

Cons: -None

Other Thoughts: This PC this board is used on is mostly used with Network Virtualization on VMs that are resource heavy. This board has had no issues handling everything Ive installed on it. I would recommend to anyone

Pros: great mobo all around for all users a specially the add of xmp option. great of the idea of using q connector which makes it so easy to plug in the panel connection. it is good soild mobo, your not missing a hole lot from other x99 models execpt some bells and whistles. I have gotten my ram oc'ed 3000 and 4.8 oc cpu.
i thought i was pretty cool that it has a white led behind crystal sound chip so you can see the lane.

Cons: none yet

Pros: Looks nice, runs my 3200mhz ram at 3200mhz

Cons: Whever you overclock cpu cache/cpu the system refuses to post. It doesnt post at all. I had to remove the motherboard battery every time it failed... over 100+ times.....

Motherboard cannot post with 125 bclk or 125 boot strap. It should be able to.

Cache was unstable at 3600mhz no matter the voltage.

Other Thoughts: Other ppl can overclock to 4.5ghz and 4ghz cpu cache. This board is not meant for that sadly despite its $250 price tag. VRMs get burning hot when overclocking, they burn my finger.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We value your review and sharing your experience with the X99-A/USB 3.1 Motherboard. You would think this motherboard can't overclock a CPU. wouldn't you? Please understand that all CPU's overclock differently. What CPU are you using? What core voltage are you using when trying to achieve 4.5 ghz? Are you operating on manual or adaptive voltage for overclocking on your system? If you haven't already, update your UEFI to Version 2001 for the latest microcode enhancements for your CPU. Please provide me with more details on the settings you are applying so I can assist you in achieving a stable overclock. You contact me at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160336224 for reference. I'd be glad to help with any technical questions, overclocking tips, or any general inquiries.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty - US Support
https://www.asus.com/us/support/callus

Pros: This is a good MOBO, I am not a super nerd so keep that in mind. it has handled all of my components and my relentless tinkering. The bios is not 100 percent intuitive but can be navigated well and has a lot of features.
make sure if you decide to raid that you follow the instruction manual directions. I tried to use the bios raid setup but win8.1 would not let me install the OS on that raid. the manual asks you to ctrl+I during POST to bring another way to raid the drives which worked perfectly.
I love this mobo and am happy that I purchased it. I still have plenty of room for expansion. maybe a second graphics card, or upping my ram to 64gb, or maybe a PCIe device or two. possibilities are open with this mobo.

Cons: did not find any yet, except I wish I had an extra usb3.0 slot.

Pros: None

Cons: Has issue with posting and sometimes hangs on boot. Sometimes wont post for 3-4 tries. I also have issue trying to update to the newest bios from 1901 to 2101 as the bios says its unable to read a proper bios.

The board is plagued with issues with bios updating to booting. I have had 3 asus boards in the past and this was the worst experience I have ever had. Stay away!

Other Thoughts: Asus x99/3.1
Intel 5820k
970gtx
4x4GB Corsair DDR4 2800
EVGA 850W PSU
Corsair Hydro H60 cooler
Antec 900

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for informing us on your experience with the ASUS X99U/3.1 Motherboard. I'm sorry to hear about your booting and BIOS issues. How often does these issues occur? What are your hardware specifications? Is your memory and power supply provided the qualified vendor list? Please make sure all your parts are compatible before building your PC. Do you have an exact part number to the DIMM kit(2) are you using? Are you using 1 x 4DIMM kit or 2 x 2DIMM kits to reach 16 GB of RAM?Also which method are you using to update your UEFI? For more information on how to properly update your UEFI on your X99-A/U3.1 motherboard please visit: http://event.asus.com/2012/mb/USB_BIOS_Flashback_GUIDE/. If you need further assistance on you issues please contact me directly for personalized service at cl-nestor@asus.com. Please use this number N160310915 as reference to your case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyatlty - US Support

Pros: Quality construction.

Cons: I did not have a good experience with this motherboard and I should have read more review before I purchased it. For one, it arrived with a corrupted bios. It was extremely slow to load and the bios GUI would lock up every other time I would try to make a chance and save it. After hours of playing around I finally downloaded an older bios version, installed it, and then download the latest and installed it (It wouldn't install the latest version directly). That ended up fixing the bios problems but I then discovered that the board was no longer detecting all my ram (2 - 8G, and 2 4GB sticks, I have them in the grey slots as directed). With all 4 sticks installed it only detects the 8GBs. If I install the 4 GBs by themselves, they work fine. After hours of research and troubleshooting I finally discovered that the memory channels don't like mix matched RAM sizes (even though it worked before I upgraded the bios). So I'm now going to return the 4GB sticks and get 2 8GBs to see if that works. I've built hundreds of PCs and I don't think I've ever had a worse experience with a board. It would have been easier if it was just DOA as it would have saved me about 12 hours of my life. Same on your ASUS for letting this board get by your quality control (assuming it made it there at all).

Other Thoughts: Not recommended.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for providing us with your experience with the ASUS X99-A/USB3.1 Motherboard. It’s clear that you are trying to use two 2-DIMM kits rather than a single 4-DIMM kit to achieve 24gigs of memory. When trying to combine kits like this, users are very likely to encounter compatibility issues. For optimal performance please purchase a single 4-DIMM kit provided on Qualified Vendors List located on our ASUS Website: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA2011/X99-A/X99_Series_DRAM_QVL_20160115.pdf. If you have any technical questions or need some assistance in choosing a single 4-DIMM kit that is suitable for your needs, please contact me directly at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160287008 as reference to this case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty - US Support

Pros: Just letting Linux users know that this board works with a dual boot of Linux Mint 17.3 KDE and Ubuntu Studio.

Cons: [UPDATE 2/12/2016] The BIOS, even the updated one, sucks. It won't remember the time and defaults back to UTC after reboot. And there's something wrong with the USB configuration. I have to go into Advanced > USB Conf > USB Single Port Control > and disable the 3.0 & 3.1 ports (as close as I can tell as the BIOS labels don't match the labels printed on the MB). The reason is very slow post-- ~2 minutes--and the USB keyboard and mouse are locked up for ~30 seconds once the OS login page loads. After that, everything works okay. But after disabling the 3.0 & 3.1 ports the board posts and boots to the login screen very fast. No locked up keyboard or mouse. I can still enable the 3.0 ports, and they'll work, but after a couple of reboots it messes up again. The only peripherals plugged in are the keyboard & mouse. Also, there's no Firewire port. I almost didn't purchase the board because of that. Hello, ASUS, there's still a ton of legacy Firewire peripherals out there.

Other Thoughts: I had problems with a flaky USB port on my old ASUS board. Think I'll try another brand for my next build. Sure wish Abit was still around. :(

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for sharing your experience with the ASUS X99-A/USB 3.1 Motherboard. Other than your keyboard & mouse what are you connecting to the USB 3.0 & 3.1 slots causing issues? Does your motherboard POST when just the Keyboard&Mouse are installed? How often do you experience these issues? On you Windows Device Manager you can update drivers manually by right clicking the options selecting Update Driver Software. Please make sure to update your USB Driver ASMedia USB 3.1 FW update tool FW versions:141231_30_02_0D located on our ASUS Support website https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/X99AUSB_31/HelpDesk_Download/. You can contact me at cl-nestor@asus.com if you have any technical questions or inquiries using N160261902 as reference to this case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty - US Support

Pros: After a BIOS update it works great, only one issue which doesn't affect me. 32GB of RAM stable. Included software made for easy overclocking and a very quiet system, much quieter than what it replaced.

Cons: Some minor instability during overclocking until I updated the BIOS, after which it's been rock solid.
Has a weird habit of booting to the wrong drive immediately after switching boot order. This fixes itself with a reboot or two and never happens afterwards, and it's not like I switch my boot order every day.

Other Thoughts: Check for BIOS updates and get one first thing you do if they're available, updating made my system stable but wiped my settings.