Pros: There are no pros if it ain't working.

Cons: It's dead for no reason. That's as big a con as it gets.

Other Thoughts: Literally could not have picked a worse time to die. Should have stuck with Gigabyte.

Pros: Bought USAS mother boards in the past, about 7 total. All worked well except for the WI-FI GO and this board.

Cons: Had a board failure that stopped at error code B1. Message appeared saying "Preparing automatic repair" and that's all folks. Technical support tells me it is the operating system. The system did not even boot up. Could not do a restore since Windows 10 did not even start up, i.e. the mother board stopped working. I guess if they can't tell me what a B1 error code means, let's blame it on windows.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued ASUS Customer,

Thank you for taking the time to write this informative review. We appreciate your feedback on this matter and I will be letting the related department know about the issues you are experiencing for continuous improvements to ASUS Support. What is the part number of the RAM modules you are using? Are you able to boot into BIOS? Clear CMOS and see if the board will POST. If it will not, pull one memory module and place the other stick in the slot furthest from the CPU and see if that helps. Try testing your motherboard with 1 RAM installed and insure stability and testing for potential defective RAM. For the most recent microcode revision for your CPU please update UEFI to verison 1601. 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. You can locate the BIOS .cap file here: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS-VIII-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/. If you need a help with any technical questions or general inquiries you can reach me at cl-nestor@asus.com.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty – US Support

Pros: Easy setup, Easy configuration, Easy BIOS update process

Cons: Zero so far

Other Thoughts: While I'm sure others have had a less than stellar performance this board has worked flawlessly for me and all i can do is recommend this to others

Pros: Very well designed, loads of features. Not bad looking.

VERY EASY OVERCLOCKING. Either automatically or manually, was able to get a 6700K to 4.7 on air with default voltages (Auto), while running G.Skill 3400 RAM at XMP. Runs solid, I haven't had a single POST error.

FAN CONTROL is PERFECT - for every header you can design a profile with temp vs. RPM, works fantastic to keep things quiet but ramp up to keep things cool when needed. I am very impressed with the fan control on this board (need to use the Asus fan software in the OS).

Cons: Does not come with enough stickers.
J/K it came with too many stickers. Seriously, I don't need stickers to label my hard drives with.

Nobody forces you to install them, but the DVD that comes with the motherboard has a LOT of ASUS programs on them. I uninstalled half of them (RAMdisk, RAMcache, etc.) but still my notification center has a string of icons a mile long on my fresh load of Windows. Two icons for the sound card, etc.

Also - DVD, really? I haven't had an optical drive in a built PC for over 5 years. Time for these guys to switch to USB's instead.

Windows 10 doesn't have a base driver for Intel Gigabit LAN - but it is on the Asus included DVD. If you have an optical drive.

Other Thoughts: 10/10 would curse at the DVD again

Pros: This is a decently priced motherboard. It had a lot of features, and it came with everything I needed from it. It's a pretty sweet ethernet port because I'm getting ma much better connection than my old computer. The connectors are also all labeled well, which is nice for a first time builder like myself.

Cons: Now here's the thing. I can't be sure if my biggest con is my fault or not, because nobody seems to know. I'd switch this to five stars if someone could tell me how to fix this but basically... I can't get the LED to work. Nobody seems to know what to do about it. My best guess is that it is faulty, since nobody is able to tell me 'plug x into y.' The instructions certainly don't tell me how to do it. I have the app for controlling the LED, but nothing happens when I use it. Still just pitch blackness.

And for the instructions not clarifying this I am sad, but also I wish they explained more about the front panel i/o connectors more. Because my case called some of them different things than what the motherboard instructions had labeled- as well as having more ports than I needed- which led to confusion for me.

Other Thoughts: I'd recommend it. But bear in mind if you're new, the directions might leave a little to be desired. Good overall, but have some aspects that are still confusing.

Pros: For me, the number one thing I want is stability in my overclocking. Everything else is secondary. With my i7 6700k, I am able to run a 24/7 rock solid 4.7GHz. Voltage is a rather modest 1.360 with vdroop set to 5 in UEFI. Custom water cooled loop with 1 360 and 1 240 rad with 2 GPUs keep things well within thermals and while folding, realtemp keeps all cores between 68-70C. Aside from my most important requirements from this board, the fan control is great, the sound quality is excellent, and I found the UEFI a bit daunting at first, but quite thorough and flexible after short exposure to to vast feature set.

Cons: UEFI updates...ugh...this was a pain. The onboard feature to fetch the updates NEVER worked. I had to update via usb. Also, because I use a RAID0 as my system and boot partition, I got a bucket of water in the face wakeup call when updating the UEFI to find my RAID0 was no longer valid. I later discovered that it can be put back together without data loss but why should I have to? Come on Asus, isn't there some way to retain that setting so others won't go into their UEFI and have a potential data loss happen?

Other Thoughts: Get this board for what it was meant for. Stable overclocking. The features are very nice as well. What I noticed was the networking performance, sound quality, fan control, and rich UEFI feature set and options. I am thinking of adding an M.2 drive, however I am not sure if I there are enough PCIe lanes to support my SLI, RAID0, and an M.2 drive on this board. I will have to research it a bit more. The UEFI thing with RAID0 dropping was frustrating but this board is a winner IMO.

Pros: -Has everything you can ask for really.

Cons: - Little long on the start up but nothing ridiculous. I believe its due to the bios used because I have top notch i7 skylake ssd and max ram but its not a significant amount of time for me to be unhappy.

Other Thoughts: I have only been using it for a week so it has not been through anything extensive but it seems really stable. My computer even shut off unexpectedly due to storms and it didn't even miss a beat . So far its great I love it and it fits my skylake =).

Pros: -Looks nice

Cons: I've had this mobo for about 6 months and probably only play games on it a few times a week. It was working fine, then one day I shut it off, and the next day when I tried to restart it, it suddenly stopped working. Checked the power supply, which was fine, and also used a friend's working power supply with it, but no dice. Only the red LEDs around the board light up, but nothing happens when I use the start button from the case or the start button on the mobo (no fans, no qcode, nothing - I think this is a similar problem reported in another review). What a pain to have to rebuild everything! Reading the reviews, it looks like there are a LOT of these broken ones going out. Disappointed.

Other Thoughts: Would definitely not recommend unless you are ok with potentially rebuilding your computer multiple times.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for taking the time to inform us on your ASUS experience. I'm sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience. What type of troubleshooting have you done? Please make sure to reseat your hardware. Clear CMOS and see if the board will POST. If it will not, pull one memory module and place the other stick in the slot furthest from the CPU and see if that helps. Please make sure to complete the power off cycle before testing hardware to avoid damaging your hardware. I would recommend flashing to the latest UEFI verion (1504) if you can get the board to POST for optimal system stability. Please visit our Online ASUS Help Desk for the most recent BIOS .cap file: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS-VIII-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/. When updating your UEFI please make sure to wait for the firmware to update after the board restarts following the flash. This can take a couple of minutes after the board restarts. The board should be left alone during this process. If there is no POST following this process, then it would be best for you to provide us with your full list of parts for further analysis on QVL parts. If you have any technical questions, feel free to contact me at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160386537 as reference to this case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty - US Support

Pros: -it looks nice

Cons: -when trying to overclock, it gets extremely unstable and crashes the computer multiple times.
-I updated the bios to try and get a more stable board, but now it won't load windows properly without me going into the bios first to boot.

Other Thoughts: -honestly would not recommend this board to anyone. I'm very disappointed with the quality that ASUS has put out.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for taking the time to inform us on your ASUS experience. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this issue may have caused. Please note that all CPU's overclock differently. some procerrs may need more voltage than others to achieve a stable overclock. Are you using manual overclock or auto overclocking for your CPU? What core frequency do you want to achieve? If you are having issues with stability while overclocking, make sure to manually raise your core voltage to complement your multiplier increase. Be careful not to go overboard with your CPU core/cache voltage, there is a possibility that if the voltage is increased to high, it can cause the VRM to short circuit. Also, if you haven't already please make sure to set up your chassis fans to allow smooth direct air flow with cold air taking in and hot air exhausting out in order to keep your VRM and other hardware from overheating. If you have any technical questions or general inquiries you can contact me at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160386578 as reference to your case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty - US Support

Pros: Good layout, great placement.
Plenty of fan headers
Powerful yet easy to use bios
Super stable
Great overclocking
Much improved sound over my last board
Plenty of Sata ports for my needs
Looks great

Cons: Literally nothing

Other Thoughts: Everything with this board was a breeze. It was technically an upgrade, but realistically I rebuilt my system from the ground up. This board coupled with an i7-6700k and 16 gig of G.Skill TridentZ PC 3200 ram, system absolutely flies. Got what appeared to be a stable overclock of 4.7 ghz, but ended up with some stability issues due to overheating (not board's fault obviously. Using a Hyper 212 Evo for cooling, probably just not beefy enough). Settled for 4.6 stable with no issues. Win 10 pro clean install. System installed perfectly first try, no hiccups, no glitches, no weird problems. Just straight stable from the ground up. Couldn't be happier. I've owned tons of Asus products over the years, and aside from this motherboard I'm currently using an older motherboard in another machine, 2 monitors and a router from them currently, all work flawlessly. Will continue to use their products with confidence.