Pros: Supports ECC memory, performance is similar to Core i7-7700 non-K

Cons: Kaby Lake server boards haven't been released yet. You can use this CPU with a Skylake motherboard (c232 or c236 chipset), but you will probably need a Skylake CPU (it can be a Celeron, Pentium, i3, or Xeon, but not i5 or i7) to update the BIOS, unless the board manufacturer has updated it already.

Overall Review: Skylake i5 or i7 may work unofficially to update the BIOS (haven't tried it), but they are not listed as supported by the C232 / C236 chipset.

Pros: None

Cons: I had two of these and both failed in exactly the same way. The rear fan started getting louder over time, and eventually started making a grinding sound. Even when they did work, they couldn't put out anywhere near 580W. The power supply would beep and make a burning smell during high CPU load.

Pros: 8 Cores, fairly low price.

Cons: UPDATE 2017/08/26: These issues are caused by a bug in early versions of this processor. Any CPU manufactured after week 25 (approximately the middle of June 2017) is not affected by this bug. The manufacture week is stamped on the heatspreader. I have updated my rating to 4 stars as this bug has been fixed, although it does require replacing your CPU, which AMD will usually replace for free if you are affected by this bug. Frequent program crashes, usually with an illegal instruction or segmentation fault error, on programs that are known to be good. Frequent complete system crashes. The on-CPU SATA controller was previously giving lots of errors, although this issue seems to be fixed with a microcode / BIOS update.

Overall Review: It is possible to get this chip to be fairly stable under Linux, although it requires compiling a custom kernel with several workarounds. Specifically, in memory/mm.c change the "Randomize the address space" line to read: int randomize_va_space __read_mostly = 0; And enable CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU and CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU_ALL in the .config The kernel must be compiled on a different system, as without the custom kernel the Ryzen system is not stable enough to compile anything. Odd-numbered memory timings also cause various issues, it's best to set the memory timings in the UEFI to even numbers, but not tighter than what the memory is rated for. These workarounds will not produce a 100% stable system, but it will be much more stable than before. Additionally, If the option is available in the UEFI, disable the OpCache. This will almost completely solve the issue, but it will reduce the performance and increase the power consumption slightly. If the OpCache is disabled you may not even need a custom kernel. Disabling the OpCache is also the only workaround if you are running Windows. These workarounds are not necessary if your CPU was manufactured after week 25 (see above)

Pros: Supports all Ryzen CPUs, as well as Bristol Ridge APUs Built-in audio is compatible with older Linux kernels (many other Ryzen boards require at least kernel 4.11 as they include a newer audio chip)

Cons: Requires a few workarounds for the board to be stable. The first UEFI update must be flashed from DOS. FreeDOS on a USB drive works for this purpose. After it has been updated once from DOS, additional updates can be flashed from within the UEFI setup.

Overall Review: If you are having issues with individual programs crashing, try disabling the OpCache in the UEFI setup. This issue affects all operating systems including Linux, Windows, and BSD, and usually happens when all available threads are under heavy load. Not all programs that put a heavy load on the CPU will trigger this issue, however. This issue shows up both on the bare metal, as well as in virtual machines. If you are having issues on Linux with the entire system crashing or rebooting randomly when the system is idle or near-idle, try recompiling the kernel with CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU and CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU_ALL enabled. If recompiling the kernel is not an option, another workaround is to keep at least one core busy constantly. A single thread of Prime95 at low priority should be sufficient for this purpose. For a system running virtual machines, it is only necessary to run the Prime95 thread on the host, not in each VM.

Pros: Supports the latest Kaby Lake CPUs, supports ECC memory, Supports SLI and has on-board audio for workstation use.

Cons: It's more expensive than many of the other C236 boards. The BIOS must be updated to use a Kaby Lake CPU. You will need a Skylake CPU to boot into DOS to update the BIOS.

Overall Review: It is also possible to update the bios from Linux or Windows, but I updated it from DOS. There is no means to update the BIOS from within the BIOS setup.

Pros: This drive is very fast and it's just a card (it doesn't take up an HDD bay)

Cons: It doesn't appear as a standard SATA drive or SATA controller (it appears as two SATA controllers that use a non-standard driver). Not supported by every operating system. It works fine under Linux (no driver needed) and Windows (with the included driver), but other operating systems usually see only the two halves of the drive (not as a RAID device, which prevents booting, although it will work as a non-boot drive if you configure the RAID manually), or nothing at all.

Overall Review: If all you are using is Linux and/or Windows, this drive will work fine. If you use any other operating systems, you're pretty much out of luck. Maybe I'm being picky, but I strongly believe that hardware should be standard and not designed with only Windows / Linux in mind. I'm not sure if any data recovery companies could handle this drive, so back up any important files.