Pros: Nice sleek design. Low overall height. Solid, stable easel-type stand. Hidden touch panel controls. 1360x768 was the resolution I planned on using, so having that as native resolution is best for me. Some of the higher resolutions are just too small of text for my eyes.

Cons: No DVI, HDMI or USB connections - only RGB. I would have preferred silver or two-tone over glossy black for my setup, but it's no big deal.

Overall Review: I needed a monitor that would fit under the hutch on my new desk. I only had 14.5" of clearance and this monitor is only 11.5" tall, unlike most monitors with tall stands. I did need to use a video card because my on board graphics did not support this resolution, but I knew this up front.

Pros: USB3, SATA3, Heat Sinks on VRMs, UEFI Bios (not sure I see a real advantage with UEFI)

Cons: I could not overclock my FX8310 at all with rev 1.0 this board, it could be my CPU or this board. I'm OK running it at stock since it runs pretty cool with a Hyper 212+. Latest BIOS needed for my CPU is a beta one. Windows 10 compatibility? Fan speed control problems.

Overall Review: I originally had this running Win 8.1, but I upgraded to Win 10 -64-bit. My biggest complaint is with the fan control. With all my Gigabyte boards, I personally like using EasyTune 6 for tweaking the CPU fan speed control and looking at the system temperatures, CPU speed and voltages. I tried some other programs like Speed Fan, but didn't like them. I do NOT ever use EasyTune 6 for overclocking and I never will. With all previous Gigabyte boards, there has not been any way to tweak the Sys1 Fan speed - it modulates, but does it's own thing. When on Win 8.1, I was very happy to find a tab in the Smart fan control option and was able to adjust my case fan speed to my liking. Sometimes in Win 8.1 EasyTune 6 would stop working, but the fans would continue to control. Since I upgraded to Win 10, EasyTune 6 caused several "Driver can't release to failure errors" I'd have to click on the error dialog boxes and the program would eventually crash. Now with Win 10, my case fan (4-pin PWM) does not spin at all and I find this very frustrating, since the Sys1 fan control option was finally available. I have other Gigabyte boards running Win 7 and EasyTune 6 works flawlessly, except of course no options for the Sys1 fan control. It's seems to me that Gigabyte is not going to support EasyTune for the 1.0 rev. of the board in Win 10. I installed a newer version of EasyTune for the rev 2. of this board and it was all about overclocking and had no fan control options - I immediately uninstalled it. This may seem like a minor issue to some, but it is turning me off to Gigabyte motherboards as I find it very frustrating because EasyTune is so close to being a useful tool. Personally, I'm becoming more interested in cool and quiet operation these days rather than overclocking.

Pros: I purchased this because it had a lot of decent features for a basic motherboard.

Cons: Purchased from different vendor. I was not able to set up and test this until after the 30 day return period. When I did test it, I found that it had no control over the CPU fan speed based on temperature. After trying several different BIOS versions, different fan control software programs and even a different CPU fan - nothing helped. I RMA'd it back to Gigabyte and they sent me a "repaired" board back. Same basic problem - no decent fan control. The 2nd one actually does have some control, but only about 500 rpm worth (2500-3000) after putting in some goofy values in the EasyTune6 Smart Fan section. Sorry, but this is a basic expectation I have from any motherboard these days. The motherboard will either be too loud from the fan on high or probably allow the CPU to overheat if I try to use the control. Not exactly a good combination for a quiet HTPC.

Overall Review: So after wasting many hours trying to make this work and costing me an additional $11 in RMA shipping - I'm better off just throwing this in the trash. Built many PCs with Gigabyte motherboards, but got burned bad on this one.

Pros: Lots of features, so you may not even need the 4 PCI slots. Cool and Quiet support really reduces noise due to CPU fan. You can also use it to controls the case fan. My case fan comes on at about 30 deg C motherboard temp. Plenty of extra headers for additional USB and Firewire ports.

Cons: The NB runs too hot (even hotter with a PCIe graphics card - go figure!) so I ended up having to add a 40mm x 10mm chipset fan . I put a 150 ohm resitor in series with the fan so it runs at about 2.5k rpm which makes it inaudible but effective. Only one IDE - I'd rather have the 2nd IDE instead of the floppy. SATA light blinks w/o disk activity.

Overall Review: Easily upgraded BIOS to F6 version via floppy. I have two of these boards, one running a stock 5200 X2, and the other runs my 5000 X2 Black Edition at 3.0 Ghz by changing the multiplier. CPUs idle below 30 deg C on AMD stock 4-wire fan w/ heatsink. Both PCs a really quiet.

Pros: Great board with everything you need for a mATX HTPC (HDMI, DVI,Optical SPDIF, Firewire). Cool and Quiet support really reduces noise due to CPU fan.

Cons: The NB runs too hot so I ended up having to add a 40mm chipset fan (which adds some extra noise). I have also had to add NB fans to two GA-M61P-S3 boards as well and it's starting to tick me off. The SB runs warm but seems OK. Only one IDE. Only two PCI slots. Back CPU plate should be metal rather than plastic to avoid warping from CPU heatsink pressure.

Overall Review: Only two PCI slots is not a big con because this board has so much already built in.