ASUS Z87-A LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: My knowledge of the intricacies of motherboard technology is lower than the rest of my tech knowledge, so I'll mainly be focused on installation.

Well placed SATA ports. I was able to plug into all 6 even though I was stupid and first plugged in my long video cards that hung over them. And they're within reach of pretty much any device that needs to plug into one. My old motherboards sometimes had the SATA ports way down at the bottom of the board and the cables provided didn't always reach up to the optical drives. Pretty much all the ports are placed well. Some MoBos just have them in the worst spots.

Nice harness for the case wires. I didn't use whatever USB harness they included, but someone might.

Great BIOS. I haven't gone into the Overclocking options yet, but I've looked into just about everything else and it's good-looking and simple.

The board had no problems with Windows 8. Installing the RAID drivers from ASUS's website is easier than from the disk, though. The disk just points you to the .inf file, and installing drivers that way annoys me. Especially in Win8.

Cons: The port faceplate for the case is one of the more troublesome ones I've had. A lot of bendy parts that got in the way of lining up the mobo. But it only added around 45 seconds to putting my rig together.

The main power port is a bit awkward to reach if you have a big heatsink already attached.

That's about it.

Overall Review: I have never failed to scratch up my hands on the bottom of a motherboard during installation. Maybe instead of sharp things down there, it should be cotton candy or a fleece throw.

Pros: GUI BIOS interface

Cons: Board purchased in February 2014.

The first board purchased kept blue screening in the middle of Windows install. Returned it the following day and received a new one from the store. The moment I completed installing all the components and pressed the 'On' button, nothing appeared on screen and no beep was heard. I pressed the reset button and nothing happened. I then flipped off the power supply, flipped it back on and attempted once more; it booted with an OC failure message. It was strange as I never OC'd anything to begin with let alone it was a fresh install. At this point I should've known to return the board and try a different brand but my friend swore by ASUS to be awesome boards so I overlooked this message and continued with Windows install.

After about a week, the same boot fail and OC error message kept appearing. Going into sleep mode was not possible with the system as it would not wake up at all. The boot process was a pain with an 80% chance the system would not boot and I would have to flip off/on the power supply in order to get the system to boot “properly”. This was a nuisance to do on a DAILY BASIS.

Contacted ASUS support, followed their suggestions (clear CMOS, update BIOS and drivers) nothing worked so the board was RMA'd, inspected and assured the issue was resolved. Received the board and less than a week the symptoms returned. Once again, I contacted support and this time they did an advanced RMA. (sending me a replacement board first, then sending out the faulty board) At this point I was sure the problem would be resolved but sadly it did not. Only difference now is I can use sleep mode. The boot reliability is 50% chance of successful boot without the OC error message from both sleep mode and POST boot.

At this point (Oct. 25, 2014) I've dealt with three boards, two RMA's and going on the third RMA now. But this was not the tipping point. Last month, a new BIOS update was released (VER. 2103) and I've done several of them hoping it would resolve my OC error message but instead it made things worse. After installing BIOS update 2103, for the first time the DRAM LED light came on. At first I though I had finally concrete evidence the two sticks of RAM (Corsair) were the issue. I removed one stick and it booted properly. Before assuming I had bad RAM or RAM slots I tried the other stick by itself, it booted up. I then placed both sticks on the other dual channel slots, DRAM light came on. I then proceeded to purchase Patriot RAM. I installed both sticks and to my surprise, the DRAM light still came on. After repeating the single RAM troubleshooting steps I did earlier, it turns out the mobo ONLY allows me to use one stick of DDR3 4GB RAM. In other words, the ASUS BIOS update did more harm than good.

Continuing on, "Other thoughts" section below if you're still reading. Yeah, I've hit my text cap on this section.

Overall Review: The last time I spoke with support and mentioned these issues the following troubleshooting steps were suggested; use a mechanical drive and install Windows and see if OC issue is resolved. Explanation for this was that there could be a driver that did not install properly the first time. As for resolving the RAM issue, flash bios to older version. Needless to say, both steps did not work to resolve any issues.

Now I've asked for either an upgraded board or a refund as their product has failed me miserably. I wanted to escalate the issue higher and was given a link to where it "would" be sent to a higher authority, but I just got the run around. No upgrade or refund from them. Best they could offer was another advanced RMA.

After reading other reviews on ASUS Z87 boards, seems like I'm not the only one with the OC failure issue. Sending this board back in and purchasing another brand.

I'm personally done with ASUS and if others ask me about it, I'll suggest them, but with a warning.