Pros: Hardware wise this is a fantastic board for gaming. The right combination of features for my needs. The dual M.2 sockets I will take advantage of maybe next year when there are more suppliers of M.2 SSDs to choose from. For now I am running two Samsung 256G SSDs in RAID 0 which is plenty fast enough.

Cons: The sound system is not as good as I expected and I have gone back to my tried and true ASUS EssenceSTXII Sound Card. The on-board audio is slightly harsher on music and the frequency balance is biased to the ends of the spectrum. But I think in-game this would not matter much. Strangely the motherboard would not restart from either the OS or the BIOS screen with this sound card in a PCI X1 slot initially. It is not driver related but seems to be related to the board itself. I can live with this problem to be able to use this sound card. I just have to select shut down in the OS and restart with the power button. If you choose to update the BIOS, I recommend using the USB flash drive method which worked well. I have serious trouble using the MSI app in Win 10 and was forced to wipe the drives and reinstall everything again. Also I think it is time MSI gets with the times and supplies the drivers and utilities on a USB key. I downloaded them from the MSI site and installed them from a USB key which went smoothly. My case design requires a slim slot loading drive which I decided to do without. Finally there is some very slight instability in the CPU clock rate due to the bus frequency varying slightly. This could be related to the CPU or it could be normal: I don't know. So far it is not evident in any application.

Overall Review: I used an enclosure without a window but still this is one nice looking board.

Pros: none

Cons: Sounds great as long as the mike is 1/2" from your mouth. Useless as a lapel mike. Requires high gain input but has poor omnidirectional performance. If gain is high enough, it will pick up major ambient noise. On/off switch mentioned in the online description and the written instructions not present on the unit. Took a prodding email to the supplier after waiting a week to get them to sent it to me. Certainly not what I am used to from a company associated with Newegg.

Pros: I put this in my new build Silverstone Fortress FT-05 case. The small size made cable routing a breeze around the PS. The included flat cables made cable routing through the case easy.

Cons: After a year, the computer started to crash to black and restart irregularly. Sometimes after playing for ten minutes, sometimes after an hour. Occasionally it would crash right after start up. I spent six weeks sending parts like the MB in to be checked as I did not think the PS could go bad. Finally I swapped out the PS for a known good one and the crashing stopped. My best guess is that while under full load, something in the PS went bad causing the voltage to waver or fail. Then the MB crashed. This is the first trouble I have had with a Silverstone product, but I will be wary in the future of their PS products. This is supposed to be a Gold standard product!

Overall Review: While rated at 750W, be aware this PS has only two PCI 8-pin connectors. I used this PS as my OCed 980 Ti graphics card can draw 425W at full bore. This PS has lots of spare capacity, but it is not intended for SLI use I think.

Pros: Due to space limitations in my Silverstone Fortress FT-05 case, I used this cooler in single fan mode. So far I have not seen the CPU temp get above 35C. Fantastically effective. Excellent built quality, packaging and accessory inclusion.

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: While not a negative, this cooler is big. it fit in the Fortress case with 1 millimeter to spare in height.

Pros: Well built, quiet and runs cool. Others have mentioned cable routing troubles but I didn't have any issues. I skipped using a CD/DVD drive which frees up some space behind the MB for cables. Maybe not a case for the first time builder, but with some thoughtful planning there should not be any issues. This case is clearly designed with air cooling for the CPU in mind. I used a Noctua NH-D15 which fits in with one millimeter to spare in the single fan mode. To be on the safe side I added a 120mm PWM case fan directly above the CPU cooler. In hindsight, this was not needed as the case cooling is excellent.

Cons: The large case fans on the bottom are three pin connection and have switches to control the speed. Motherboards with full PWM fan control have been common for many years now. I would have preferred forgoing the control switches and letting the MB control the fans directly. That said, I have found leaving the fan controls in the middle position is both quiet enough and does the cooling fine. One thing in my opinion could have been done better. The front of the case indicates power on with a bright white illuminated Silverstone logo. The red HD activity indication light is in the same position. The red LED is quite feeble and you cannot see it flickering through the powerful white light. Even with the white light disabled, the red HD light is barely visible. Getting the LED bulb out and replacing it with a stronger LED would be a major operation, requiring almost completely disassembling the case. So I will just live with it.

Overall Review: I used an OCed 980Ti GPU which vents into the case. This draws over 400W in full bore but the internal case temperature never gets above 35C. Again, an excellent cooling design!

Pros: On a 2560X1440 monitor with G-Sync running games maxed out the GPU temp never gets above 65C. This means the fans are not even starting! I am getting over 90 FPS on Arma 3 which is more then enough. I have not felt the need to use the OC ability but it is nice to know it is there for a future 4K or multi-display setup. Built like a tank and very nice looking if you have a case with a window.

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: Be aware this is one big card! I was worried getting it in to my Silverstone Fortress FT-05B case. It fit but with less then a 1/4" space length wise to spare.