Pros: Purchased this board because I trust Gigabyte products and it's one of the few X99 boards to use Intel's USB 3.1 chip for true 3.1 speeds on both ports and Thunderbolt 3 support. Most other X99 boards with Thunderbolt compatibility will sell the add-on boards for $80+ later and are rarely sold too. Sure it uses up 4 PCI-E lanes but with a 6800K and one graphics card (nvidia 1060) and an M.2 drive it's not a problem for me.

Cons: Purchased this board on July 20th, 2016 hoping I'll get lucky and receive one with an updated BIOS version that supports Broadwell-E processors. As previously mentioned in the reviews, if your board's serial number begins with 155 it means it was made in 2015 and therefore likely has the older F2 version bios whereas version F22 that came our in January does support it. I suspect Newegg still has a stock of older boards still. Unfortunately with my Intel Broadwell-E 6800K it does not POST so users cannot update the BIOS themselves and the board doesn't support updating the BIOS over usb without a supported processor installed. If you have an older processor you can boot with it, update the BIOS and then swap back your Broadwell-E but I cannot.

Overall Review: Hoping Gigabyte will respond to me for how to proceed. I've requested an RMA number to mail the board to them but it looks like I'll have to pay shipping which it starting to look bad. Will update review to anyone interested in my progress. Update 9/8/16: Paid about $20 to ship board to CA (I'm in NY) and received my board back in hands from Gigabyte in two weeks once they received it - UPS ground return shipping is free at least. You only need to ship the board itself, no accessories. Calling support was very helpful in getting an ETA and its progress. Will build pc now and update if any issues. Update 12/1/16: Works great. Thanks Gigabyte for updating the BIOS. Running 6800K which I was easily able to OC to 4.2Ghz. Their"Gigabyte Apps" with EasyTune is ok. Does a good job - doesn't seem super polished but does what it does. Purchased a PNY Elite X 128GB USB 3.0 drive and the performance on the USB 3 vs 3.1 power is quite a large difference - 50MBs vs 190MBs. I may buy a Type-C to Type-A to get 2 USB 3.1 type A ports since none of my devices have Type C yet. Running Samsung 960 Pro which the BIOS recognized - installed Windows 7 Pro (during install you will need to load the NVMe 2.0 drivers from Samsung for Windows installer to see it however). I'm currently having issues getting the drive to run at Gen 3 however (it's running at Gen 2 x4) but it could be that Samsung's drivers (2.0.0.1607) at the time of this update isn't polished yet. Some say don't OC and it will kick back to Gen 3 but I will update if true. Oh, F23 with the updated EFI/BIOS for me is perfect. Heard lots of complaints of Gigabyte having two screens to see everything but with F23 it's just one now and I can see all settings - from OC to Thunderbolt settings, Fans, etc. Update 2/26/2017 Board has been rock solid with the 6800K and G.Skill 3000Mhz Ram. Able to OC the processor and enable XMP Profile in the BIOS without any issues. The latest UEFI Bios is great, no more badly design interfaces that once plagued Gigabyte boards. It looks very similar to ones from other boards. One issue I did run into was with the Samsung 960 Pro (M.2) as I could not get it to run at Gen 3 speeds using the onboard M.2 slot with my 6800K processor. This is a well known issue that would make it run at Gen 2 speeds (half the speed) but took me by surprise since I am using only 20 of the 6800K's 28 PCIe lanes but read that 40 PCIe lanes processors will run the M2 slot at Gen 3 speeds however. Purchased an Asus HYPER M.2 X4 MINI CARD and it's been great since. There's a big discussion over at overclock net forums about this with the 960 Pro/EVO drives. This board's USB 3.1 is so fast. Even for drives/usb sticks that isn't 3.1. For example, encrypting with TrueCrypt at AES/Whirlpool to an external usb 3.0 drive (Seagate Backup Plus 5TB 7200rpm) is running at a constant 169MB/s for the past few hours. One note, to the constant false reporting by certain reviewers to use Gigabypte's Q-Flash to update the BIOS - you cannot do this as you cannot even post without a supported processor installed. To the anonymous reviewer above who mock users to read the manual - the irony. I wish newegg would allow us to reply to those reviews to stop false information from continuing.

Comments: Ok speeds..I think 6.5MB/s. I use this with my Canon SD300 dig camera which writes fast and gets about 20 seconds of video before having to write - also used with my Treo650 phone. I got this back in Dec of 2004 ($44.50) which had the purple label. This is really made by Toshiba, at least mine is, since the model on the sd card says: SD-M512B1. If I had a choice, I would of gotten the faster speeds 9/MB but there's little desc of writes speeds on newegg. Newegg of course shipped this fast - even during the holiday season!

Pros: I received the external writer today so I will update once I start burning with it's performance and reliability experience. Unlike some bad reviews below the drive was plug and play for me on my Windows 7 Pro (64-bit) computer - which is what it should be. No drivers needed for me. I used my favorite and free burning application: ImgBurn (from imgburn.com) and it recognized it no problem. Highly recommend using this application instead, and VLC for video playback as the included ones are too bloated for what should be simple - burn and playback. I placed a blank Verbatim BD-R (6x) disc inside which is recognized. The USB Y-style cable is neat as it's 1 cable but has both USB plugs for the data and power it needs (the part that plugs into the drive itself is your standard Mini-USB plug). CD included includes the following software: PowerBackup 2.5, CyberLink Power2Go 8, and TurboEngine.

Cons: Very easily scratched, even a quick soft wipe with an undershirt you can see the the ever so light scratches. You see them in the right light close up so it's not something you will notice two feet away on your desk. Wish it was a matte finish but nothing to knock a star/egg for as it's performance and reliability I will update here as we use it.

Overall Review: In order to play retail DVDs and BluRays that are region locked you need to set your drive's region (this is standard one-time setting for any pc dvd/bluray optical drive you install) before you can play DVDs and Bluray. Note, home videos from friends and family aren't region-locked if you're asking. a. Click Start (or Search), type devmgmt.msc and hit enter to open Device Manager (or right-click Computer on your desktop and choose Manage and then click Device Manager) b. Double-click DVD/CD-ROM drives to see your new Asus drive, right-click this drive, and then click Properties. c. On the DVD Region tab, choose United States (or what country you're in or what region-locked your discs are from). I considered Asus USB 3.0 burner which utilizes a desktop optical drive (hence the larger size difference and power requirement) as it was only $15 more but I already had a external dvd burner like this size (these uses laptop optical drives which is why their slim, also usb 2.0 enclosure) and it made it super convenient for me to take it with me - in a bag, or quick setup and go from PC to PC in an IT environment when needed. This device compactness and no need to carry a power adapter for me was worth the main difference - half the burn speed (6x vs 12x). Sure USB 3.0 vs 2.0 a bigger difference, but it's the burn speed you should consider as that's what it all means. We rarely burn Blu-Ray discs and for the times we do we have 50 BD-R discs available that are 6x anyway so burning at 12x wouldn't be possible unless we discarded these. No firmware updates at Asus site so no need to check. Update: 3/18/2017..received $30 rebate after purchasing it on 11/30/2017. Drive has been working out quite well.

Pros: Stunning and beautiful glass case. Even with the lights off (you can unplug the led light's power to the fans) this case is simply clean and elegant looking. With the fan's led light on, the colors make it very cool looking but not over the top. I prefer a steady red and blue personally but having the controls built in over the non-rgb version is convenient to change. Cable management for me is fine, room on the back could be slightly more but it's fine as for me when closing you have push a bit like a slightly overstuffed suitcase. I think it's my thick sleeved wrapped PSU cable to the motherboard. PSU shroud cover make the bottom area clean, I used a newegg gift card to cover the rectangle hole in it as all the wires for me didn't need to use it making for a cleaner look. I have the super large Noctua NH-D15S in the case and it's fits perfectly fine with room to spare even. I took the Noctua metal badge that came it and placed it on the middle fan facing out so it shows through the glass.

Cons: My only con wold be that removing the front dust filter is annoying as you need to remove entire front glass with the four long screws. Wish like the bottom psu dust filter which is super easy to remove you can slide out this front filter from the side or top. That's my only negative and maybe 1/8" extra room on the right side to allow ticker cable but yes I would highly recommend and buy again this case.

Overall Review: The power button also has a white led that slowly fades in and out quite nicely when the computer is on. Without the front glass cover housing, the case is even shorter back to front and because the front filter has a bezel that goes the full height and width of the case, you can technically leave off the front glass enclosure entirely when you want full air intake. Yes, it's that nice. The Corsair Fan LED Hub uses a connector that is also used on optical drives for the audio. It's that 4-pin connector with clip to stay secure. I'm looking to add an RGB LED strip to the inside of the case and connect to this hub directly for less wiring, but also to cycle its colors with the case three fan's color. I can update this review with how it goes if anyone is interested. The hub outputs 5V so I purchased a cheap 5V RGB LED strip and plan to use an old audio wiring to make my own cable. I tested temps of the case and so far with an ambient temp of 68F, adding fans to the top or back did not improve. I think the three front fans is enough for me so far with the air flow it creates.

Pros: Enabling XMP in the Gigabyte's GA-X99P-SLI motherboard worked with any issue. Simply enabled the profile and was running at 3000. Easy for someone who doesn't want to spending time overclocking and just want to get a reliable speed boost and exit. I was able to OC up to 3080 but it wasn't as stable so simply kept it at 3000 and adjusted the timing to 14 for its cas instead.

Cons: None. Prices of RAM since Sept 2016 has risen unfortunately quite a bit.

Overall Review: Heatsinks so far must be working as to the touch their perfectly fine. The two that are in the slots directly in the path of my front fans are even cold to the touch given the metal heatsinks.

Pros: Working in my Intel's NUC D34010WYK running Ubuntu for about a month now. For the price, the specs at the time of purchase was the fastest speeds 9-9-9-28 as opposed to others which are 11-11-11-28 (remember, lower is better for those not sure what these numbers mean).

Cons: None.