Pros: No surprises with installing CPU, memory, SATA drives, CPU cooler, or NVMe drive. It was more of a challenge to route cables! I had no issues with the BIOS Flashback feature. Note that the manual explicitly states that the USB flash drive must be FAT32 format, which means that the USB drive must be 16GB or smaller - I tried, and could not, format a 32GB drive using FAT32. I could not flash until my 16GB USB drive was formatted to FAT32. This was the only issue I had. BIOS options appear to be no better or worse than any of AsRock's competitors. I've now built 3 computers in the past year - 2 AM4 and this one - using AMI BIOS, and the biggest differences seem to be screen colors used.

Cons: Not an ASRock problem, yet something to be aware of if you are upgrading an older system: the X670E Taichi motherboard is an eATX motherboard. It is slightly larger than an ATX motherboard when measured from the "back" ports to the "front" power supply connection. It may not fit into a case that will comfortably fit an ATX motherboard - I ended up with a new case for this build. The Dr. Debug codes aren't very helpful to the average computer user. They're listed in a two-column table in the manual, with the 4-digit hex codes (remove the 0x, only the last two digits are shown on the LED readout) on the left, and an acronym that is difficult to figure out on the right. On first boot-up, I got d6 and d7 codes. They are listed as DXE_NO_CON_OUT and DXE_NO_CON_IN. Oh...NO CONSOLE OUT and NO CONSOLE IN. Terms I'd expect from a DEC minicomputer. Can't they just say "no monitor" and "no keyboard" instead? (Yes, my first boot was without keyboard, mouse, or monitor.)

Overall Review: System Specs: - Ryzen 9 7900X - Corsair DDR5 16GB x 2 - Crucial 2TB NVMe 4.0x4 SSD - Older Hitachi 3.5" SATA 1Tb HDD - Corsair H110i cooler - Corsair 5000D tower case - Segotep modular power supply I stopped buying name-brand PCs and have built my own for more than 15 years. I have used another manufacturer's motherboards for many years. The computer I built is a Linux workstation used for Linux games and ham radio activities such as antenna modeling. Fast video isn't as high a priority as compute power is. Some reviews have complained about the AM5 installation process. It is no more difficult than any current Intel processor. Just get Pin 1 in the correct orientation! Once I had BIOS settings completed, I was able to boot Fedora 37 (insecure boot) from my 1TB HDD, and everything was up and running immediately. No OS updates, no new drivers. WiFi, Bluetooth, video, USB ports...all working. I don't use wired Ethernet or sound, so I have no comments about those features. Secure booting was a bit more of a challenge. It took a while to find the right BIOS settings to enable Secure Boot mode. I've seen complaints about long boot (or memory check) times. I've noticed that newer generations of computers take longer to get through Power-On Self Test (POST). This system does not take significantly longer than the two AM4 machines that I built in the past year. Overall, I'm happy with the result. Software compiling and numerical calculations take far less time on my new system.

Pros: Works well with Windows 10. nVidia driver installs automatically through Windows Update and no further driver updates are _needed_ Full-featured nVidia driver (including additional features) can be downloaded from nVidia or Asus.

Cons: DOES NOT work with Linux 5.5.x kernels (Ubuntu 22.04, Mint 20.3)

Overall Review: Works great under Windows 10 for what I'm doing - mostly involving paint/draw programs and watching videos. I cannot comment on how it would perform for gaming, as I do very little gaming on Windows nowadays. AVOID this card if you use Linux. There are a lot of threads on a lot of different sites (including the Linux Mint forum) indicating that the low-end GT730 chip does not work correctly on Linux. One that I found indicated that the drivers fail with kernel 5.5.x and higher - which, unfortunately, is the only kernel series supported by Ubuntu 22.04 and Mint 19.03, and down-grading the kernel is beyond my expertise. While the card currently works with Fedora 36 - which is still using the 5.4.x series kernels - I think it is a matter of time before Fedora moves to the 5.5.x kernels. Just my opinion, I have far more experience with Ubuntu and Mint and I am now learning Fedora as it's the only Linux I could get to work with this video card.

Pros: Reasonably-priced 2.5 inch SSD drive. Works well with Windows formats (NTFS, exFAT) Reasonable read-write speeds over USB3 No compatibility problems using this drive in an external USB3 enclosure

Cons: Failed with native Linux filesystem formats when set up as 2x 1TB partitions. Partition 1 was set to NTFS (Win 10/Win 11), partition 2 was set to EXT4 (Linux), and the drive ALWAYS errored out when trying to write to the EXT4 partition.

Overall Review: I purchased this drive to use in an external USB3 enclosure for backing up data a dual-boot (Windows 11 / Fedora 41) gaming laptop. This is not the first external SSD that I've built for this purpose. Installation was very simple and the drive was running quickly. NOTE: do not boot an operating system with an unformatted drive of any type plugged into a USB port; the operating system will likely NOT detect the drive. When the un-formatted drive was hot-plugged into a USB port, it was recognized by both Windows 11 and Linux operating systems. Using Windows' drive partitioning tools, I partitioned the drive into 2x 1TB drives and formatted the first partition with the NTFS file system. (I did not do a Windows backup at this time, though I did complete one later without issue.) I rebooted to Linux and formatted the second 1TB partition to use the EXT4 journaling file system using Linux' disk tools. I then attempted to back up data from the Linux system. Backups FAILED to the EXT4 partition on 4 different attempts. An attempt to benchmark the drive resulted in a hung system. On rebooting into Linux, the hardware logfiles revealed many HUNDREDS of write error messages (mostly time-outs). I converted the EXT4 partition and re-created it using the exFAT file format - a Windows format that is typically used with large (over 16GB size) USB flash drives. After that, the drive worked flawlessly for Linux backups. MINUS 1 EGG: The issue with Linux filesystems is particularly surprising, as all modern OSes using secure boot (including Windows 10, Windows 11, and Linux) will have at least two partitions on the bootable drive that are formatted differently. This is BY DESIGN. I'd be concerned about using the BX500 drive for a Linux-only or dual boot Windows 11 / Linux machine - particularly when Crucial's M.2 product line isn't exhibiting that kind of issue (the computer I'm writing this on is a Linux-only machine with an M.2 SSD). I made no attempt to use the Acronis TrueImage tool. I'm well aware of its issues and limitations. I did use Crucial's Storage Executive tool (Windows-only) to check for firmware updates. I can't use most of the other features with this drive, and will likely remove the tool from my computer.

Cons: It's a good thing this was a "free" device - it never worked in 4 different computers and devices. My first use was to attempt to format it for use with a dual-boot Windows 11/Fedora 39 system, and neither Windows nor Fedora tools could format the drive. It shows up when plugged into a USB port and that's it - can't write to it, can't read from it.

Overall Review: Avoid if at all possible.

Pros: Works with most systems and setups: laptop, desktop, USB3 enclosure

Cons: Some installations may require BIOS tweaks for best compatibility Current "bundled" Acronis software isn't a flawless cloning solution

Overall Review: This is the second Micron MX500 series SSD that I have purchased. Both replaced 2.5" hard disks in two different Toshiba laptops. With both of my Toshiba laptops, the data transfer speed was TOO FAST for the system to keep up with, as evidenced by constant blue screens of death (BSOD) crashes. Since the OS would boot up, but crashes occurred at random, I deduced - correctly - that the system hardware could not keep up with how quickly data was transferred from the drive. On both machines, I found BIOS adjustments that slowed down the data transfer, and eliminated all further BSOD crashes. I retired the laptops in 2022 and moved this drive to a USB enclosure. I do have one external USB3 enclosure that does not work with this drive, and it's clear that the USB-to-SATA interface on that enclosure is the problem, because the drive won't complete a backup in the "questionable" enclosure yet works flawlessly in the "good" enclosure. I temporarily installed the drive in a desktop computer to move files (shortly after retiring my laptop) and the drive also worked flawlessly, however, that was a short-term installation. One feature I've learned to appreciate is Micron's on-board error recovery. I accidentally unplugged the USB cable while backing up data, and thought I'd lose data from the SSD, as I kept getting read errors. Per Micron's tech support documents, I kept the drive on overnight, and was able to recover files the next morning. The only downside to this drive bundle is the Acronis software. An old version (circa 2017) works well for any drive partiton types and can be written to a CD or bootable USB drive. The newer version must be run from Windows, thus, it does NOT work with any partition types other than those supported by Windows (exFAT, NTFS). My laptop was a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine, and this was a show-stopper! I ended up using Clonezilla, which is a Linux-based cloning application.

Pros: Plug in only the cables you need to reduce the size of the wiring bundle that needs to be routed.

Cons: Cable routing is slightly more difficult, because the cables fan out across the face of the supply. Could be an issue in some computer cases.

Overall Review: Products need to deliver well to get 5 eggs from me. This power supply deserves the rating! 5 eggs is eggcelent, not perfect. There is so much flexibility with this power supply. Cables are included for every connection I've seen over the last decade. Legacy 4-pin drive power. PCIe expansion card power in 4- and 6-pin configurations. Motherboard connections that handle everything from legacy (10-year-old) to modern boards. I have extra (unused) cables that sit in a box in my desk, rather than hang inside the computer case. A trade-off with this modular design is that computer case designs may make cable routing a challenge. My current EATX case has a sheet metal cage, at the bottom, that forces cables to route past the front of the motherboard before routing up and to the motherboard. One of the 8-pin motherboard supply cables in my system came up about an inch short. I had to get a little creative with my routing and found a non-standard path. I checked a more traditional design and didn't have the length issue...but that supply did not have enough SATA drive power connections to be usable. I'm not building a server or monster computer, so there may be builds that this power supply can't support...that's not likely to be true for most users. It delivers - and deserves 5 eggs.