Gigabyte X299 DESIGNARE EX

This is a first for me. I got this board over an ASUS one after it was recommend for better stability. After approximately 3 weeks, suddenly problems. I had new RAM of the same type on hand, tried that, no that was not it. So I called the, they seemed very sympathetic, the man even admitted that a certain type of electrical failing had been common on these boards. They had it for 2 weeks, NEVER let me know there was an issue of any sort. I finally got it, opened box a few days ago: "WE ARE NOT FIXING IT BECAUSE WE HAVE DETERMINED THE DAMAGE IS PSYCHICAL AND HENCE NOT COVERED." How, exactly, could the damage be "physical" when the board was sitting on my desk inside my home office behind a locked door? Moreover, IF that was their determination, why not send me a notice and at least give me the option of a repair and letting me know how much it would be? Nope. Sent it back, still broken, with no effort at fixing, expelling to me that I HAD BROKEN IT (!!!!) through external damage. amazing. Avoid this company like the plague, nothing good EVER comes from these people.

This board is really well-made. And it works great (although ASRock Taichi XE X299 that I finally decided to keep shows slightly better PC Mark score, especially, in RAM department). But unless you absolutely need to connect Thunderbolt monitors (that only Apple makes, as far as I know) and other Thunderbolt devices to it, there is no point in buying it. I paid $120 less for my ASRock Taichi XE X299.The first Designare that I ordered came with 2 bent and one twisted LGA socket pins, which resulted in two (out of 8) DDR4 slots not working. I RMA'd the board, but before the replacement arrived, I put in the ASRock Taichi XE X299 motherboard and installed and upgraded Windows and installed all drivers, which took me several hours. And since I got slightly better performance with the ASRock board that cost $120 less, I decided to keep that board.

The media could not be loaded. It took more patience to get the setting just right than I'm accustomed to but when finished you end up with a powerhouse tgat's ready for anything with room for expansion!

Put my new system together with this motherboard and I am really impressed with it. I would highly recommend this motherboard to others. Easy install, no problems at all.

Had to go with this motherboard since I can't replace my x299 aorus gaming 9 that is malfunctioning due to my hard tubing meltdown and water spill all over the board (long story).So far so good with this one very stable.