ASUS TUF Z270 Mark 2 LGA1151 DDR4 HDMI DVI M.2 USB 3.1 Z270 ATX Motherboard

Great motherboard. I am running this board with an i5-7600k and 16gb of ram.Pros:- It's a new board, z270- Looks amazing- BIOS/UEFI is SUPER SIMPLE to navigate- The fan connections are in good spots as is the m.2 slots- It is a great board at an even better priceCons:- I saw other people had this same issue... the board does not line up properly with my mid tower case. I have a Corsair 460X and the screw down spots on the middle and top right are left without being secure. For this reason, the RAM and 24-pin connector had me nervous because of the pressure and bend they caused to install- Not really a con, but it took me a while to figure out what the breathing orange light in the back of the board behind the PCI-e lanes was... for those curious or buying: In the BIOS, it is actually a setting and can be turned off or left solid. I never saw anything on the box, amazon or the booklet that mentioned this light. Maybe I missed it but at the end of the day, its a neat feature.- I don't know what the "CPU installation tool" is exactly, you don't need it to install the CPU and it just felt flimsy so I didn't use it. The CPU seats just fine on the MOBO without it.

Great motherboard. I wanted the Z270 chipset, multiple M.2 slots, the ability to run SLI in the future if I desire, and high reliability - that's all here! The primary graphics card slot is reinforced, similar to other recent ASUS motherboards. Doesn't have a lot of flashy lights (just around the audio circuitry), very easy to work with bios, supports pretty much any speed DDR4 memory and has 4 memory slots. Even came with an SLI bridge and CPU installation tool. The utilities that come from ASUS are nice and unobtrusive - they provide a good interface for the cooling features of the system. Overall it's a great board! I am running it with an i7-7700 processor and 16GB of DDR4-3000 memory and it's very fast!

I can't speak for others here, but IMO this board works as it should and I have had no trouble whatsoever with the BIOS or anything. If, like me, it's been a while since your last build, when you start to assemble it make sure you HEAR both sides of the memory click into place (I have heard there have been cases where people RMA their board when all it was is they didn't install the RAM all the way). I would recommend installing the memory, the CPU (with the provided CPU install tool), and the mounting bracket for the CPU fan BEFORE you put the board in your case.My rig:Asus Tuf z270 Mark 1Intel 7700KNoctua NH-D15S with NT-H1 Thermal Compound ( Follow instruction: it's easy to put too much and the CPU has a small footprint. I found it easier to turn the tube end facing me so I could see exactly how much came out.)GPU: MSI 1070 Gaming XRAM: Gskill F4-3200C16D-16GTZHaf X caseMy not overclocked CPU Temperatures range from 28c to 44c (heavy gaming MAX settings.)I went from a 2500K with dual 6850 graphics cards to this. No doubt that others may have rigs that blow mine away. That's ok. My goal was to build something very quiet and that will hopefully last since I don't have the resources to upgrade every two years.

This board's name says it all, 'TUF'. I don't think I will ever have another mobo without a nice backing plate to it. The board just feels like great quality and value. The aura in it is great and looks really good too. The board comes with dust covers to cover your PCI-e and PCI slots you're not using which is pretty cool. There are about 10 fan headers on this board to allow you to enough airflow to cool your machine down if you go that route. All in all, I really like the bios and features this board has. Z270 chipset is great and so far so good with this board.

I relied on Asus motherboard before 2009. That motherboard I bought in 2009 lasted me 4 yrs despite running it 24x7.Bought a Z87 Pro onsale on 2013 that mother was POS, gave me a headache to no end. Finally gave out on me this march 2017 despite running it 30% less than the last motherboard.Installing this one was a bit a of a challenge because of first time installing Corsair Hydro Series H100i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler, Black. I use my last casing and the fit is a bit tight. I forgot to install the 8-pin power, it was a bit of a hindrance. It was located on top of the motherboard and hidden under the Liquid CPU Cooler condenser. Also the memory ram will be a challenge to remove/upgrade because of the condenser again. Once the computer finally booted I hit a snag with VMWare. I had to enable the Virtualization Technology in the BIOS.It runs faster than the z87 running RIMWORLD. (This is not a benchmark test).The free OpenHardwareMonitor beta 0.80 does not recognize any sensor on the motherboard but the CPUID HWMonitor does. So far the CPU package hit an upper limit of 140 fahrenheit.The data transfer between 7200 rpm SATA 6gb/s max out around 170MB/s once the chipset was installed. It can sustain a steady 120 to 130 MB/s. (This is not a benchmark test).This motherboard puts the Asus brand off my POS list.2018 Nov 20:updated rating to 1 star from previous 4 star.Still having issue with this motherboard and I will most likely buy another motherboard brand after a couple of decades.