Asus Tuf Gaming B560M-Plus Intel Motherboard

Built with an i5 11600, to replace 7 year old i7 4790 with £65 Gigabyte motherboard .... interestingly both those CPU's were £220 .... A similar AMD 5600X system would have been £100 more (cpu & mobo both £50 more) ... and whilst it sounds like you might make that £100 difference back in electricity costs over 5 years if your pc is on ALL the time, I couldnt stretch to that ... but my system is prob 10% - 20% less powerful than AMDThere is as much reason to upgrade a motherboard as a CPU these days, NvME SSD's, DDR4, USB C, Windows 11 etcAMD's integrated gfx on the 5600G are much more powerful than on Intels 11600 .... perhaps twice as ... so consider this if you dont have a gfx card ... Im lucky to have a 5 year old GTX 1080 ... If you do have a graphics card, you could consider an i5 11400F and save £50 - £70 on the CPU, if you are considering a similar build ... i only bought integrated gfx cos I wasnt sure my 1080 was still workingOf course Ive just built this the same week that the 12th gen of Intel CPUs is released, and DDR5 memory became a thing, but it seems it wasnt a stupid decision. DDR5 is double the price and currently makes little difference to games. And the new cpus and motherboards are priced like an AMD 5600X system that I couldnt affordHad zero intention of building with any RGB, was gonna spend £40 on a case .... but I saw this case for £85 on CCL (£100 RRP ... not a Corsair fan ... free delivery if you can wait 4 - 5 days) and couldnt resist ... also wanted front panel USB C, which comes at a premium ... SOO nice to see you can configure RGB to represent your system temperature ... ie green/yellow/red .... and it is real nice to have pretty lights in the room. Silly thing, but its also nice that everything is painted black, there is zero silver metal in sight anywhere, the mobo input shield is black tooAs well as the front panel RGB, there is an RGB light strip running above the cases top width of the glass side panel, which syncs with the mobos small RGB strip and the front panel lighting. Its subtle and I like it a lotThis board is well-reviewed by the IT youtube community, enough power to run a 11700k, (perhaps also a 11900k) without compromise ... by default it runs to Intels power specs ... but can also run optimised to draw and output more power using ASUS's power specsThe only setting you will need to change in the BIOS is the memory speed ... 3200Mhz is the max unoverclocked memory speed for 11th gen i5 ... but it will default to 2133/2400 ... turn XMP on or manually adjust the memory speed26/3/22 ... latest bios ... would not save boot order change to USB first ... not sure if this is a feature or a bugASUS screams quality, and I have no problem with what I paid for it - £145 (a month prior I built my bro an i3 10100F on the ASUS B460M plus wifi, and was so impressed I stuck with ASUS) .... for £40 more there is an MSI option with 3 M2 slots, which I did want ... but I realised you can buy a £13 PCIe card that takes NvME SSD'sAnyone who has ever had to screw in Motherboard standoffs (Hex shaped) with pliers will be pleased to know that a tiny screwdriver converter is included (but not listed in the parts), which makes short work of installing the standoffsHowever, the M2 SSD Standoffs are also hex, and also fit this converter, which I used, and meant i was able to screw in the M2 standoff with more force than they are designed for ... they are tiny and poorly made and the thread sheared off in my motherboard. So be careful!Luckily i could see the sheared thread, still in the threaded hole, on the rear of the mobo, and it came out just by screwing in a replacement standoff (£4 Amazon) ... was careful to make sure the sheared thread was removed so it didn't roam around the PC and short anythingASUS support dont stock ANYTHING and tell you to go to the retailer .... this is a known issue and i feel is poor from ASUS .... Imagine trying to explain to Amazon that you need a replacement screw .... theyd tell you to return the whole mobo and send you a new one ... if you are not gonna stock spares then make sure the parts you supply originally are good ... I imagine this has been a problem for 5 years now.... they dont even include a spare ... 4.8 starsThe case pictured is a Be Quiet 500DX, which I love (top quality dust filters top (a thing of beauty), front, bottom). Everything is designed around hiding cables, to the point when working on the PC later, youll be able to get most things done by taking off the non window side panel ... only improvement i would like is toolless Hard drive and SSD mounting ... but ive put in 3 extra case fans (£4 each - Scan - Arctic 10 year warantee), so now 6 case fans (3x140mm 3 pin included (BQ Pure Wings 2), 3x120mm PWM 4 pin, added to front) ... I have learnt that heat can kill hard drives (4 Seagate failures, zero Western Digital failures), so hopefully these extra fans will resolve the need to work on the drives .... the RGB has gone from Green to Yellow once, for a split second during Outer Worlds gameplay on Ultra settings ... so im very pleased ... the power supply shroud is not removable however, and I recommend installing all fans before even installing the moboSomething I learned today, is that Arctic fans described as 'PST', means that they are daisy-chainable ... so you can buy 3 fans say, daisy chain them together, and then only one of them needs to be plugged into the mobo ... I bought non-PST fans because I didn't know about this, and had to buy a pack of fan extension cables to get them all plugged in ... had I known about this I would have bought PST fans ...I havent seen a new gigabyte mobo up close in 7 years, but this mobo didnt seem to have the typical ASUS markup, and my bro's B460M was £110 (Scan).... I am now an ASUS convert ... you wont regret buying this board ... the VRM heatsinks are very decent, that said the chipset is usually at 40 centrigrade, 10 higher usually than the CPU and system ... i also needed SPDIF on the back, which isnt included on basic mobosOf the 6 sata ports, 2 are on the middle-right edge of the mobo, which are PERFECTLY placed for old sata SSD's, for cable management, and in this case, 2 SSDs can be mounted, in view, just to the right of the mobo, and the mounting panel is another case design highlight. 2 further SSDs can be mounted at the rear of the mobo, and mounting for 2 x 3.5" hard drives is included.Yes my Gigabyte mobo is 7 years old and was the cheapest at £65, but the ASUS software and BIOS is night and day .... still not perfect but getting thereOnly one M2 heatsink included, which is a little cheap .... (£6 Amazon)At the start of the pandemic, my Corsair PSU, £120, HX750i died ... after 5 years, 10 year warantee, My PC is on 18 hours per day, but make of that what you will ... but I sold the warantee replacement on ebay for £150, and on Linus' recommendation bought 2 Seasonic PSU's for the same money ... a 650W (10 yr warantee) and a 520W (7 yr) ... both modular, both gold spec ... so if the 650W fails (Most common PC part to fail is the power supply, if you are a heavy user), I can now just swap in the 520W without any recabling (Seasonic said my cables were interchangeable with my 2 models of PSU), whilst the 650w gets replaced.I worked in an office of 4000 people in IT, until 2006 ... which whilst there, every Compaq/IBM desktop was replaced wth Dell ... the Hardware support team told me hardware failures went up 33% after swapping to Dell ... My £120 Corsair PSU had a comms port so you could read power usage etc ... the port broke just by wiggling the cable ... and then they make you pay the postage to return their faulty item to them ... they charge a premium for rebadged rubbish a lot of the time ... Dell also charge a premium, and the heartache I've had in my lifetime from expensive Dell laptops lasting just past the warantee period, not good economicsFinal tip from someone that has had 3 SSD failures in the last 5 years .... they dont like being full ... its not nice, but leaving 20 - 25% of your SSD unassigned to a drive, may extend its life twice over ... I put 2 x 1TB Western Digital SN550's in my build, which at £65 - £70 each are a bargain ... and up to 4 times quicker than a SATA SSD ... so 24 times quicker than a hard drive ... makes a PC so snappy quick ....The WD SN550s are considered extreme value BUT are PCI 3, and do not I believe include a dram cache, which according to Linus Tech Tips, can make Windows 10 sluggish at times if using an SN550 as a boot drive ... so a nice upgrade at some point will be a PCI 4 NvME SSD with a dram cache (like a Samsung pro) for my boot drive, which will be up to 8 times quicker than a Sata SSD ... a key to me buying this mobo was PCI4 NvME and gfx support ... I will be using this PC for 7 yearsMy drive assignment: Drive 1 - C: 200GB, D: 500GB Drive 2 - E: 700GB .... which leaves almost exactly 25% unassigned on each ... 1TB actually means 932GB of usable formatted spaceI also highly recommend the Arctic e34 esports CPU air cooler (£30, easy install, great reviews and performance) and cheap Arctic fans ... I wouldnt say my system is that quiet, but it hasnt run over 60 centigrade yet ... The cooler also comes with a spare fan mount so a fan can be mounted both sides of this cooler for push pull ... I believe the fan included is a more premium Arctic model .... Did I mention that my 3x120 Arctic fans have a 10 years warantee? ... and costs closer to £10 than £4Unfortunately, the 3 x 140mm included case fans, are 3 pin, NON-PWM, which means they just run at full speed, and so quite loud (900RPM ... ironic from the Be Quiet brand) ... the 3 added fans, that are 4 pin PWM (speed controllable) run at around 300 RPM at low CPU load, and are very quiet .... translucent blades carry the RGB lighting a littleThe 500DX can take 3 x 120 mm fans in the front ... and no gaps, or 2 x 140mm, with a gap ... I went for 120's so that the whole front has intakes keeping especially the Hard Disks coolThe 500DX also has a cableless front panel ... with metal pins connecting the buttons & sockets .... on the rear it has a PCI slot brace to help with heavy PCI card sagAs far as i can work out bluetooth is v5.2, but i cant confirm yet ... have seen 5.1 mentioned on youtubeExtra parts bought: 4 x sata cables (2 included) (£7), with one end being L shaped lockable connectors, 1 NvME SSD cooler (£6), 4 x 4 Pin fan extension cables (£6), Replacement M2 screws (£4)Have small and large Phillips (magnetic if poss) screwdrivers handy, and if buying extra fans, consider rubber fans mounts, cos screwing in the fans can be a pain, even with electric screwdriver ... one downside to this case is that the fan bracket mounts are very flimsyEnjoy the night and day differences between a new and 7 year old mobo ... I did :)

Great USB connectors at the rear. Having touch screen monitor, UPS, silhouette cutter along with mouse/keyboard etc I needed many USB connectors and this has it. Layout of interior connectors such as USB 3 in the expected place, so just a question of unplug old motherboard and put in this one. Able to use M2 SSD slot, original DVD player and old backup discs without issue. Added video card for HDMI output. Old board without load running at 120 watts now running 75 watts with no load. Haven't found anything odd or not working. Very happy

All the ports I needSet it up with a i5-11400F processorRobust and easy to set up

It’s great value motherboard. Offers high speeds , although it does lack some additional M2 ports and fan ports but that’s expected for the price you pay. Bios set up is easy and good. Highly recommend for budget builds.

This is an amazing mother board for a midrange build with enough features. It also looks good and has a military aesthetic.Keep an eye out for deals or refurbished supply to save a few bucks and this is will further add value to this amazing board.