ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 (WiFi 6) LGA 1200(Intel 10th Gen) EATX Gaming Motherboard (16 Power Stages, 10 G & Intel 2.5G LAN, Fan Extension Card & ThunderboltEX 3-TR Card, 2” Livedash OLED)

I have to qualify my review as being based on very limited experience with this board, but I was quite impressed with the board overall. I first ordered this king Asus Z490 motherboards but after delivery noticed that there was no ability to utilize on-board integrated graphics from the CPU (which I desire to use). So back it went. I have to say that the board is just amazing based on my hands-on-only. It feels like it is filled with copper or lead! I wish I could have used this board with the 10gbps NIC and Thunderbolt interface, but that will have to wait. I will note that a competitor to this Asus board (there are 3 in the arena) does plumb/inject the display port output to the Thunderport port - I wish Asus had an option for this on this Extreme board. I had to run out to the local blue and yellow store and buy an Asus Strix to allow me to continue with my build. The Strix seems to be one of the best mid-level boards for more users with more needs (better I/O options, overclocking, etc.). I write software and needs lots of striped M.2 performance and some mild but stable OC. If you need/want use integrated graphics (i.e. 10900K) and not discrete video cards, because you want a semi-workstation-level machine for productivity, then the Asus Strix is probably the best all around board to get. No board, from any vendor seems to provide a HDMI/DP video ports, 10gbps NIC port AND Thunderbolt port on the rear I/O panel - this would be great for power users that are not using discrete video cards. Maybe this will appear with Z590+ boards - I hope so.

My motherboard install went excellent, I had a super tower case I installed this into, the Cooler Master Cosmos c700p, definitely a monster. The motherboard setup was excellent and fit all my components. Now I didn’t not have any of the failures any of the other reviewers were talking about but I did have an issue. A semi serious one but it was fixed. I have always built my Asus Boards with Gskill ram. Always so I decided to go 128GB at 3600mhz. Now the 128Gb kit was not on the QVL, so I initially had issues under load when games would crash to desktop. Pc wouldn’t lock up just the games would randomly crash. If I removed the XMP profile it worked fine. But leaving all that speed on the table didn’t sit well with me. I eventually did the latest BIOS update to I believe 801, or 901 and now with the standard XMP profile everything works as it should. It was annoying spending over 4-5K and have a non working machine but now it’s all good.

Note: This is an EATX form factor. It is a large MB that requires a large case. As other reviewers have stated, this board stands alone for tweaking...amazing voltage control, great bio, looks stunning as well. This board also has great heat dissipation. There are thick heat spreaders everywhere. It is also very heavy and will support a large GPU and cooler with no problem. They jam pack the box with every thing you could possibly need for this build. This is a high end board for people that have the money, time and expertise. It comes AI OC'd out of the box. You may need to turn of some of the stock settings for a more stable system. One, odd complaint that I have is the lack of internal USB 2.0 connectors. I needed five to finish my rig so I had to purchase an internal expander. Just weird that they give you way more than you need (including a thunderbolt card and a fan extender card) but not a USB expansion card. I read that some people were having an A2 error, I encountered this as well. Clear your Cmos, if the problem persists use a different bios rev. Sometimes a driver can cause this as well. I really have no major complaints with this board and I highly recommend it for high end builds. Oh, one last thing for Asus...I wish that the error code display could change colors. But again, a very minor thing.

Straight outta the box, this board is massive. However, it's also (basically) one giant heat sync. Temperatures are incredible. I was a little concerned about the PCIe slot being between the CPU and GPU, but stress tests with both of those components OC'd (5.1 and 2.1 respectively), it doesn't raise the temps any higher than idle temps. The back plate is lighted, which makes things very convenient if you ever fiddle around back there in the dark. Both the QLED and Display are easy to read and show error codes/actual problem (i.e., HDD error, rather than 'just' a two digit code). The rest of the RGB features on the board are great, too. Hands down one of the best looking motherboards on the market. If you're OC'ing with this board, you're going to want to do everything manually. If you set things to auto/adaptive and let XMP do its thing, you're going to see voltages at 1.54 and higher. Would not recommend letting it make its own decisions, it's like a 10yr old in a LEGO store...gonna want a bit of everything. However, doing things manually is a breeze. I'm very fond of this BIOS. In light of that, I 'did' have stable overclocks letting the board do its thing. It ran really hot (over 100C, even with a 360mm AIO), but it was stable. Dropping voltage to 1.46 resulted in spikes no higher than 90C, average in the low 80s. I'll continue to work with it, but that's more a discussion for the CPU (I've also reviewed the i7-10700K if you care). The board layout is fantastic with one exception. All headers/plugins are on the border (I came from a board in which that was not the case), all labeled and easy to read, a TON of fan slots, with the one exception...if you're liquid cooled and you have an AIO that REQUIRES you to plug into the AIO slot, it 'is' at the very bottom of the board, and the three separate AIOs I've owned were not long enough to reach. If you can plug into a CPU slot, you're fine. There are several to choose from within reach. Just keep it in mind if your cooler isn't capable of that. The board comes with a DIMM2 extension, giving you the possibility of sticking your PCIe drives in eternal slots rather than tucked under heat shielding. It also comes with the latest and greatest Thunderbolt hookup, if that's something that tickles your fancy. I'm yet to try the WiFi antenna as I prefer wired, but I've heard it's nothing to write home about. It works. If you have the money to drop on it, do it. You won't be disappointed in the least bit. There isn't an Intel board I'd recommend more.

I bought my first edition of this board, had everything installed nicely, started it up and it began my nightmare, "A2" error. Called ASUS tech support and spoke to a wonderful Indian gentleman who informed me that the motherboard must be defective, and they would be happy to RMA it and fix it and give it back or replace it entirely. As I was under Amazon's wonderful warranty program, I replaced it for a new board. I set it up, and, again, the "A2" error on the second board. At this time, I gave it to a local tech shop and they, too, could not figure out WTF was wrong with the setup. Returned the second board, as well as the CPU, Memory (which is on the QVL), and the M2 (which is also on the QVL). Got entirely different CPU, same memory, same M2. Installed everything a 3rd time. GUESS WHAT? A2 Error. I am beyond frustrated at this point, and this will be the last PC I ever build (after 20+ years of building them, I've had enough). Just got off the phone with another wonderful Indian gentleman who informed me there are no American tech support agents, because I couldn't understand WTF he was saying 9 times out of 10 -- just what you want to hear when you spend OVER SEVEN HUNDRED EFFIN DOLLARS ON A EFFIN MOTHERBOARD. This is the last ASUS product I ever buy. I can't wait til Corsair starts making high end motherboards and wipes the floor with these losers. Horrible product, horrible experience, NEVER BUY ASUS.

Love the ASUS ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 (WiFi 6) LGA 1200(Intel 10th Gen) EATX Gaming Motherboard ,No complaints so far. One thing I should say though is that it does not fit the NZXT H710i Case unfortunately,I thought it would but I had to buy a new case I really like my NZXT case but the MB was too big :(

It's an ASUS board and it just works. Overclocks so easy. Only Issue I see now is that Asus didn't add a TPM header like my Maximus X code so I might not be able to get windows 11 if Microsoft is set on forcing our hardware to have TPM support. Uh oh....

Box arrived a bit damaged but i wanted to take my chances. Packaging was a bit loose.. Seemed like some screws were missing as well. i paired this with a 10900k, evga 2080ti ultra ftw3 hybrid was stuck on a boot loop initially and was not posting.. i was only able to get it to post when unplugging my mouse, keyboard, network adapter etc.. at first.. with a 1200w EVGA P2 PSU.. and unplugging all other sata drives/devices changed to a Corsair RM750x to test if it would work.. and it did except I couldn't use the thunderbolt expansion that came with this card.. so i changed to a 1000w rmx psu.. still unable to use the thunderbolt expansion but can run my other drives.. but now, in addition to the issues mentioned, each boot.. something would power off or not be detected. i was probably unlucky though.