ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus
First of all since audio is important to me, the Realtek audio on this motherboard does have a really nice 10-band equalizer that works on the optical digital output. I attached a screen shot of it because none of the ASUS documentation shows or mentions it.
Overall this was the best motherboard choice I think, for my usage. I wanted the high performance and good quality of an expensive board but without some of the extra stuff that the more expensive boards come with. For instance I don't need four m.2 slots! I mean really. This one has 3. I'm only using one. I have large Seagate Constellation SATA drives for data and backup.
I didn't really want wireless. Hard wire for me.
I wanted to stay away from ASMedia USB controllers, and as near as I can tell the USB controllers on this board are all intel and NVidia, so that's good.
I wanted an intel ethernet controller which this has.
I did want an actual PS2 port for my 20 year old keyboards which are wonderful large keyboards that I will probably use forever. My keyboards are actually AT port, and I have an AT to PS2 extension cable to take them to the PC.
Before buying the board I used Facebook Messenger to get a couple questions answered by ASUS tech support. That took a few days but it worked out ok.
Installed ASUS Ai Suite III from the DVD. Checked temperatures and fan speeds - they are all nice and really low. My Noctua NH-U9S CPU fan is running usually at only ~700 RPM, I can't even hear it with the case open. I'm not overclocking. CPU is an i5-11600k and I don't have any need to overclock it.
| RAM | DDR4 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 5333 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 802.11ax |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
