i bought this board when it first came out at the retail price. at first i was skeptic at the purchase since i have been a hardcore DFI user for a long time. the bios in this asus motherboard gave me some fear since i have never used it before. when i recieved this board and got everything plugged in, i was pretty darn surprise at how the board performed. everything was done to precision. the board had LCD readouts to tell you if anything is wrong during boot. it also has easy quick access buttons that you can press to clear cmos, restart the computer, and even shutdown. also the board has lights that you can turn on while plugging in cables which makes it easier and simply adds additional eye candy that other boards don't. overall the board is really stable and really nice. be sure to update the bios and drivers when you get the board to get optimize performance