GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Xtreme

UPDATE: This board now has a failing USB chip, and it locks up the desktop on Linux occasionally, when you least expect it. There is a way to block the kernel from trying to use that chip/USB, but I will have to deal with this at another time. Considering the cost of this motherboard, I will not be buying Gigabyte motherboards anymore if I can help it. To be fair, I have had some use out of this brand however for a while. But, it's time to find another brand. All I want (and maybe others?) is for stuff to work as advertised. Once a product does this, I (and others?) will be happy to buy it, even if it costs a bit more. In my experience, you get what you pay for.....sometimes. This boards seems pretty decent. Using Linux. Hardware and performance... AM5 socket, DDR5, support for PCIE 5.0 card and two PCIE 5 nvme SSD drives (sticks) - supported by CPU. Other slots are PCIE 4/3. One slot is shared with onboard SATA port(s). The last 2 ports if I recall correctly. HDMI, DP 1.4 from integrated video from AMD CPU. WiFi 6E/Bluetooth 5.3, included an antenna, Ethernet 2.5 Gbps - Intel i255-V chip. That's the one I got. 2 Mini 3.5" audio jacks, Line out and Mic In, SPDIF. Line out supports headphones 2 ch, front speakers: 4, 5.1, 7.1 channels. Mic In jack supports mic in (duh...lol) and supports rear speakers: 4, 5.1, 7.1 channels. There is front panel header on board for your case connections if you have that. Make sure your case supports front panel supports the board header. Uses a Realtek ALC1220 chip. Lots of USB support - 1.0/2.0 (black ports), 3.2 Gen 1 on board and back of board (the old name was 3.0...blue ports), 3.2 Gen 2 (red ports 10Gbps) with one that has DP 1.4 Alt-Mode (back of motherboard USBC), 3.2 gen 2x2...20Gbps..on header and usbc back of board LED headers for CPU and strips, noise sensor header, voltage sensor header, temp sensors, plus the standard led connections for your LED case..power, reset, etc, fans, pumps... SATA ports, M.2 slots. Slow booting because it does a lot of checking on boot up (from what I can tell). I got board version 1.0 - lots of BIOS updates (DDR5 RAM seems very sensitive to overclocking). Can overclock well with the proper RAM. Get the latest BIOS (thank you AMD for the updates) and flash it to the motherboard for better hardware support and much better overclocking of memory. It's a heavy board and size is E-ATX. Need a case that can support this size. Board does look good, many layers to this board (8 I think). As for durability, I don't know yet as it's a complicated board. However, the last motherboard I bought was a Gigabyte motherboard in 2013 (over 10 years old). It still works (except a USB chip/controller) is failing now. I still use it though because my operating systems that I use still work fine. And the USB seems to work ok - the O.S. tells me about the errors though in the system logs. Will support USB 4.0 with addon card from Gigabyte. Need to see about getting the card. There is a nice case that works well for this Aorus motherboard (Anidees ai-crystal xl pro). Expensive but it supports a lot of motherboards and is very versatile with new and old tech. You can get them from Amazon. Thanks Amazon! The price is too high compared to other motherboards, but I continue to buy Gigabyte motherboards based on my history of them making good boards. If their quality goes down I will find/recommend another motherboard manufacturer.