Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsEarly Adopter Beware
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2018
This is an expensive board that requires and even more expensive CPU ($460-$1,500) and, yet, like every other board based on Intel's LGA 2066 chipset, this x299 board is hostile to virtually every OS except Windows 10.This is not a bios issue; it is a "feature".
Windows 7 is a non-starter as well as many Linux-based boot disk utilities. (I haven't had a chance to test a clean install of a Linux distro yet). Windows 8.1 can work but it's not easy or supported by Intel or ASRock.
The bios is full-featured and has highly configurable overclocking tools. On the other hand, unlike some ASRock boards with older Intel chipset, there is no configurable "boot" menu to choose among boot media (i.e. hard drive, CD or USB).
While other sites report that Intel's LGA 2066 chipset coupled with an i9 processor can be as much as 30% faster than the previous generation Intel boards, this board didn't "feel" like much of a speed improvement over LGA 1151 boards that I have owned. NVMe SSD drive upgrades and more and faster RAM have offered me much more noticeable increases in speed.