ruthan:

Bigger and bigger MBs, but more and more covers and less and less free cards slots.. i dont like it.

I kind of like MSI's 3 free NVMe slots, myself, in this motherboard--and the PCIe4.x devices I will populate them with are pretty cool, too: GodLike. Generally, such names for motherboards strike me as comical, but what can you do?...;) Will be interesting to get the final specs to see how many if any full-size PCIe4.x slots will be consumed by populating the the M.2 slots with full-speed PCIe4.x M.2s! Additionally, looks like 4 full-size PCIe4.x slots to fill. I'm, going to use one for the 10GB networking card, most likely--although if I get enough to saturate the network out of the 2.5GB/s I might not need it (but will likely use it anyway...;)) Seems to be a torrent of external connectivity for expansion that way, etc. Looking forward to reviews on this one. Think I'm ready to splurge a bit, by gosh! Looking forward to HH's mboard review on this puppy! I really like the new clear cmos and even flash-back bios option *buttons* these new boards have on their back panels. So nice--so convenient! The hell with JBAT1...;) Just bought an on-sale new Corsair HX-850--the next few weeks should be full of reviews, I hope!

Gigabyte boards so far look to be head and shoulders above the rest, 8layer pcb 70amp chokes 14+2 no doublers on the 600$ extreme, 6layer 50amp but 12+2 without doublers on the 350$ Master. It'll be hard to resist the master if that is the price point and they dont end up asking for more.

well i would look at the motherboards when i am done looking at the first pic !