It’s great that you wrote up your experience to potentially help others, but personally I found building with this motherboard a breeze. That said, a lot of good advice here, especially regarding the software and firmware. When I turned on the PC for the first time I flashed the BIOS to the latest version, installed Windows and then flashed the Dynamic Dashboard as soon as possible. On another note, crazy to hear the 9950x3D is still hard to get. More on reddit.com

If you search 7000 mhz 64 gig memory kits you'll find only 1 exists. That should be all you need to know its not a target you want to get. Most X870/E boards reviews are showing 8000 mhz less is fickle to pair but current max capacity is 48 gigs. Per buildzoid, the timings of 8000 mhz kit is tighter than 6000 and you'll need to be at 6400 mhz to match 8000 mhz. So if you want that 64 gigs with matching speed, you better start praying to CPU, motherboard and Ram lottery gods in your overclock attempt. Per the manual, the X870E godlike does not share PCIe lanes from GPU and other M.2 devices with 2 catches: You don't install any other PCIe cards besides the GPU, including the M.2 hotswap card it comes with, in the 2nd x16 slot. The two USB-C 4.0 40gig ports on the rear I/O is tied to the 2nd PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot. You have to disable the USB-C ports in the BIOS to enable full x4 bandwidth to the 2nd M.2 5.0 slot. IMO unless you got something to use up those USB-C 4.0 at bandwidth greater than 10g, they're worthless. Update: forgot to mention the the remaining three gen 4 M.2 slots. Two of them run at full x4 speed, I think its slot 3 and 5. Slot 4 - which is above the PCIe x4 slot on the bottom is shared with this slot. Manual suggest that M.2 slot will always run at x2 speed even if nothing is in the PCIe x4 slot nor can it be disabled. You can get around it though by installing a single M.2 PCIe. x4 expander card in the x4 slot. I confirm doing it this way gives me full bandwidth. If I time on weekend I'll check to make sure if using the onboard m.2 slot really is running at x2 like manual suggests. It's your money More on reddit.com

get the carbon More on reddit.com

Yes, it has problems with the EZ Bridge - I just got my RMA back last week. I love its capabilities, but they really need to come out with a fix. There are far less expensive boards that'll do the job almost as well. More on reddit.com