Review on 🖥️ ASUS Pro WS W480 ACE LGA1200 ATX Workstation Motherboard (ECC Memory, Dual LAN, Intel 2.5Gb LAN, Dual Type-C Thunderbolt 3 Ports, ASUS Control Center Express) - Enhanced for SEO. by James Ohlrogge

This board died after four days of use. The first issue I encountered was the placement of the 24-pin power connector. This disrupts the airflow to the processor. I understand the aesthetic of this glass-enclosed slot machine; However, this is a very inappropriate placement on a workstation slate. The second issue is that hot plugging is disabled for all SATA ports by default. Why would anyone disable SATA hotplugging? The third problem is that DisplayPort connectors cannot use the integrated GPU. These are DP inputs that only pass the signal back through the USB-C ports. It makes no sense. If I were using a discrete GPU, I would connect my monitors directly to it. I was expecting the DP outputs to be connected to the onboard GPU. Problem 4: VRMs get hot. Due to the orientation of the board, it's impossible to get good airflow to the VRM without using the included fan mount. Fifth, BMC is useless. If you try to access it over the network, you will be taken to an unresponsive webpage. The included CD contains a Windows-only application that is useless on Linux. All in all, I think ASUS took one of their gaming boards and put the W480 chipset on it. That being said, they've created an onboard that sucks for a workstation and is way overpriced to be a decent gaming option. This product should not exist.