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I'm building my first computer ever and have decided for an m-ATX case and motherboard, I'm thinking about going with the ASUS z270G Strix Gaming, which seems to be the best Kabylake m-ATX board out right now. It's supposed to be the MAXIMUS VIII GENE replacement, but I have noticed that while many new features it's also missing a lot from the GENE like POST code led display, BIOS flashback, MEM-OK start/reset retry SafeBoot clrCMOS button etc. How important are these features if I need to troubleshoot, do resets or if I want to overclock or mess around with the BIOS? I have no experience what so ever with building, overclocking or BIOS, so I don't know how important these features are, but they seem important if I for some reason can't access BIOS or need to troubleshoot, especially the Q-code LED...

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I've never had a mobo with one through my 10 years of building, a speaker is usually enough. Though diagnostics LEDs are quite nice.

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Just now, snowman89 said:

But won't a speaker just beep twice or whatever if there is a POST fail, but the Q-code will tell me where the problem is?

The speaker will beep out a code pattern to indicate where the failure is. It's just as handy as the LED readout, just not as easy to use for some.

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5 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

The speaker will beep out a code pattern to indicate where the failure is. It's just as handy as the LED readout, just not as easy to use for some.

That's good to know. what about the other features on the GENE that are not on the z270G?

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Just now, snowman89 said:

That's good to know. what about the other features on the GENE that are not on the z270G?

Flashback and MEMOK are nice to have features, but I've never seen them as an absolute deal breaker. A simple CMOS clear jumper works as well as a button, and the likelihood of you ever using MEMOK is low unless you plan on pushing your RAM to it's limits. Flashback is only needed if you install a newer CPU than the board supports and since you're getting a Z270; and Kaby Lake is likely the last CPU to be on LGA1151 before Intel follows their trend and changes to whatever comes next, it's a largely useless feature at this point.

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6 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

Flashback and MEMOK are nice to have features, but I've never seen them as an absolute deal breaker. A simple CMOS clear jumper works as well as a button, and the likelihood of you ever using MEMOK is low unless you plan on pushing your RAM to it's limits. Flashback is only needed if you install a newer CPU than the board supports and since you're getting a Z270; and Kaby Lake is likely the last CPU to be on LGA1151 before Intel follows their trend and changes to whatever comes next, it's a largely useless feature at this point.

Thanks!

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