ASUSTUF GAMING B650M-PLUS WIFI AMD Ryzen AM5 Micro-ATX motherboard, 14 power stages, PCIe 5.0 M.2 support, DDR5 memory, WiFi 6 and 2.5 Gb Ethernet, USB4 support and Aura Sync

Early 60s disabled male. My new PC build is primarily for Microsoft Flight Simulator and my Digital Audio Workstation. The PC will also act as my main day-to-day OS (Linux) housed on a separate NVME drive.Specs of new PC:Motherboard: Asus B650M TUF Gaming PLUS WIFIProcessor: AMD Ryzen 7 9700X AM5CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S 92mm Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler in Chromax BlackMemory: G.Skill Flare X5 32GB (2x 16GB) 6000MT/s DDR5 RAMGPU: SAPPHIRE PULSE AMD Radeon™ RX 7800 XT with 16Gb DDR6 AMD RDNA™ 3 architecturePSU: 750W Corsair RMe Series Modular 80 Plus Gold PSUM.2 slot 1 - Windows 11: Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB NVME PCIe Gen4 for MSFS and my DAWM.2 slot 2 - Linux 64 bit OS: Western Digital Black SN850X 1TB NVME PCIe Gen4 for LinuxHDD - Seagate BarraCuda 4TB SATA Hard Drive 3.5" for BackupsChassis Fans - Top: 2 x Arctic Cooling P14 PWM PST 140mm Pressure-optimised Chassis FanChassis Fans - Bottom 2 x Arctic Cooling P12 PWM PST 120mm Pressure-optimised Chassis FanChassis Fans - Rear 1 x Arctic Cooling P12 PWM PST 120mm Pressure-optimised Chassis FanAll housed inside the ASUS Prime AP201 black Micro ATX Gaming Case which is completely meshI will be using the Thrustmaster TCA Captain Pack X Airbus Edition which uses 2 USB connections (type not stated). I also have the Logitech MK470 Slim Wireless Mouse and Keyboard which uses another USB (type not stated).Review of Asus B650M TUF Gaming PLUS WIFI motherboardI must admit my usual motherboard brand was out off stock with the model I wanted. I chose the Asus B650M TUF Gaming PLUS WIFI after doing some research. The documentation supplied from Asus is very easy to understand. I had no problem housing the motherboard inside the Asus Prime AP201 black Micro ATX Gaming Case. I was able to add the components listed in a competent manner following the guide. I used the BIOS FlashBack utility using the dedicated usb port and button on the rear of the case to get the latest BIOS upgrade. There were no problems on first boot.All the components listed above work perfectly, even with Linux. Coming from another motherboard brand I was impressed with the BIOS settings of the Asus motherboard. I did some reading up on these settings and adjusted accordingly creating my 3 profiles (MSFS, DAW, and Linux). Being new to MSFS I am tinkering with BIOS settings and trying AMD EXPO. I have tested temperatures and the GPU performs well but the CPU runs fairly hot which I think might be the CPU cooler fan being the wrong way round. Case temperatures are good with the the Q-curve fansettings in the BIOS with several presets eg Turbo mode for MSFS. You can even set your own curves. There are enough USB 3.2 and 3.1 ports as well as two USB 2.0 ports which is enough to keep me happy. I will definietly be staying with ASUS for my next PC build in 2030.

Great motherboard from Asus,i already have a Tuf gaming B650 plus Wifi in my main computer and thought why not get the Micro version for my second one and i can say Asus didn't compromise on the quality even though it's smaller it has pretty much identical features.Plus it is the perfect paring for my Ryzen 7 7700 really great motherboards top quality and a good price highly reccomended.

The feature set is great bios is easy to use and intuitive compared to others, over all very good and amazing value

Why did you choose this product over others?:Was a good price at the time and had heard good things about previous TUF boards RyzenStability:Horrendous, constant software related issues, most of which are driver related due to Asus Armoury Crate either not allowing drivers to update or causing crashes itself. Even after uninstalling it somehow reappears eventuallyMotherboard quality:Board itself is well made and looks gooValue for money:Seemed like a good deal at the time, after 1.5 years of being annoyed by my son telling me it's started crashing again - I'd struggle to recommend even for half the price. Bought an MSI Tomahawk for my own PC about 6 months previous and not had a single issue with that.

Brilliant. Solid performance with high end components run through it.

The motherboard was bought to replace an MSI B650m Mortar wifi that was broken (either it was the BIOS update or faulty memory controller that got it)The Asus TUF Gaming B650 Plus is a good replacement, I particularly like the extra slots of the atx board and the fan curve presets work well - for £165 it is good for the price at the time of purchasing.***if you are having trouble installing the bluetooth and wireless network drivers, there are 2 different drivers on the Asus site for this board, one for Mediatek and one for Realtek, my board used the Mediatek drivers which was only visible when clicking on ‘see all’ on the page***As for the add on software ‘Armoury Crate’ and ‘MyAsus’, I have found that these are not needed for my uses and actually used a fair amount of resources to run.The software was easy to use and lets me tweak overclocking settings, fan speed settings, RGB lights and can help with downloading and installing drivers - but I can change the settings from the BIOS (apart from the RGB settings) and you can find the drivers on the motherboard webpage.After uninstalling the both armoury crate and MyAsus, I found in services.msc that there were several Asus services that were still enabled (I suspect these relate to the MyAsus support app) so I disabled them as these were also taking resource, so keep an eye out for these if removing the software.I guess the Armoury crate software could be useful for a beginner in terms of installing drivers, but would suggest not keeping it installed due to the resource usage, and the software terms means they collect lots of data about the system, including games installed, hardware used, overclocking settings, screen resolution etc. which I think is a bit excessive just to change settings that are already available in the bios (not sure about the RGB settings as I didn’t need them)Compared to my old MSI board, the wireless hardware is a bit weaker, previously I was able to use bluetooth headphones with a wireless controller connected via the motherboard, however I was not able to do this with the Asus board and need to use the USB receiver for the controller.Once all the software was removed, the performance is good, the chipset, processor and memory is the same as my old MSI board so this was expected, however it is very nice to have a computer that boots correctly every time and in a few seconds rather than minutes!

Value

Very good