ASUS E3 PRO GAMING V5: A $140 Skylake Xeon Motherboard With Intel C232 Chipset
While the ASUS E3 PRO GAMING V5 is advertised with just Microsoft Windows 7~10 support, to no surprise, I didn't have any challenges in installing Linux. In the two weeks I've been using the E3 PRO GAMING V5 motherboard, I've tested it with Ubuntu 16.04, Debian Testing, and Intel's Clear linux. All of these environments have run fine on this Intel C232 motherboard without any real issues.
The ASUS UEFI BIOS with EZ FLASH 3 makes updating the BIOS a very easy process. So no real problems there either for Linux users.
If you are curious about the performance potential with the ASUS E3 PRO GAMING V5, I posted some benchmarks to OpenBenchmarking.org with some runs compared to the MSI C236A Workstation and other benchmark results from Debian testing when paired with a Xeon E3-1270 v5 motherboard. This ASUS E3 PRO GAMING v5 + Xeon E3-1270 v5 system continues to be stressed daily with our LinuxBenchmarking.com performance tracker where it's running Debian Testing and producing Open Porous Media benchmarks. Within a few months, I should know just how reliable this Skylake Xeon motherboard is with the beating it's taking daily!
So that's the short story of my experience thus far with the ASUS E3 PRO GAMING V5. Just wanted to pass along that it's working out well under Linux while being an inexpensive Xeon E3 V5 motherboard. If you are interested in this motherboard you can find it for $145 USD at Amazon.com and NewEgg.com. If you have any further questions about it, feel free to drop by the forums.
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