The ROG Strix X299-E Gaming and Prime X299-Deluxe were both easy overclockers, getting to 4.6GHz with our CPU fairly easily, albeit with some slightly toasty temps, and 4.7GHz could maybe be on the cards with custom water-cooling. However, the Prime X299-A was a little trickier, needing 1.25V as opposed to 1.24V, and also seemed to prefer it with the DDR voltage bumped up by 0.02V as well - at the standard 1.35V, Cinebench would usually crash and often required a CMOS reset. Still, it was nothing an hour or two's overclocking wouldn't solve.

As far as audio is concerned, there was nothing between the three X299 boards we've tested thus far, so opting for anything more expensive, at least from Asus, is unlikely to net you any kind of gains in terms of performance, while to get significantly more you'd likely need to opt for a high-end discrete sound card anyway. It was mostly the same in terms of storage performance, although it was still at a slight disadvantage to the ROG Strix X299-E Gaming.

Elsewhere, things were nearly identical between the three boards with single-digit differences in frame rates. The Prime X299-A had suitably low power consumption at stock speed, drawing noticeably less than the Deluxe, although the extra vcore and DDR voltage to get a stable overclock saw it draw the most under load here.

Conclusion

Apart from some overclocking gremlins that are likely just down to the early EFI we used, there's really not a lot to dislike about the Prime X299-A, and the fact it costs nearly £30 less than the ROG Strix X299-E Gaming makes the deal that much sweeter, especially given that their core feature sets are basically identical. However, on the flip side, despite costing nearly £300, nothing really leaps out at you saying 'Buy me!'. £30 really isn't that much in the overall scheme of most X299 builds, and the Strix does offer a little more, including more extensive onboard lighting and Wi-Fi, plus it was a little more overclocking-friendly. As such, we reckon it's worth just spending a little more for the ROG Strix board, but the Prime X299-A is nonetheless a solid product in and of itself, and there's no real flaw that stops us recommending it if it takes your fancy.