The board is...ok. Admittedly it is very basic but I guess thats expected. I use onboard sound, its nothing special but it's acceptable for me, I'm no sound buff. The motherboard manual is proud to state the pcie is locked to allow for better overclocking, I havent tried, but a review I've read doesn't get it very far. Pushes a e6300 from 1.81 to 2.1 or something like that.