Performance is decent, fan noise is audible, but not too annoying. So do note this is NOT a fanless case. There is a fan going on constantly.When you buy this, and find out it doens't boot,  you know why? Because it comes with zero RAM, and zero HDD. It's the zero ram that causes no display output. You'll see your power light flash 3 times ... that means no RAM. So get the PC1600 SO DIMMs that you need, MAKE sure they are 1.35V memories, and NOT 1.5V that will not work in this mobo.The HDD is expensive... as there are not many choices for micro sized SSDs that this uses. I got a 120GB Intel thing that cost like $200+.Overall it's cool though... and would work well as a media server I should think. I am using it for a work purpose.