Mr. Fox

Yeah I hate humidity and rain or any other forms of precipitation. I grew up in that kind of climate and I would never want to move back to it. I'm reminded of how miserable it is to live in a humid place every time I visit one for business or pleasure. No thank you. I have lived in high desert regions in the Pacific Northwest and now the desert Southwest for decades, and while I don't really like the extreme heat, I do like the extreme dryness a lot. I probably should be a cat instead of a fox because I hate getting wet unless I'm taking a shower. And, around these parts it's drier than a popcorn fart. That mini ITX setup sounds like it's probably about as screwed up as a desktop can get. Seems more like a turdbook. Are you sure it wasn't made by Dell/Alienware, LOL? You might be able to do some things to lessen its crappiness, but you'll never get it to run as fantastic as a real desktop the way it's built. From what you've described it has some very debilitating engineering choices that would make complete remediation essentially impossible. Unfortunately, smaller always means compromised when it comes to computer performance. But they sure don't compromise on how much they charge you for their gimped crap, now do they?

It's rather toasty here, but not nearly as much as it will be in July and August. At least the overnight lows are not in the triple-digits (°F) yet. It is 108°F right now and should "cool" to 80°F overnight. But, it's a dry heat.

OK, finally had a chance to do some tuning. Since I need to work tomorrow I spent most of the day getting my home office back in order. I now have the open bench connected to my triple-screen setup and the Alphacool 1080 radiator on a temporary basis. All of the parts that will go into the work PC when the be quiet! case gets here are in a box. The parts I sold are all boxed up and ready to ship tomorrow. It's 49 pounds worth in a box that measures 24x20x21 inches. I hope the UPS delivery person is not a wimp, LOL. @tps3443it's all looking good. So far it seems like it's runing close to the same as the Z690 Dark. The voltage settings are a bit higher on the Apex, but not by a lot. I can't figure out how to disable Intel Guardband. It is either not there in the BIOS or ASUS decided to call it something else. 8200 stable is no problem. For some reason the ASUS BIOS skips over CL35. I ran that on the Dark, but it goes from 34 to 36. Memory latency performance is a tiny bit worse and it needs 100mV more TX voltage. Weird.

Interesting. It ran flawless for me on Windoze, but I haven't tried it on Linux. I just downloaded the compressed executable version, unzipped it to a folder and ran one of the batch files. Not a hitch of any kind. I did not install anything and did not download the "project" file.

If you downloaded the project delete that. Download the EXE version. Extract it and run one of the batch files. Totally portable nothing to install. The reason I know this is because I got lucky on the first try. I didn't have to research or find a solution. Once in awhile I get lucky. @Etern4lI'd be surprised if the portable EXE version did not run on Linux the way so many other games do that aren't supposed to. If I have time I'll try it later today. I'm going to try to get my office in better shape so I can work without losing my mind this week. All the parts piled up on the empty desk is triggering my OCD real bad.

Too early to tell but I think it'll be okay. Struggling now to get my 8200 memory overclock back to where it was on the Z690 Dark. The timings and voltage I used on the EVGA motherboard don't seem to work on the Asus. It looks like it needs more voltage and a little bit looser timings than the EVGA board did.

It might if I put it in the ASUS Gen 5 card running at x8 when inserted that in the other x16 slot and let it rob my CPU of x16 bandwidth. But, yeah, no, that's just not gonna happen, LOL. Not interested in running my 4090 at x8 Gen 5. I am perfectly happy with a Gen 1 NVMe running 1.2K. Anything beyond that is just SSD benchmark fluff IMHO. And, I am just happy they are running at that speed without leeching anything off the GPU.

That's truly amazing. The photo-realism is actually scary. It is difficult to tell it is not a video recording. Running it on Ultra 4K preset (my screen is 2560x1440) really taxes the 4090. It's running between 60 FPS and 90 FPS with all of the settings maxed out. Thanks for sharing the link to the demo, bro.

I finally got around to putting this together. My office looks like a cyclone hit it. Obviously tore up my work computer for the rebuild and sale of old parts and everything is piled up in a huge rat's nest of fans, cables, tubing, fittings, LOL. Makes me feel crazy right now. I hate messes. I can't think straight when things are disorganized. I hope I don't have to wait too long for the be quiet! case to get here. No sure how long I can function with the mess and only one computer for work and play.

Oh man, I am so sorry to hear that. I will say a prayer for you. Get well soon, Brother. Wow. Just. Wow. I am so, so sad about this. Truly horrible news. Now ASUS literally has no real competitor in the extreme overclocker focused motherboard space. This is very bad for all of us. Sorry to hear you have been under the weather too. Seems like my prayer list is getting longer lately. You're on it now, too. And, then there is this... ¡Ay, Chihuahua! Review will follow soon. @tps3443you need a couple of these bad boys.

I'm not at my computer so I looked at that video on my phone and it looks pretty dad gum good on the phone screen. Wow, 9 FPS.

The younger you can start them the better. My kids grew up around computers and PC gaming. Only one of the 5 loves computers, but the other 4 are super comfortable with a PC. They just don't derive any great deal of pleasure from owning one.

All systems are go. 13900K/KF definitely doesn't like the $30 Amazon China-express basic functionality test air cooler, LOL. Radeon HD5450 1GB no-fan GPU sends a nice image to the Windows desktop, but can't expect much more than that. This will be great for him with an AIO and 1080 Ti. Pretty decent setup for him for only $750, too. Add AIO, install his NVMe and SSDs, plug in GPU and go. Sorry. He already promised it to me, bro.

Sometimes (often... usually) older stuff is better.

The only reason(s) I bought it are dual memory slots (memory overclocking obviously matters a LOT) and for the SP-rating. It is the only ASUS motherboard that is good at memory overclocking, so it's the only option that makes sense. I struggled with the idea of using my money to purchase anything from ASUS because I despise them as a company. I could have purchased another Z690 Dark for half as much and had a better product, but I want the ability to check SP ratings. In the grand scheme of things that is really stupid and I should know better. That's why I hope it turns out OK. More often than not, I end up less than happy with ASUS products. I've never been unhappy with an EVGA product (yet). Date of manufacture on the label is 3/2023, so about 90 days ago.

@ryanyes, Sabrent SSDs are fine and so is just about everything else they make. I don't remember ever seeing anything they made that was not good. My review is not on those, but on a PCIe add-in card that allows you to install four additional NVMe drives in a single X4 PCIe slot. @Papusanthat is great news. Family being close together is a wonderful thing. My wife and I are blessed to finally have all of our children and grandchildren living here now. No more 1500 mile each way trips to see grandbabies is also welcomed. That sucked.

I received it today. I will probably install it this weekend. If it works well I will be satisfied. It sure is ugly and feels extremely lightweight, flimsy and cheap compared to the Z690 Dark. I don't mind the silver parts, but the white PCB looks kind of goofy. If the Apex performs equal or better, then the Z690 Dark will be going into the be quiet! Dark Base Pro 901 when they send it to me, and it will be my work PC. I sold the 13900KF, 5000D Airflow, Hynix M-die and Strix Z690-E and EVGA PSU to a good friend in New Jersey for the price of the Z790 Apex (literally). For $700 before tax, it had better be good, LOL. I feel really bad for anyone that paid that much for a Z690 Apex. They got screwed real bad. I just pulled the Z690 Apex out of the 5000D and moved the Strix into it. Will do some quick testing to make sure everything works before I ship it out tomorrow or Saturday. He will install his 360MM AIO and 1080 Ti when he gets it. I just finished helping him build a new one with a 7000D Airflow, Z690 Dark, 13900K and 4090 Suprim Liquid X. This one I sold him will be his "work" computer. I am wrapping up a review on the Sabrent 4-NVMe PCIe card (it's awesome) and then I will be starting a review on a couple of the new Crucial Gen 5 2TB NVMe SSDs. The Dark Base Pro 901 is probably still a few weeks out. Will post links to all of them as they are done.

Thanks. I hope it turns out good. I will be happy if it does. I should have it tomorrow.

I have had that happen on some of my older videos. It's really stupid and reflects an unfavorable mindset of the people that do it. They are so concerned about not getting paid for one of their songs playing in an amateur's YouTube video that they block it and file a copyright strike. Those are the kind of "artists" that I boycott. Their lives are guided by greed and they don't deserve to have their music played.

It looks like the video is not available because of some kind of copyright, it's blocked. Isn't that just so silly?

Thanks, brother. I intially placed the order with Provantage. It was listed as "special order" and they came back two days later and told me it is no longer available. It was listed as "backordered" on NewEgg for $50 more than Provantage ($699.99 vs $649.00). I was able to load it into my cart, but not able to purchase using the NewEgg Visa card or PayPal. I input my AmEx card and viola, I was able to complete the purchase. I got an email saying the ETA was unknown and I would not be charged until it shipped, but 24 hours later I have a tracking number for the "sold and shipped by NewEgg" option. I honestly didn't expect that to happen. Delivery is scheduled for Thursday. I'm not even ready for it, LOL. I was hoping the timing would be closer to when the Dark Base Pro 901 is expected. I don't think they are even in retail distribution yet. The ETA on the case delivery is "within the next month or so" at this time. The SP rating is a useful tool. Although not a 100% accurate indicator of a good CPU, still very useful and the belief in its usefulness held by many adds an element of intrinsic value to the brand in spite of their shortcomings in other areas. If not for the SP rating feature, I probably would never purchase another ASUS motherboard. The inconsistency in their QC and warranty practices, and the poor track record I have had with their flagship mobos, gives me a fair bit of anxiety about the purchase (thus my comment about hoping to not regret it). I always feel compelled to have a backup part handy on standby when I am running an ASUS-powered system due to my low confidence in their product reliability. The fact that the more affordable and equally attractive Strix Z690-E 4-DIMM motherboard overclocks as well as the 2-DIMM Z690 Apex (both CPU and memory) paints a pretty grim picture of the amount of effort, or lack thereof, that goes into their insanely expensive flagship motherboards. The EVGA Z690 Dark is much better in nearly every way. The 2-DIMM options are limited and I have no interest in owning an overclocking crippled 4-DIMM motherboard. The Apex and Unify-X are both in the shadow of the Dark, with the Aorus Tachyon being the least desirable of the four 2-DIMM mobo options available for Z690/790 chipsets. I wish the SP rating, and the associated algorithm that calculates it, was not a proprietary feature on ROG motherboards. It would be wonderful (for everyone except ASUS) if you could drop a specific CPU into a ROG, EVGA, MSI or Gigabyte motherboard and have it spit out the same silicon quality score.

*Sigh* Asus, Asus, Asus... what to do with you clowns... Speaking of that, I sure do hope I don't regret this. Sometimes good judgment escapes me and my personal stupidity is undeniable. It has to be better than the Z690 Apex abortion I am using now. I almost bought another Z690 Dark (the smarter idea) but I want the SP-rating capability and 2-DIMM overclocking capability. The Z690 Apex is a generally defective product that just doesn't satisfy my expectations with its lackluster performance. I'm gritting my teeth and crossing my fingers. Just got the tracking number from NewEgg. I am planning to put Z690 Dark inside of the be quiet! Dark Base Pro 901 case when that arrives, retiring the baby-sized Corsair 5000D Airflow that has always been too small to like, and putting the Z790 Apex on the open bench. That is assuming it performs equal to the Z690 Dark, otherwise the Apex will be used on my work computer... TBD. If they perform equally, the Apex is notably smaller and weighs a lot less than the Dark mobo, so it will be easier to manage on the open bench. @tps3443

You know I do. It's only like in my top five best games in the history of games titles. I do not have a 4K monitor.

@RaidermanI think you were interested in this at the good price. It is $49.99 again. https://www.newegg.com/evga-z15-rgb-kailh-speed-silver/p/N82E16823953007

Yes, I remember that post. That is a terrible idea. Make it harder to tell the cable is not properly seated. Stupid people should not be allowed to create anything. DDR5 is very weird in some ways. If I don't get the memory overclock close enough to where it needs to be it causes other weird and totally unexpected problems. For example, if I make the timings too tight it might boot fine, but all of the NVMe drives disappear and are not visible in the BIOS unless I loosen the timings or add more voltage. On the surface it seems totally unrelated. Did you try giving the memory more voltage? Sometimes just a measley 0.050V (50mV) on memory voltage is enough to mean the difference between not working or non-functional and stable.