Mr. Fox

They've been a minimum viable company for as long as I know, so it makes sense that they sell a minimum viable product. There's just not any way to slice it that doesn't suck. But no, my surprised look is not on my face. And, it's not an a-ha moment. It's only confirmation of what it felt like all along. It certainly can't be said that I am overly biased or unfair because I've given them more chances than I've given any other brand or company. Ever. Far more than they deserve. I have wanted for them to be successful. Yet, they always leave me with a degree of disappoint about something. They just can't do anything fantastic. Greatness is not in their fabric, and whatever they have a small win with, they offset the winning with screw-ups and blunders. Excuse me for being a skeptic. I'm so mean and hateful, aren't I? Maybe a good place for them to start, if they ever want to be great, is to stop hiring losers to occupy executive positions within the company.

The scalpers took their screwing to the next level. They've added $100 just for bad measure. Check the price at your link now and look at what they're doing to people. Shameful.

Isn't it an interesting coincidence, both of their user names carry an association with being shady or dishonest? human_slinky and snakeeyes? Or... maybe it is not a coincidence... https://www.overclock.net/threads/13900ks-sp109.1805741/#post-29180742 Yup, he is selling an average USED (not even new) 13900KS for an above-average scalper price. Shamefully dishonest. I wonder how many people will see the advertised SP rating and not know it is average? I think many may automatically assume that identification of the SP rating means it is special, even though it is not. Even the SP rating can be manipulated by flashing a different BIOS version. My SP rating on the 13900KF in the Apex board increases with the buggy new v2305 firmware, and goes down using an older stable firmware version.

For every scalper there are probably at least 1,000 idiots waiting in line to validate the scalper's existence. As long as there are so many stupid people happily flushing their money down the toilet, scalpers will thrive. I think this guy is on hwbot. His eBay name sounds very familiar to me. https://www.ebay.com/itm/304910424098

No, they won't. They are not capable of running any higher than about 6000 max. Micron DDR5 is trash if you care about overclocking. They are dependable, just slow and resistant to overclocking. Totally fine for servers or business machines that run stock. Probably also good enough for push-button gamer-boys that care more about rainbow puke than performance.

Off-topic, but useful tip. I finally had a gut full of the ASUS Aura trash motherboard headers that need sketchy gamer-wuss bloatware to function and installed my SATA-powered external controller. Now I simply press a button on a remote and it remains the same forever, or until I deliberately change it. None of the idiotic storing crap in NVRAM and constantly losing settings. More relevant to others... a tip. You know how 3- and 4-pin lighting cables fit so sloppy and connections either come apart when you breathe on them, or one of the pins gets a weak connection and causes the color to be off on one or more devices? In the past I wrapped them with electrical tape. That worked OK, but eventually the tape would allow the connectors to slip, especially if you are disturbing things. Then you have to figure out which one it is and retape it. Then you get the gummy adhesive mess from the electrical tape. Well, the solution hit me. HOT GLUE. Works perfectly. It's strong enough, but can be peeled off in a chunk later if you need to change something. It also works to keep cables/wires bundled together where using a zip-tie or Velcro isn't necessarily ideal, or you want to tack a wire in a spot to keep it from moving, but have no way to pin it in place because there is nothing to attach it to but a solid flat surface. Just clean the surface with alcohol, and pin it where you want it with a dob or two of hot glue.

I haven't seen core temperatures this even across cores in a long time. Interesting. So far, I am really liking the IceMan block.

So, we need to add an emoji for AMD so that the kiddos will know what mindset is appropriate to process that information?

What does the AIDA64 read/write/copy/latency look like on that 64GB DR 7466 kit look like?

Thank you. Even though that is my work computer, it's getting sharper-looking with age. Except for when I do some AMD GPU benching, it leads a pretty mundane existence. I am going to redo the lines on both systems so I can move the chiller from one system to the other, and move the GPUs back and forth between systems with QDC fittings oriented in such a way that it's an easy, dripless and toolless, modular plug and play operation.

Yup, that's what they told me when I questioned them about it on my first of numerous motherboard failures. After a couple of events where I had to pay to ship and wait... and wait... and wait... is when I decided the EVGA Dark was really the only one that is worthy of being purchased. What they lack in the way of quality control, they somehow manage to more than make up for in painfully slow service and lousy customer care. If they cross ship a replacement, they lose the opportunity to fabricate reasons to deny your warranty. Really like the IceMan direct die block. Well made. Easy to install. Works well. Looks good. Costs little. I'd call that a victory. It made a huge improvement. It didn't magically convert my average silicon bin 13900KF flamethrower into a lottery winner, and it didn't make this Z690 Apex sample any less crummy at memory overclocking, but it kept its hair from catching on fire. Before the IceMan came to town, CBR23 used to error out, thermal shut down or throw a BSOD due to rapid overheating with the same BIOS settings. I'm tempted to order another one to replace the Supercool direct die block since this is less messy and a whole lot simpler to take apart.

Plus, if it craps out you can go back to Microcenter and leave with a refund or replacement rather than fart around with the imbeciles at Asus for 2 to 6 weeks only to get a sketchy replacement or be lied to about having bent pins so they can shirk their obligations. Current price in light of the above is about double what one is worth. For $700 it should at least include a pre-paid shipping label and expedited cross ship RMA warranty.

Isn't that the new normal now? I mean, isn't selling broken trash to early adopters how they do it now? First Z690 Apex boards were trash. The Strix 4090 was garbage. The EK Velocity2 direct die block cools like a CPU with an IHS on it, 4070 is a downgrade for 3080 owners... to name just a few.

I don't drink alcohol much and don't care for beer in general, but I really liked having a Chelada Picante a few times a month. I don't care for most of the other brands of Cheladas, but settled on Sol as the replacement. I agree and hope we see more boycotts as damaging, if not more harmful. It's time for the normal majority to stop putting up with crap from the 1.5% bottom feeders that are on a mission to ruin everything decent and right for the 98.5% majority with their depraved, indecent, deviant, abnormal, nonsensical filth.

Well, at least they took out the trash... finally. Not sure it will matter now that they've shown their true colors. Sure, they fired her. Good. But, they also hired her and aired her trashmercials. It was my brand and I've chosen another and won't be going back.

This is proof all by itself they are brainwashed losers. There are a number of things that come to mind, but using words like them is against forum rules, and I try to avoid using such vulgar speech. Let's just say they are a bag filled with feces that has no monetary value, and they are donkeys that are the opposite of smart, and did things with their mama that their daddy would not have approved of.

Thank you for the intrpreter summay. Very useful.

Yeah, I think this is an example of a not-great Apex. I've definitely seen worse, but I am so glad I didn't pay normal price for it. It was worth every penny paid for it, but not worth the new asking price. I moved the A-die from the Dark to the Apex for testing. It will not boot using my daily driver memory overclock settings that runs 8000 totally smooth and stable I can boot the A-die at 7600 installed in the Apex, but I can't get it stable past 6800-7000. My 6800 M-die settings that worked great on the Dark and Unify-X will not boot when applied to the Apex, @tps3443the button you mention is the "retry" (not "retrain") and what it does it try to boot and train the memory again. The M-die works the same as it always did on the Dark. It seems nothing is wrong with the memory modules, just the Strix and Apex are grossly inferior to the Dark mobo and Unify-X. The Apex is better than the Strix for a few minor reasons, but it is not half the motherboard as the Dark. It weighs a lot less and feel like a budget board compared to the Dark. I forgot the wonky way that ASUS handles switching BIOS. When you select the second BIOS position with the button it goes through a process that seems like reflashing the same chip instead of simply deactivating one and using the other. It reprograms the Aura lighting and "updates" the BIOS. I forgot how stupid that is. With the 3-way BIOS on the Dark, you turn it off, slide the switch to the position you want, and it boots from the associated BIOS chip... not flashing or anything. I am going to have to install my external RGB controller tomorrow. The Aura settings do not save permanently using OpenRGB. I have to manually apply the white LED profile manually at every reboot or it automatically moves into rainbow puke mode by default.

This arrived today. Unbelievable how heavy this sucker is. Looking forward to testing it.

Very true. Memory performance on the 5950X was pathetic. And the plethora of WHEA errors, USB drop-outs and insane runaway thermals at modest overclock speeds were also pretty disgusting. It was one of the worst buying decisions I have made.

I am not offering it for sale anywhere else, so if you still want it and want to save up the money that is fine. It'll collect some dust, but it won't hurt it to sit. The Z690 Apex (thank you for selling it to me) is working fine now that I downgraded the BIOS to v2204. The newest (2305) was trash on the Strix and that proved to be true on the Apex as well. Unexplainable random BSOD and Windows lockups on both machines using identical BIOS setting or running with BIOS defaults. Instantly fixed by going back to v2204. It is really sad and unfortunate that ASUS is blocking firmware downgrades and making customers have to jump through hoops to use the firmware they want to use. That's a really messed up approach to a company masquerading as enthusiast-centric. Their behavior proves otherwise. What is not working fine is the memory overclocking. The Hynix M-die modules I am using ran like at top at 6800 and 7000 on both the Unify-X and Dark. When I put it in the Strix it maxed out at 6400. The maximum supported memory clock on the Strix is DDR5-6400. I assumed that, along with being a 4-DIMM setup, was why. Now I am thinking that was wrong because it maxes out at 6400 stable on the Apex as well. It will boot and run at 6800, but very unstable (was the same on the Strix) to the point of being unusable. So, I'm going to test using the A-die in the Dark to see if it is the memory has degraded somehow. I can't use the memory waterblock I had on the Strix because it is a 4-slot waterblock and the DIMM.2 slot is too close to the memory slots... almost touching. I'm not sure if the 2-slot waterblock will even work. Very stupid that ASUS put them so close together like they did. At 6400 all memory tests pass unless I let them run long enough for the memory to overheat and the system reboots. Running MemTestPro with the DangWang GUI the memory reaches ~70°C and the system reboots. The memory also requires more voltage at 6400 than it did in the Unify-X or Dark. I assumed that was the Strix having weaker memory traces, but the same is true on the Apex. That part is not helping with the high temperatures (which I why I put the waterblock on to begin with).

Yeah, that's real stupid. I'd pay an extra $150-$200 for a golden sample, but paying a little more than double is just downright idiot-level. Better to settle for a lower bin and dump more voltage on it than dump twice as much money on it. Even $1,000 is pushing it, but $1,500 suggests that you're trolling for morons. Aside from the level of stupid it would require on the part of the buyer, I'd be ashamed to ask that much for it, especially in a community where I was established and planned to continue my contributions. Going into the situation with a premeditated plan to screw someone you have frequent interaction with raises questions in my mind about the person selling it. It is a logical and strategic venue to offer it up because it puts it in front of the proper audience, but taking advantage of the audience like that is no bueno.

Climate change occurs at least four times a year in most places. Global warming starts in Spring and lasts until Fall. And, the human race has no say in the matter. But, we like to flatter ourselves and pretend our silly agendas matter. Believing in a hoax makes it real, right? If that is what you want, then it is probably worth a little bit more versus settling for something less to save a few bucks. If you can pay for it, then I'd say go for it. Just don't feed the scalpers. They don't deserve to eat. Let 'em go dumpster diving. If they get really hungry, they can eat their overpriced inventory or dump it for less than they paid for it to buy groceries.

There is always an upside and a downside when it comes to weather. The idea that such a thing as perfect weather exists is fake, because it depends on the person experiencing it. What it allows you to do that you enjoy, or keeps you from doing that you would enjoy if not for the weather, is what determines whether or not the weather is "good" on an individual perspective. That perspective can change as rapidly as the weather as well. What you want to do today might not be what you want to do tomorrow, and if the weather interferes with that it sucks. I like it to be cold (below freezing) and very dry (no snow or ice, and no humidity,) with no clouds and no wind. Kind of like the inside of a chest freezer with the lid closed and the lamp switch stuck in the on position.

I did not know you could. I have used mostly EVGA Precision X1 for GPU overclocking for several years because it has historically been a better utility for me.