Mr. Fox

A Dark mobo and EVGA BIOS can take some getting used to and some people never learn to love it. Initial impressions are always that you are getting less, when the reality is you're getting more and not being presented with a bunch of distracting garbage in the BIOS. When I stopped wanting to be an ASUS customer it was very difficult at first. But, I quickly learned to appreciate the fact that it was made to do things the way I want to do them and it turns out to be a better fit for me than an ASUS product or ASUS firmware. I now find using ASUS firmware to be very annoying and cumbersome, and the plethora of settings that I have to fart with are no longer impressive to me. I find it annoying to have to max out power, current and amp limits and turbo time values manually in an ASUS environment. I love the fact that EVGA hard codes it maxed out in the BIOS by default and then hides the menus so they do not clutter things up. The entire premise upon which it is built is balls-to-the-wall overclocking. There is no real thought about people that are gamers and the casual style that is often associated with that. They only recently added RGB/ARGB headers and WiFi and I wish they never had added them. Especially the WiFi is just a waste of system resources and PCIe lanes. I could always insert a USB dongle for WiFi if I ever needed to. I generally disable that in the BIOS. I am on the latest BIOS and it is working good for me. Disable the Guardband option and set -75% on vDroop and those two things should fix the high voltage. To unlock the PMIC past 1.435V enable "extreme voltage" and ignore the warning about high voltage. Does this does not increase voltage, it merely allows you to increase it and I always enable the extreme voltage option. This is basically the same as disabling voltage monitoring on ASUS to uncork CPU voltage past 1.500V, but it is just one toggle switch with EVGA to unlock all voltage limiters at once, rather than individually. I also use static voltage for everything I own. If you know what your load voltage was using adaptive with an offset, try setting that as the static voltage target. Also, the "CPU Voltage" in EVGA vernacular is SVID, not Core Voltage. If the user does not know that it is very alarming to think that much voltage is going to the CPU. It's not. It is what the CPU thinks it should ask for, which is always way too much. Many ASUS users disable SVID support in the BIOS so they do not see those scary but meaningless values. After using it for a while, I decided I liked MSI firmware better than ASUS as well. It was likewise difficult to get used to. It seemed lacking in some ways and yet it carried some of the same faults as ASUS firmware that I appreciated not having to put up with on an EVGA board. Gigabutt UEFI was also different than the rest, and it was one that I could never warm up to. It should be "against the law" for OEMs to use different terminology when it comes to BIOS. They should not be allowed to use an opposite approach to things like LLC (e.g. more is more on ASUS, less is less on MSI).

Yes, it's really strange. I didn't have any advice to offer because I've never seen what you're experiencing with HDMI before. I seldom use HDMI on computers anymore. I use almost exclusively DisplayPort. However, I do use HDMI whenever I use my screen capture device for BIOS videos and I haven't run into any issues there. Is your bios set on "Auto" for the setting relating to primary graphics adapter? I usually leave that set to auto (BIOS default) and haven't had any strange things happening using that approach. If that is already set to auto and Adjustable Bar Support is enabled try disabling that because it is not compatible with CSM. The EVGA Z590 Dark is the only product from EVGA I have owned that I did not love. It left a lot to be desired and I think they didn't get too excited about supporting it because 11th Gen Intel was viewed by so many customers as being a joke. It wasn't as much of a disappointment as X570/Ryzen 9, but any number multiplied by zero is zero, LOL. Anyhoo, I didn't stick with that product long enough to have any observations about firmware updates. The issues Z590 had with ACPI and the malfunctioning M.2 PCIe slots because of that ruined everything. But, I can tell you that EVGA has done a truly amazing job of providing updates on all of their other motherboards and graphics cards that I have owned. They provided more updates than I was willing to apply, since my approach is to not fix anything that isn't broken. The only ones that ever catch my attention are the ones that boast some kind of performance enhancement. Sometimes it's not accurate, but if the firmware update is for "security" and there's no mention of anything else, then that is a hard pass for me. Flashing it just because you can and because something new is floating around out there called an "update" is a truly fantastic way to end up with something disappointing.

Windows 7 installation was nearly impossible (I actually gave up) on Z590 until I used a PCIe PS/2 mouse and keyboard and SATA DVD drive and then it became painless. Trying to do it from USB was nothing but frustrating and always ended in disaster. I was able to install drivers for USB and everything else except iGPU and WiFi 6 from the Windows desktop. If you want to try restoring a Macrium Reflect image to your OS drive and then reactivate it with your own product key, let me know. It will be a huge upload/download, but it might take the frustration out of it for you. Awesome. Congrats. I really do like mine. I don't think ASUS has anything worth buying any more. Their stuff is buggy, unreliable, prone to failure and the RMA process unnecessarily challenging. There's essentially no value in their products unless you want to know a CPU SP rating.

Yes, I believe so. The frequency is TBD, but I have another component coming soon that should be fun. Stay tuned. Thank you. Feel free to comment down at the bottom if you feel so inclined. Even though they are limited to 1.435V and 6400 MT/s (due to the crippled PMIC) those Vengeance modules perform very well and for most gamers and casual overclockers that generate moisture in their nether-regions when they are exposed to RGB they are an excellent option that is priced right. Samsung B-die was the IC to have for DDR4. Other Samsung IC versions were not very good. Nicely binned SK Hynix ICs can handle 800+ MT/s overclocks. If you consider that 4800 is JEDEC default, even the comparatively crummy Samsung and Micron, and inferior bin quality SK Hynix ICs overclock a lot. Splave has cherry picked SK Hynix OEMs sticks for sale on HWBOT Marketplace that are ugly naked green PCB generic OEM modules that go way past 7000 MT/s if you want to spend $450 USD on modules that sells for under $200 for a pair of 16GB sticks. Below is an example of what you want to get if you're going the generic route.

Yes it is absolutely possible if the CPU has a strong IMC. 4000C16 is probably getting close to the limit with 4 modules though, or on a 4-DIMM mobo.

Looks nice, Brother @johnksss. What caused you to decide to build that using the Unify-X mobo? Hey guys, check out my first review on ExtremeHW and comment when you have time. I am expecting another one soon, so I will post the link here after I receive the product and complete the review. CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB DDR5-6000 32GB Memory Review | ExtremeHW.net

I think it just lost popularity. I had a couple of cases with side door mounted fans and it had pros and cons. Most of the side panels now are tempered glass and back in the day of the side window-mounted fans the window panels were acrylic or plexiglass. They looked good for a couple of days, or until the first time you cleaned the dust off of them and they were scratched for life. If never mattered how gentle I was, they always ended up scratched and dull. Plexiglass polish sometimes helped, but could also make it clouded or hazy looking.

Looking good, Brother @Papusan. Yes, I remember that Zallman Reserator. I used to really want one. They were always terribly overpriced. May as well go with an aquarium chiller instead and have a lot more flexibility. But, they it was a prety interesting product. On the topic of massive cases, I sure do love how this one looks in addition to its hugeness. Awesome and gorgeous. But, the price is absurd. It is too bad they don't make one similar to the size and layout of my Level 20 XT, but with the aesthetic of the HAF 700 EVO. I still much prefer a horizontal motherboard installation over vertical. It just makes more sense to me, and it's much easier to service.

The temperature inside of the case on my work computer (Banshee) gets considerably warmer. It pulls cooler room air into the front 360 radiator and the 240 radiator in the top exhausts warmed air inside of the case out of the top. To what extent it affects performance I am not certain, but things are kind of cramped with two radiators, two pumps and a reservoir inside of the case. It's not a small case, but it is not as big as I would like it to be.

That is how my benching rig has been set up for several years. I use an external MO-RA 360 radiator. There are no radiators inside of the chassis on that system. The liquid stays cooler that way and I do not have to worry about internal case space restrictions.

No, I did not make it and I don't remember now who the creator is. I have been using it on all of my computers for maybe 10 or 12 years.

I don't like desktop icons being visible. I use a desktop toolbar menu next to the System Tray (right-click, toolbars, check "Desktop") and hide the icons. Unzip the attached file and drop the executable anywhere you like. Put a shortcut on your Taskbar. Instant hide/unhide in one mouse click. HideDesktopIcons.zip On... Off...

@Ishatix you are spot on. Totally agree. Also agree with your footnote on automation. I intentionally design things to be as easy as possible, and strive for single-click functionality. I get a chuckle out of people in my organization whining about change making their job more "difficult" and my response is usually something like, "Oh, you mean that extra mouse click that was introduced as a job performance requirement? Yeah, I know it's a tough job, but someone as smart as you will master than mouse click in no time. But, please let me know if you need any help with your mouse button."

Thank you. Aesthetically, I think KDE Plasma is excellent overall. It has a very polished look and feel to it, but I still find a few things lacking in terms of customization. I still lean slightly towards Cinnamon DE. Probably because I have used it longer and it is more familiar to me. For example, I know how to manually tweak the code to adjust the menu color and transparency to match the panel I use on Cinnamon. It bugs the crap out of me when they do not match. (That irks me to no end in Windows as well. I consider it tacky-looking and half-assed when they do not match.) I had to spend a lot of time searching for the info. I have not done that for Plasma, and may not do so because it is easier to do what I already know how to do with Cinnamon. I like Cinnamon's window manager themes and add-on GUI customization extensions better as well. Out of the box and no tweaking of code to suit my personal preferences, Plasma is definitely elegant and more aesthetically pleasing overall. But, to a fault, I am very picky, OCD and unforgiving about my aesthetic preferences, and do not embrace change or variety in that area of my computing experience.

Works perfectly. Thanks for sharing, bro. It's interesting that a right-click copy and Ctrl+C (copy) did not seem to work for me after clicking on the control box in the upper left hand corner, but Ctrl+X (cut) works every time.

See my edit above your reply. Thanks for the Ctrl+X suggestion. Not sure why Ctrl+C and right-click copy don't work for me. Interesting. I am not even sure that is a legal position. Apparently, it has not been challenged in court yet. They could legitimately deny damage caused by overclocking. Voiding a warranty for no reason other than the customer being honest when asked the question is an unethical business practice. Unless they have some kind of evidence or reasonable basis for concluding the damage was caused by overclocking, there is no legitimate basis to refuse to pay for a product that fails to function correctly during the warranty period. This would apply to delidding as well. No different than saying your warranty is null and void because you replaced thermal paste yourself, used nylon washers under the ILM to keep from bending the CPU, or undervolted to improve thermals. They basically are voiding a warranty and refusing to cover any failures if the customer chooses not to use BIOS defaults.

Unfortunately, it is a monkey see, monkey do thing. AMD has the same policy on overclocking. The Intel monkeys saw the AMD monkeys getting away with shirking their responsibility, so now they are doing it. Doesn't matter who gets your money, you're going to get screwed from either company. I purchased an Allstate/Square Trade policy for $50 with the new 12900KS that includes accidental damage. There is no verbiage in the policy that hints at excluding overclocking. Hopefully, there will be no reason for me to use it or to find out if they go out of their way to deny a legitimate warranty claim. I will be curious how you do it. I seldom use mobile, but copy/paste on desktop doesn't seem to work for me when it comes to adding quotes when editing an existing post. I have tried many times and it doesn't seem to work. I'd love to know what you are doing differently. Edits below: Interesting. I have tried that before and it did not work, but Ctrl+C (copy) does not work. However Ctrl+X (cut) does. Weird. Also, right click does not show the "Copy" command, only "Copy Image" Also worth noting, I have to add the new test first and past above the text I add or I cannot add new text below the pasted quote. For some reason the bottom line of text of the pasted quote is like the end of the editable space.

The hard part is when you see the post you want to reply to after you've already posted and nobody posts after you. You can edit, but not add a new quote. There's no way to quote the post you are going to reply to in a post that was already saved. For some reason the forum software has a limitation that makes it where you can't copy and paste the quote from a temporary new post. The same functional limitation makes it where you can't quote a post in a different thread. There are times when I find the question and answer more appropriate in a different thread. If you're looking for a decent gaming experience you won't find a lot of difference one versus the other. Best to shop based on price. The 3070 probably does a slightly better job of ray tracing.

Both have been sold.

Well, it sucks that the first one failed, and even more so that I was honest to Intel and they're not taking care of business. So, this time around I bought an Allstate warranty that includes accidental damage since Intel and AMD are determined to not stand behind the products they sell. The replacement 12900KS SP ratings are significantly better, so this might be the silver lining to the dark cloud.

I don't have any benchmark results yet because I have been too busy with other things and the replacement 12900KS is supposed to be delivered today. But, subjectively I love it. As expected, it is an amazing product as every Dark mobo has been compared to the alternatives. The MSI mobo or defective CPU also messed up the replacement memory kit, so I can't do much yet because of that. I am finalizing a product review on a kit of Corsair DDR5 Vengeance RGB but it is Samsung IC and sucks at overclocking. The PMIC is limited to 1.435V (locked in firmware). The replacement TeamGroup Delta that I got from the RMA of the first kit now has one module stuck permanently at 2.100V in both the MSI and EVGA mobo, so something was definitely going haywire with the Unify-X or the CPU. But, now with the messed up 12900KS it is impossible to know whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first. I think I am going to sell the Unify-X and stick with the Strix D4 simply because it has no issues and is fine for a work computer. The enthusiast part of me would prefer to keep the Unify-X rather than the Strix, but I don't want to have to deal with any more nonsense. I think I would be better off not assuming whether or the Unify-X has been the source of the issues rather than taking the risk and finding out the hard way. The better bin of the 12900K and the replacement 12900KS will go into the Dark mobo and the Strix will run the lesser of the two. Good to know on that RAM. I like that it is not RGB. Thanks for sharing the link.

Everything the big tech companies do is deliberately metered and rolled out incrementally as feature enhancements in stages to ensure they have milk left in their digital mammary glands so they can sell us something new later on. They enjoy playing poker with our money and keeping the jackpot and gambling wins for themselves. If they include everything in one release or hardware generation they also can't make as much money as they would holding back things for later, and they will run out of gimmicks that get people excited about wasting their money. They also won't have something in their bags of tricks and nifty gimmicks to deflect the tricks and marketing gimmicks of their similarly clever competitor(s) if they include too much in a single release. It was kind of humorous how Threadripper fans got butt-hurt about AMD breaking their promises on the HEDT socket cross-generation compatibility, while the consumer side of their fan base remains fixated on having a static CPU socket form factor that spans many years. What they often don't realize is that having the ability to install a newer CPUs doesn't necessarily give them everything the newer CPU brings to the table and they still have to buy a new motherboard built using a legacy socket if they want all of the features to work. Depending on what they are hoping to accomplish, the CPU upgrade may not actually be the upgrade they were hoping for. The effect isn't that different than buying a new motherboard with a different CPU socket. The inability to downgrade to an older CPU on a newer motherboard and chipset is probably the greater benefit that gets overlooked. I do really care a lot about PCIe lane count. Moving back to consumer CPUs after being on HEDT for a while was initially difficult. I had to lower my expectations on how much stuff I could have running on PCIe. I didn't have issues running a dual NVMe PCIe card dropping my GPU from 16x to 8x or 4x, etc. It was nice having more PCIe lanes available than what I needed to do whatever I wanted to do. Most consumers and gamers don't find this limitation to be relevant and the reduction in function doesn't affect them based on their use scenario.

It is very difficult to find anything nice to say about anything that has to do with electronics technology. The hardware and the software that runs on it mostly trash, and what little doesn't suck is priced for people that have frivolous spending habits, or more money than intelligence. I hope Intel, AMD and NVIDIA experience record-setting losses and have to sell their next gen garbage for less than they are currently dumping their excess last Gen GPU inventory. It would also be nice to see Apple go out of business and Micro$lop stop working on new versions of Windows and Office and offer nothing but basic function-essential bug fixes for the next 5 or 6 years. The world doesn't need a next gen of anything. What we need is for them to stop pushing overpriced, unreliable, buggy, trash and "digitally signed" PUPs and data-stealing malware gimmicks. They don't deserve anything nice or good, and we don't owe them anything more than a hard reset.

If 5950X and X570 were any good I would still be running that. The platform was buggy to the point of frustration and the CPU and memory overclocking capabilities were pathetic. There are not very many that can run 50x on all cores without sub-zero cooling. Nice Cinebench scores is what attracted me to it in the first place. Little did I know that it would ultimately turn out to be about the only thing that I thought it was actually good for... and even then, only when my mouse and keyboard worked. I'd rank it in my top 10 most regrettable purchases of all time.

This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. 5950X is 16 cores / 32 threads. 12900K/KF/KS are 8 cores/ 16 threads, plus 8 Atom cores for a total of 24 threads. The Intel CPU outperforms the 5950X by a huge margin on a per thread basis, but it is 8 threads fewer than the 5950X. It is erroneous to put them in the same class due to the difference in total usable threads. If you were to disable 4 cores and force the 5950X to run with a maximum of 24 threads it would get its ass kicked really bad by an overclock 12900K/KF/KS. The more appropriate comparison would by a Ryzen 3900X or 5900X, which are 12 core, 24 thread. The highest Cinebench scores on HWBOT for 5900X are lower than the 12900K* scores that I, @Papusan or @johnksss have posted. And, the Cinebench R23 record is with a 5900X running 6.0GHz on LN2. https://hwbot.org/submission/4673735_oclockdoc_cinebench___r23_multi_core_with_benchmate_ryzen_9_5900x_30202_cb https://hwbot.org/hardware/processors#key=ryzen_9_5900x