Mr. Fox

It seems like ASRock is staying current with firmware updates, even for older boards. They have BIOS updates for this Z690 board released in the last month or so. But, as long as everything functions correctly no firmware updates matter as they are not needed. And, I like the ASRock BIOS layout. It makes good sense and everything is easy to find. I also like that ASRock does not bundle Intel ME cancer in the BIOS as a trojan like ASSzues does. You have to flash it separately and if you don't want it you do not have to. There is never a need to update Intel ME. In fact, the actual need is for a BIOS menu option to disable it because it serves no useful purpose. I agree. I do not trust any technology manufacturers. I am not wild about MSI or Gigabyte, but I think they are no worse than ASUS. All of them are untrustworthy, almost as undeserving of trust or admiration as the imbeciles at Micro$lop and crApple. Those two scummy outfits set the standard for suckiness. That is awesome. Newer is better. That is clearly better than anything new.

It will be interesting to see how frequently that malfunctions.

LoL. I thought @Papusanwas joking about this, but I guess he was not.

Once you install the GPU if it is removed for any reason the warranty is voided.

Why the blackout on the IHS in the photo? Just curious. Does the top PCIe x16 slot no longer have an easy-release button for the GPU latch? Or, did they move it to an obscure location? I did not see that in the motherboard photograph.

I think any time something is marketed as a "gaming" [insert item here] it is secret code for probably sucky at everything else. I've never played games while simultaneously doing something else before, but I know not everyone does things the same way. I wouldn't even try to do that because I would feel like I was losing my marbles if I did. I can't walk at chew gum at the same time, but I excel at doing one or the other.

The new Core Ultra 9 285K could have been better in a lot of ways, and it is pretty clear we agree on that. I am sure there are going to be caveats and strings attached that we don't know about yet. That being said, how is having a higher score with 8 fewer threads to handle the workload a bad thing? Setting aside how much better it could have been had they not eliminated hyperthreading, this is a substantially higher Cinebench score compared to a 14900K/KF/KS with a significant overclock at much higher voltage, power draw and heat production. It looks like it is probably going to beat Gen 13 and 14 CPUs and the latest and greatest Ryzen flagship. While we still have things to complain about, is that not a win on face value? Hitting 46K with a nicely binned 14900KF/KS requires a severe overclocks and abnormally excellent cooling with sub-ambient temperatures.

You're welcome. I've never encountered that refresh rate limited thing before. At least not that I recognized. I will check my ASUS 4K 120Hz monitor and see if CRU shows the same thing. My cheap Philips 1080p 100Hz monitor is running fine at 2560x1440 100Hz. I use this monitor primarily for having HWiNFO64 Sensor window open when benching or gaming.

You can also multi-boot. I have a fully metastasized cancer version of Winduhz 11 that I use when I need to or want to test something sketchy or bloaty, then I have optimized Window(s) installations that prioritize performance above all else. I have to use a cancer version for work because I use PowerBI daily and my optimized OSes are missing the feces that PowerBI needs to function. The 24H2 version is about as cancerous, bloated and rancid as it can get.

You should try this. I have found it to perform a lot better than GhostOS. Far less bloat on this one. I obviously prefer Windoze 10 (22H2) over Winduhz 11. I would recommend avoiding versions past 22H2 for either OS. https://windowsxlite.com/

It is very hard not to be intrigued by it if Cinebench R23 multi-core results are truly matching an overclocked 13900/14900/KF/KS CPU in spite of the missing hyperthreading. I find that hard to believe and I am skeptical, but intrigued if it turns out to be true. At the same time it bugs the crap out of me wondering how much better it would have been had they not made so many idiotic decisions. The mere mention of the NPU part makes me angry. I am 100% anti-AI and I don't like having cockamamie Orwellian sci-fi crap like that thrust upon us. The ASRock Taichi OC Formula is also an intriguing motherboard. I almost pre-ordered that motherboard to have it sitting on the shelf just in case, but that would be silly because I am still taking a wait-and-see approach here on the CPU part. Everything else looks amazing about Z890 except for the low CPU core/thread count and disgusting tile design. This will definitely be a platform to be extremely cautious about applying firmware updates so you don't end up with an emasculated door stop that is worthless as tits on a bull if you are an overclocker. I do not think G.SKILL has ever paid attention to memory thermals. They have always been the worst when it comes to deliverying cruddy thermal solutions on their memory modules. They are similar to ASSzeus in that they target overclocking enthusiast and then cut corners in some areas that matter. They're both too hung up on aesthetics and RGB rainbow puke, and even there their design teams have kind of tacky aesthetic preferences. As far as ASSzeus goes, their approach to things has never been more questionable than it is today. It's no secret that I haven't liked the brand for a long time, but it's getting easier than ever to hate them. Most of it is self-inflicted on their part. Bad people + bad decisions = bad outcomes. The bad pricing of their junk adds insult to injury. Being a PC hardware junky is tough because you want to learn from your mistakes and never repeat them again, but you always find things intriguing no matter what the brand is. You always want something awesome regardless of who made it. The problem is easily exacerbated by deceptively clever marketing (often blatant lies and deliberate misrepresentations) and fanboys that never speak negatively about products made by their preferred brand. For whatever reason, it seems like many (not all) AMD fanboys are more inclined to show unconditional love for AMD while Intel fanboys typically hold back no hate when expressing contempt for Intel's mistakes. I am a forgiving person to a fault and forgiving people is essential. Harboring resentment against individuals is wrong and harmful to all involved; most of all to the person holding resentment and unforgiveness. I have to forcefully remind myself that forgiving companies, politicians and political parties is extremely foolish. Remembering everything they have done wrong, and reminding others of their shortcomings and failures is wise and essential to not getting screwed by them again in the future. Knowing that skunks don't change their stripes, obtaining forgiveness and finding a path to redemption for them (as corporate bodies) should be extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible.

So, was this hard voltage limit and drop to 400 MHz above 10°C another idiotic decision from the dullards at ASSzeus, or a mandate Intel is requiring of all motherboard manufacturers? If this is an ASSzeus decision it is grounds for a boycott, brand-rejection and dismissal from particpation as a computer motherboard manufacturer.

If that is how it works out it could be fatal business decision for them.

It is both good and bad. BAD: Considering it is missing hyperthreading and falls short by 8 threads because of that, the Cinebench score could have been MUCH higher if it matched the prior i9. Bad also because you are paying a lot for no overall performance increase. Bad because you're paying for stupid gimmicks nobody wanted or asked for (i.e. asinine NPU AI bullcrap). Bad also because they moved to a tiled design and farms this out to TSMC. Bad because they kept E-cores instead of ditching them and adding more P-core. Spending the money seems pointless for anyone with a Z790 system with an i9. All of this makes me feel angry. GOOD: for only 24 threads, that Cinebench R23 score seems excellent. That is the equivalent of a 5.9-6.0GHz all-P-core and 4.7-4.8GHz all-E-core overclock of a 14900KS. The temperatures and power draw are very good. Will that create overclocking headroom? I don't know. Hopefully it will. It looks like DDR5 overclocking might show improvement. For someone with a Z590 or earlier system, upgrading to this makes more sense than a Z790 equivalent even though it could have been better if they had not ditched hyperthreading. It could have been better than better had they not moved to a stupid tiled chiplet piece of crap and replaced E-core with more hyperthreaded P-cores. I came very close to buying new AMD parts the other day, but then I pulled my head out and remembered how that has turned out every time before and that I have never been satisfied, even once, with anything they make. It's also an engineering abortion with a tiled design and a guaranteed crappy CCD paired with a potentially good or OK CCD. But, the fact that I even paused to momentarily consider doing that shows how disappointing the newer and not-better platform is. So, looks like there is an awful lot to be pissed off about and just a few things to appreciate. They're not trying very hard. This could have been really easy for them had they given it more effort. I wonder if they are holding back something better like an Intel "Ti" CPU equivlant that will be released to milk more money from Intel enthusiasts.

That's really awesome. What a sweet deal. It runs like a top. What does the memory latency look like?

Well hey, whaddayaknow... Jufus is a review shill now. Hoodathunkit? He got a "media kit" from ASSzeus.

I've stopped listening to all of the silly chatter about gaming this and gaming that. I don't really care. What I do care about is no hyperthreading and reduced core/thread count and the assinine glorification of using less power. That part makes me angry, but I really don't give a hoot if an X3D CPU does something better with games. It's not all that important to me, and once your framerate is higher than 150-200 FPS, or equal/greater than your monitor refresh rate and free of stuttering issues, it really starts to not matter in the grand scheme of things for gaming. I want them to be focused on raw mutli-core horsepower and increasing core/thread count and stop talking about stupid stuff like using less power, being "more efficient" and not being the best gaming CPU. That's my...

The world has plenty of lunatics. Every country has more of them than they wish they did. They're not as rare as they used to be. Some have managed to pass themselves off as normal, and in some places they unfortunately are.

It looks like this may be a new product. Corsair's video is only 2 days old. Looks like a refinement of the Obsidian, and it costs $100 less. https://www.corsair.com/us/en/p/pc-cases/cc-9011273-ww/9000d-rgb-airflow-super-full-tower-pc-case-cc-9011273-ww

I love that. Very awesome. I agree... huge monolithic CPU is the only good way to do it. Everything else is a dumb idea with strings attached and caveats. It is amazing that the motherboard is wider than an air-cooled 4090. I'm not sure that case you are wanting is going to be large enough for this mobo and big radiators. You might want to get one like @Papusan has, (Corsair Obsidian 1000D,) and even that will just barely be big enough. Edit: a 9000D Airflow might also work. Seems very similar to the Obsidian but less glass and more ventilation. https://www.corsair.com/us/en/p/pc-cases/cc-9011273-ww/9000d-rgb-airflow-super-full-tower-pc-case-cc-9011273-ww

That one.

It is not fair for NVIDIA to be the only manufacturer with melting GPU power connectors and hogging all of the media attention. Intel and AMD deserve to get equal free publicity. This also shows us that stupidity is a contagious disease. If jumping off the edge of the roof and breaking legs is the latest popular trend, then all the idiots will be doing it. There was one thing, and only one thing, that I liked and admired about AMD video cards. Sounds like that one thing is going away now. Edit: Brother @cylix it looks like wccftech took down that article or the link shared is no good.

Unnecessary change purely for the sake of change. No benefit to the end user, merely a scam to enhance revenue. Same as the idiotic 12VHPWR GPU power cable scam. Something new to sell that nobody needed or asked for.

Evil bastards making stupid products for stupid people. We need to round all of them up, tie bags of bricks to their ankles and drop them all into the ocean. Then we will see what AI can do to make their lives better as they sleep with the fishes. They're all a total waste of DNA and we should stop sharing our oxygen with them.