Mr. Fox

Things will never be as good as they were when EVGA was in it to win it. I blame NVIDIA for it, and I won't have a surprised look on my face if other companies follow in their footsteps. Without the GPU business I think they were doomed, and now that they are no longer building motherboards there is no reason to do business with them anymore. I don't care about keyboards, mice, video capture devices and PSUs. Those are a dime a dozen. It was all about their impeccable quality, overclocking focus and unmatched warranty service with GPUs and mobos that had me hooked for life. As it turns out, it was for the duration of their life and not mine. So, we are left with the likes of ASUS and MSI. Definitely not great, but I guess it could be worse. Let's hope NVIDIA does screw things up with either of them. MSI (and maybe ASRock) for GPUs and ASUS for mobos. That's all she wrote... kind of sucks. Too bad Galax HOF GPUs are not plentiful here in North America. I could probably get happy about that. I might wish I hadn't sold them, but if you are interested in my Z690 Dark, 13900K and generic A-die drop me a PM. I also have a new EK 360 AIO that was used less than an hour for a product review and put back into the box, and a couple of good tower air coolers if you prefer air cooling. You would need drives, a PSU, a GPU and a case with E-ATX support. If I keep them I know I am going to feel compelled to build a third desktop and that would be really stupid. In fact, I have already started plotting my potential next move in terms of frivolous financial expenditures if these parts keep whispering sweet nothings at me. Brother @Recievermight want to arm wrestle you for them.

I thought of you when I saw it, for the reasons you said.

Enough to pay for a decent motherboard, a CPU, good DDR5 kit + NVMe, a nice used GPU or new midrange GPU. Take your pick.

Sweet! It's happening. Get the popcorn. Heads are going to roll and there will be hell to pay. Finally. Long overdue.

Or even a weapon. I bet it would hurt real bad to get smacked across the head with that thing. Cops could use it for breaking down doors like a battering ram, but it might not be good for the computer parts inside of it.

I don't know. If a person is that desperate for "mobility" these portable desktop options seem like such a lame and horrible compromise. As much as turdbooks suck, I almost think it would be better to just buy one of those crippled piles of crap instead and resign yourself to the fact that you paid a lot for a disposable piece of junk. I think that a genuine "need" for such a contraption should be rare in the grand scheme of things. If a person travels a lot, and some do for sure, then they are destined for garbage computing options with a turdbook because there are not any good options no matter how you measure it. The options for mobility all suck. If they do not travel a ton, then they should just have a proper desktop and stop being so silly about insisting on "mobility" that they don't really need. I am so happy that when I was 70% business travel for more than a decade that I did not have to compromise to such a great degree. Laptops were not as trashy as the garbage being offered today. "Desktop replacement" was closer to reality. Now the concept is truly a joke. Sounds like a good explanation to me of why we call them "jokebooks" and "turdbooks" LOL. I bet you can hardly wait to get a desktop and put that crippled nonsense behind you. I'm curious why you bought that. Or, was it a Christmas gift?

After replacing the PCH thermal pad on the white Apex those seem to be under control and they seem better on the Encore. But, in my experience the issues are occurring even when the system is cold. It's not a huge problem because I only use the rear I/O USB ports 99% of the time and they seem to always work fine. It's only the front panel connectors. Two work correctly, but three often do not work at all, or when they do they malfunction. Most of the time I don't even think about it because I am not using front panel USB ports except when I need to copy files to/from USB flash drives. So, not that often. Both of my cases have four Type-A USB 3.X ports (two on each motherboard header) and one Type-C for front I/O connections. The Type-C port connects to the motherboard on the associated header, two Type-A ports connect to one USB 3.X header and the other two connect to the second USB 3.X header. The USB 3.X header by the 24-pin motherboard power works solid always and I can rely on the two USB Type-A ports connected to it to always work fantastic... super fast and reliable. The one at the bottom edge of the motherboard is hit or miss and so is the Type-C. They show in Device Manager, but on both cases more than half of the time nothing plugged into the Type-C port is detected and the ports connected to the bottom USB 3.X header often do not detect when anything is plugged in. When I connect a flash drive to the Type-C or Type-A ports connected to the bottom 3.X header often nothing happens. The connected devices are not detected, but power is going to those ports and if there is a light it on the device the light will turn on. But, other times the flash drives are detected and work fine. At other times will work but have super slow transfer speeds. At other times plugging something in causes a bang in Device Manager with Code 10 or Code 43, or USB Device Descriptor Failure. And, it's all random. But it is only the ports on those two specific motherboard headers that are flaky. Maybe it is because they are ASMedia USB (sketchy quality and lackluster driver support) and not Intel USB devices. I have the Bluetooth and WiFi disabled in the BIOS. I don't use either of them and do not install the drivers. They are ported to USB even though the motherboard connector is M.2. But, since they are disabled in the BIOS I doubt they are affecting anything. Thankfully, it doesn't cause me any problems. It's merely annoying if I try to use them and they don't work and I have to move the connected device to a different port that does work. Not very special to see this with a $700 mobo, LOL. Actually, on two $700 mobos. I really like this guy's videos. Always interesting and useful. Even though content creation is not important for a lot of us, interesting to see how a different kind of workload can use a GPU differently than gaming or benching sometimes. Also interesting to see there is still a legitimate use for multi-GPU setups, (i.e. V-Ray/CUDA) just not in gaming and benching. GPUs Tested in this video Zotac RTX 4090 AMP AIRO https://geni.us/Ztc4090AIRO ASUS TUF RTX 4090 OC https://geni.us/TUFRTX4090 Zotac RTX 4080 AMP AIRO https://geni.us/jstvFn Noctua RTX 4080 OC https://geni.us/NCTrtx4080 Zotac RTX 4070ti AMP AIRO https://geni.us/zlwer Zotac RTX 3090ti AMP Holoblack https://geni.us/5V6gMa Zotac RTX 4070 Trinity https://geni.us/ZTC4070trinity Powercolour 7900XTX 24GB Red Devil https://geni.us/RD7900XTX ASUS 7900XT TUF OC 20GB https://geni.us/7900xtTUF ASUS RX 7800XT TUF 16GB https://geni.us/tuf7800XT ASUS RTX 4060ti ProArt 16GB OC https://geni.us/o7nX Zotac RTX 4060ti https://geni.us/1p5jES ASUS RX 7700XT 12GB TUF OC https://geni.us/7700xtTUF ACER ARC A770 16GB OC https://geni.us/eBNEpt Zotac RTX 4060 8GB https://geni.us/4060ZtcSpiderman SPARKLE ARC A750 8GB OC Titan https://geni.us/WFobqB ASROCK ARC A580 8GB https://geni.us/ASROCKa580 ASUS RX7600 Dual 8GB https://geni.us/zSrXnA ASUS RTX 3050 DUAL https://geni.us/BQSt7Ml

Having both, I can confidently say that there is nothing for you to gain from the purchase unless you hate white parts so much you can't live with the option. The Encore is a poorer value because it costs the same and includes less. Although I have to admit the missing items, other than the GPU support, are totally worthless to me. The only benefit that is evident to me is the black color, and that is subjective. The bottom edge USB 3.1 19-pin and the 3.2 Type C headers malfunction on both motherboards in the exact same way, which is disappointing because I have a need for those ports to function correctly on both systems.

For now. Until they remove the option and force their ugly disgusting trash on all users. The alternatives also suck, in some ways just as much, but we should use them instead just because they are not from the woke idiot Alphabet A$$hats.

Another G.SKILL 8000 kit like I had in the Apex. I got it dialed in and stable on the Z690 Dark. These are the only stable 48GB memory kits I have found. All the rest seem to be trash. And, then I bought an Encore. It seems like I got a good Encore, as it performs identical to the white Apex. I am hoping to snag a nicely binned 14900K for at or below retail price at some point, maybe when people start jumping to 15th Gen and need fast cash to pay for it. Since there is no more firmware support from EVGA, dropping a 14900K into the socket won't be doable. I'm still trying to decide if I want to sell the Dark. I hate the thought of parting with it, and I may keep it, but I have too many spare parts already. I literally have everything needed except for GPU to build a whole third desktop now. If Battlemage turns out as awesome as I hope it does, then I'll even have the extra GPU. (Technically, I actually do have a spare GPU but it's too old and sucky to use except in an emergency situation. It doesn't even have a UEFI vBIOS so it produces an error during POST about not having UEFI support.)

Well, I am pleased to find my 24/7 8600 MT/s memory overclock settings on the Apex are going to work fine on the Apex Encore as well. So, it looks like both systems will be running the same daily driver overclock settings. 60x on P-cores, 47x on E-cores, 50x on Cache and 8600 on memory. I will probably have to dial them back to 59x on P-cores when the hot summer weather returns. With the winter weather and my office window left open to let the cool air in (and tons of dust) I am able to keep my office between 65-70°C F compared to 78-82° F the rest of the year. Would you trade this for a Ryzen X3D setup @Papusan? I am about 29 minutes into a MemTest Pro stability test and so far no errors.

It's your money, brother. Spend it as you wish and have fun. But, I think you are wise to put laptops in your rear view mirror. If overclocking isn't particularly important to you, team red might be a cheap entry point. Chances that I will ever buy anything in the future from AMD, especially on the CPU side, are extremely slim and close to zero. I've got nothing nice to say, so I won't say anything. The best way to learn is to let people FAFO on their own. That's how I got where I am today and why I think the things I think. Much better to have experience to draw from so you can avoid the jaded nonsense from fanboys that look like experts on the surface. The opinions of others mean nothing when you've got your own based on personal experience. Just give yourself a bit of wiggle room by not saying never and having it carved in stone. Each time you extend forgiveness and make the same mistake you swore you never would again hardens your heart against tech garbage a little more.

Problem fixed. Totally counter-intuitive based on the option, but having this box checked is why the Apex Encore could not see the memory temperature sensors. Tamas Miklos from Finalwire (AIDA64) emailed me to inform me that this was the fix, and it was. Interesting that I have to disable an option for ASUS motherboards, but it probably applied to older models. Buying crappy power supplies is a common mistake "value sensitive" gamers are often guilty of, but I think it is wrong to base a GPU design decision according to what the lowest common denominators are inclined to do. People that buy cheap power supplies will learn their lesson when it comes back to bite them in the butt. I cannot believe it is because NVIDIA cares about the people that buy their GPUs.

China (at least their barbaric government) is worse than most imagine. It is extremely stupid that the US and its allies conduct any kind of business with them. What we should be doing is making their mere survival extremely difficult. They wouldn't have the time, capacity, technology or financial resources to be committing acts of war with spy balloons if we were doing things right. They'd be completely cut off from the outside world, entrenched in massive civil war with citizens fed up with how they have been mistreated, and focused only on how to get through tomorrow without another epic catastrophe. Finally... someone with clout is willing to call it for what it is. 12VHPWR is trash. He is saying exactly what I have said dozens of times. Sheesh. And, good technical info. Three legacy 8-pin power connectors would provide more than adequate power delivery, with room to spare. It was more than enough for feeding 1000W to the 3090 K|NGP|N. Very damning for the stupid idiots responsible for deploying it. The solution is to move back to 3x 8-pin or dual 12VHPWR like the Galax HOF 4090. Anything less is at risk of failure.

Very good video. Spoiler: skip 13900KS, save money and buy 14900K instead; do not buy any KF CPU; and avoid AMD X3D CPUs.

Happy New Year, my friends. May the coming year be emotionally, spiritually and financially prosperous for you and your loved ones. May your lives be filled with love, health and happiness. May the peace of God that passes all understanding be upon you. May our enemies, foreign and domestic, be scattered as dust in the wind. May those who have sought to destroy us, including the wicked ones working from within our borders, meet with death, destruction and pestilence as their evils deeds come undone.

He was right. One per package. Not unusual for these. I have needed to purchase them individually from Bykski in the past. The issue is misleading photographs and product description of "2 pieces" not the cost per module. Anyhoo... I got them installed and the RAM on water. With air cooling the RAM overclocked to 8200 was hitting 65°C and erring out on TM5. Temps reduced about 24°C and zero errors now. Things are as they should be again. A couple of observations. This G.SKILL kit was white. The white color is low quality paint. The lacquer thinner used to dissolve the adhesives started stripping the paint. This has never happened with black so they must have used a very poor quality paint. Acrylic and Polyurethane enamels are not harmed by lacquer thinner. Second observation... appears they are binning these modules. There are handwritten markings on an IC on each module similar to what I saw on the 3090 KPE, which EVGA confirmed are from binning.

So easy. Now to install my preferred desktop environment.

The menus are different and the F-key boot options at POST are also different on the Encore versus the original Apex. Not sure what is up with that. If you are wanting CSM for Windows 7, I will send you a link a utility that will allow you to run in pure UEFI with Adjustable Bar working. I installed Windows 7 using it no problem. Now I just need to buy an older GPU that has driver support. (I mentioned this in reply to Suzuki in the Apex thread at HWBOT. Worked perfectly.) Edit: check your email. I just sent it. The Gestapo is trying very hard to cram the new filth up our butts instead of letting us make our own decisions. ASUS is drinking their urine-flavored Kool-Aid. I was able to partially mitigate the loss of SATA ports by installing a second PCIe 4x dual NVMe in the slot above the A770. It did not decrease the 16x slot to 8x. So, I have a dual NVMe PCIe 4x card in both 4x slots now. So, now I am only short two 1TB SSDs from where I was before and I have a place to install Linux without having to sacrifice any storage capacity. I am having a hard time with the idea of turning loose of the Z690 Dark K|NGP|N. It's just too good to let go. I should sell it. That would be the most intelligent thing to do, but sometimes what I want gets in the way of what makes sense. I was thinking of selling the Praxis Wetbench also. Maybe I will keep both, leave it in my closet and break it out when I need a test bench. I have a spare 13900K, my generic A-die, lots of spare NVMe and SATA SSDs, a spare EK 360 AIO that is new (used only for a review) and a 1200W PSU so I could have a complete third setup if I grab a used GPU for cheap. Yeah... I need that like a need a hole in the head. I could use it for old GPU benching like you do. Somebody needs to stop me, LOL.

In my case it has remained the same on Z690 Apex, first Z790 Apex and the Apex Encore. The MC SP varies a few points depending on what time of day it is. I have had the SP rating randomly go bonkers a few times in the past to an insanely high or low number and had to re-flash the BIOS to correct it. @tps3443has experienced the same issue. Sometimes even reflashing doesn't fix it unless you flash down a version then back up. This is my first 13900KS. The second is the same except for a MUCH higher E-core SP rating. For some reason AIDA64 does not "see" the memory temperature sensors on the Encore. They are missing in the list of sensors. How strange. He and I text all of the time, sometime for hours, and he just went dark. I hope I did not say something that offended him. We usually talk computer stuff, so probably not. Maybe I can snag a good bin 14900K for a not-stupid price when everyone else is chasing the next upgrade and need cash to help fund it. That's the only reason I purchased this to replace the Z690 Dark. Now I am struggling with the idea of selling it. I don't want to, but I know it is going to just sit on the shelf collecting dust. I love that motherboard and the BIOS, but there is no more support for the firmware, so it will never be able to run a 14900K. 🥹 I don't think I will ever stop being sad. I wouldn't be so bad if ASUS didn't suck as much as they do. This second G.SKILL 8000 kit seems every bit as good as the first one in the other Apex. It worked great in the Z690 Dark as well. It is a shame so many of the DDR5 kits being sold are garbage. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about their stupidity, or their lack of integrity. You don't even have to look for examples of it. The examples call attention to themselves. They do a few things well sometimes. They'll never be good enough for me to like their brand. I agree about the Gen5 M.2 slot. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to be pushing a shopping cart full of garbage and eating out of dumpsters on the bad side of town.

Well, I still have to strip the memory heating blankets off once the water cooling jackets arrive. But, it is done otherwise. Seems really solid in terms of performance. Easily running 8000 with zero effort so I anticipate another 8600 daily stable ride here. My IMC SP rating is higher on this one even though the E-core and overall SP rating is lower. Ran a couple of quick benchmarks with cores synched at P-60x, E-47x, 50x cache and no issues. Should be a good daily profile for the CPU, too. I always forget how cheap and flimsy these Apex boards feel compared to the Dark. I think it weighs literally half as much, and both the white one and the black one are not even flat. They have a big bow in the PCB until you bolt it to the chassis. ASUS is just so dad gum chintzy on build quality. I did not realize I was going to lose 4 SATA ports. I had 8 on the Dark. So, now I am short four 1TB drives, so that kind of sucks. I don't know why this has only four SATA ports. I'm glad I have six NVMe drives installed or the missing SATA ports would be an issue. It still kind of is, but I'll get over it in a day or two, LOL. He has disappeared. I hope his family is on a Christmas/New Year vacation or something. I have texted him several times over the past 5 or 6 days and got no response. I hope nothing is wrong and he is just tied up with family stuff.

Your floating point calculations with a calculator will be limited only by the buoyancy of your wallet.

I have not installed it yet so I do not know what version it has. The decal on the box show a manufacture date of November 2023.