Mr. Fox

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.

Thank you. I will avoid v0801 since I do not want "security" fixes. I only care about performance. I will test first with whatever BIOS is on the board from the factory before v0800. If it works OK with the factory BIOS I may skip v0800 since I would prefer to avoid newer Intel ME versions if I can. It really sucks that ASUS goes all Nazi on that stupid crap. I don't even know what version Windows ME drivers are on my work computer right now because I have Intel ME disabled in the BIOS, so no Windows drivers are even necessary. I think the motherboard firmware is like 2 years old, LOL. It just doesn't matter. Intel ME has nothing whatsoever to do with overclocking. ASUS really should be allowing the motherboard owner to make their own decisions about these things like EVGA always did. 😒

Yeah, I saw that a couple of weeks ago, Brother @jaybee83. I don't think even that would be enough to re-spark my interest in laptops. I'm just done with them. Probably forever. Too many corners have to be cut due to form factor. It's a cool idea though, at least for those that can't seem to shake loose from the idea. Laptops are just too disgusting to me now. I'm OK with owning one that is cheap and my expectations are set accordingly. I've got my little sub-$500 off-lease Half-Breed when I need it. I shudder to think how hot that sucker is going to run, even with liquid cooling. There is no way that it will be able to deliver full performance in that package. Power and cooling will both be a problem.

Hopefully we will get another "America First" Commander in Chief back in office and we can really put the hurt on China, seal our borders and restore some of the sanity and integrity we have lost. We should not be sharing knowledge, technology, resources, food, finances or providing any kind of trade or other support to China. TSMC is building fab plants in the US. Intel and AMD have fab plants here. They are expendable. We really don't "need" China for anything, or their chintzy garbage products for anything, and we should start to behave accordingly. They, however, do need us and we should exploit that on our own terms. And, if/when we do, they need to view it as a privilege that they can lose at any moment and with no advance notice. Personally, I think we should act as if they do not exist and sever any and all relationships with them, and allow them to slip back into third-world obscurity again. The planet would be a safer and healthier without them. Oh no. I did not. Thank you. I ordered a second kit so now it will be Sunday instead of tomorrow. Huh. This arrived a week ahead of schedule. @Papusanis BIOS v0080 working well?

No apology necessary. There is nothing good or nice that can be said because nothing is good or nice about the world we live in right now. Good and nice are outnumbered by stupid and evil, and we are all governed by the unfit and unacceptable human dross that have lied their way into positions of power and authority thanks to the prevalence of stupidity and evil in the general population. I just ordered a pair of these on Amazon. Looks like they are made similar to the Byski RAM jackets, with a bit of extra character carved into the sides with a design. They will be here tomorrow, so I will share if they are good or not. At $10 for a pair of them it is hard to beat. I wanted the chrome ones but don't want to wait two weeks just so I can have the chrome version... not that important in the grand scheme of things. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CKYPWHQ5?th=1

I hope you can get that sorted. It would be awesome to see a huge temperature drop. When I delidded the 5950X the temperatures were worse using liquid metal than before delid using the soldered stock IHS and the copper IHS. I believe it was due to variance in chiplet z-height. Using normal thermal paste made the temps the same a before delid, so I essentially gained nothing by delidding and it turned out to be a waste of time and money. Edit: you might try lapping to make all of the chiplet dies exactly the same height.

I am not sure if you configure it for use as an Optane cache that you can use it for storage anymore. Again, I am not entirely familiar with Optane technology, but I can vaguely remember that to be the case. I think there is a way to enable Optane using the Intel RST Windows utility.

I am not sure that I know of anyone that uses Optane. You might be the first. There may be some that never mentioned it. Though I haven't messed with it personally, isn't there a BIOS option that has to be enabled for it to function correctly? Are you using it for caching or for ordinary storage? As a side note, the only real difference between Z690 and Z790 is Intel eliminated Optane technology and used the PCIe lanes for other purposes. They stopped supporting it because Optane never got much traction/popularity.

What makes them particularly compelling is value and the sense of actually getting what you pay for, (which is rare today,) or maybe even a little extra depending on the type of workload; versus paying a whole lot of money only to get so little in return. We would not expect a $200 or $300 GPU to perform like one that cost $1000+ but we shouldn't be happy about paying $1500 for a GPU that performs like a $750 GPU. And, why would anyone feel good about an expensive new GPU that has inadequate memory capacity and a crippled memory bus? But, it is very easy to be happy about paying $200-$300 for a GPU that performs on par with one that costs $100-$200 more.

Their business decisions have caused me to step back and evaluate things with a more critical eye, as it is causing a harmful ripple effect on the entire overclocking genre of PC enthusiasts. The best is no more with EVGA out of the game and now there is less competition, with nothing to deter the new best and second-best from doing things more half-assed than ever before. And, they'll get away with that because of having no point of reckoning in the absence of competition. My expectation is that there will never be a company good enough to step up and fill their empty shoes and we will be left with what we are left with, which leaves a lot to be desired and doesn't fit my definition of being excellent or great... "good" at best, with sucky support and a raunchy experience if you end up getting a defective lemon.

I have not played it because it is new (expensive) and I generally refuse to spend more than $20-$25 on games, and I am not a fan of open world titles as a general rule. I heard it is like a reskinned version of Fallout and I am also not a fan of Fallout. Generally too slow/boring and cumbersome, kind of like Skyrim and the Witcher titles, which I also personally find very boring. I was merely making note of the observation that everyone seemed goo-goo-gah-gah in love with it initially and now not so much.

It seems like a lot of people were crazy about Starfield and making a big fuss about how great and amazing it is, but now suddenly I am noticing lots of haters. What changed? Or, did the shine just wear off of a new game?

Even wrecking a laptop is difficult, but a desktop is harder to hurt. Heat is the biggest source of harm, and it is usually either caused by an inadequate cooling system or using more voltage than the part can handle. Even so, most CPUs and GPUs will throttle to protect themselves. It's memory that tends to misbehave the most because it crashes rather than throttling, or it won't boot with wrong settings and you have to clear the CMOS. It's doesn't harm anything, it is merely an inconvenience. AMD and NVIDIA (especially NVIDIA) have minimal voltage controls available, so that makes it harder to harm the parts, and an Arc GPU has LOTS of voltage control, but if you give it too much it just runs slower, which is also a safety mechanism. Take your time. Learn to use the right tools. Make one or two changes at a time (so you can easily identify what you changed that caused instability) and you'll figure things out pretty quickly. It is extremely unlikely you will break anything by overclocking. You're more likely to screw up Windows than you are the hardware. Watch this video @ryan (not suggesting you do this, merely showing that the hardware is not that fragile)

I am starting this about half way through the video with the link below, but it is a pretty good demonstration of how the Arc A770 beats competitors in the same price range and competes directly with the more expensive RTX 3070 overall for content creation, especially video editing.

Make sure you get everything you need for your build, brother. Seeing you build a nice desktop will be a happy thing for all of us. Friends are happiest when their friends are happy.

Games have become ludicrous space pigs. A 2TB drive won't hold that many games. It used to be music and movie files that gobbled up drive space, but they use very little space compared to modern games. So, not only is 8GB of VRAM very swiftly becoming unacceptably small and 16GB the new "basic" configuration, but you need gobs of storage if gaming is your gig. That is, unless you are a weirdo that enjoys downloading, deleting, downloading, deleting, downloading, deleting, which is a waste of time and also has potential to degrade NAND storage if you do that excessively.

I have had very good results from TeamGroup NVMe and SATA SSDs. They run fast, have a decent warranty and they are nicely priced. I have at least 6 of them ranging from 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. I may have one or two 512GB as well, but I do not remember now since I have moved away from using anything smaller than 1TB capacity. I think they should stop manufacturing SSD drives smaller than 1TB because it is pointless e-waste. In a couple of years I will most likely think the same of 1TB or even 2TB SSDs. 512GB is now only flash drive territory and 1TB is entry level size for system volume capacity.