Don't wanna be a HERO but need to get a little more EXTREME?, in the form of a Z690 motherboard that is. This Alder Lake motherboard is loaded with the most high-end features and gadgets, meet the RO... Review: ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme
since the glacial is vaporware I might buy one IF I find a waterblock for it but there's none available irl yet either so I guess I'll wait and wait and wait why this one - I have 5 M.2 and currently can only use 2 - I need 10gbit and don't want to use a pcie slot for a NIC (you can't use one anyway if you use the main pcie 5.0 m.2 slot it disables the 2nd full lenght pcie slot) - i need at least 7 usb-a - i also have 6 sata drives so no shared bandwith shenanigans every storage slot must be usable - it has a small pcie slot that I want for my soundcard (bandwith from chipset) I can't choose my motherboards based on price or look but on features that said I saw my config was in the <1% somewhere so ya not everyone needs that
had to cancel the glacial that was already paid for...delivery has been pushed already 2x in the same way DDR5 kits are and usually after the 3rd it becomes a "you wish" delivery date I already had that 5..yes 5 times for vaporware ddr5 kits my patience is spent so I bought the "normal" Z690 extreme instead full review including the new EKWB lga1700 waterblock 1st week of january probably
update and my review of the Z690 extreme, normal as reviewed by guru 3d HAS A MAJOR DESIGN FLAW - DO NOT BUY and no I'm not talking about the possible motherboard burning your house because they soldered a component in the wrong direction - the M.2 nvme heatsink, the one where the oled display is is GIGANTIC super high 3cm higher than the pcie slot, pictures are misleading the heatsinks are enormous on this motherboard - it's way too close to the pcie slot, like 1mm away, it's below the plastic latch at the end of the pcie slot because 5mm away was too much >< - no your have never seen a heatsink so high and so close to the pcie slot they went completely overboard - online pictures are misleading as the oled display plate seems to have an ok distance but the heatsink is actually a few mm lower and closer to the gpu backplate - if your have an active cooling backplate you can't use that motherboard - if your gpu has a thicker than usual backplate you can't use that motherboard - even if your gpu can be installed it doesnt change the fact that you will have an 80°C or more heating plate almost touching the "cooler" of the nvme - I don't think the oled display will enjoy being constantly heated by your 300+ watts gpu the hero has 1cm lower heatsink that doesn't overlap so much over the gpu the extreme glacial has at least a 1cm gap above the pcie slot designed to leave space for a thicker backplate and yes the rtx 3090 active backplate cooling block works on the glacial EKWB aren't as stupid as ASUS getting a glacial in the end I had to return the extreme it's unusable
Am I exagerating ? is that not way too close to the pcie slot ? Is that really a smart decision on a 1000€ motherboard that has very high chances of being paired with a RX6000 or RTX3000 gpu ? Considering that Builzoid once complained those gpus were bad for memory overclocking because they overheated the ram sticks I don't see how this would help "cool" your 13Gbyte/s pcie 5.0 nvme notice how the glacial is different there, there's a good centimeter or more above the pcie slot before the "ultrablock" with the oled screen is raised I see Aorus made the same mistake, it doesnt go as close to the pcie slot but it looks to be even higher so more on top of the gpu aren't those people selling AIOs ? don't they know you don't get good results by placing a cooler above a heat source ?
It's not a mistake. It was intentional. The Glacial is a watercooled board, so you can't compare the two layouts. In order to understand what's going on with the Z690 Extreme, you need to look at the Z490 Extreme. The Z490 Extreme has the x1/x4 PCIE slot (often used by soundcards) just to the right of the GPU slot. While that's great and all for normal users, it completely prevents any sort of backplate active cooling whatsoever on a RTX Ampere video card. There is absolutely no clearance for a low profile heatsink. The Z590 Extreme moved the x1 PCIE slot to the left of the video card, with the Z590 Glacial keeping the old Z490 Extreme layout. That allows you to use full active backplate cooling with a RTX video card, but the problem with THAT is, 3 slot gigantic RTX video cards come too close to the rear intake fan on these cards. This isn't a problem for any blower card (or a 2 slot card), but for something like a 3090 Founder's Edition card, this almost completely blocks the rear fan. There's only about 3mm of space left. This makes the video card run much hotter. The only solution to that problem is, to use a riser card, assuming your case has a riser slot mount, then it works well. You have to do the same thing on the Z690. There's still room for active backplate cooling even with the large NVME heatsink, as long as the low profile heatsink isn't too wide--it still will clear the heatsink if you measure correctly and buy the correct size, then you can strap a 60mm fan (one or two) on the back. Of course you can't reach the PCIE slot latch without a very narrow shim but as long as you don't break the pushbutton you can release the slot that way. Also you know you can just remove the OLED/NVME heatsink and use a smaller heatsink.
I´m a fan os ASUS boards but i don´t like the style of this one, it has too much RGB and every inch of space is occupied by something, even if it´s a simple plastic shroud protecting nothing... I prefer something simpler. The price is silly but there are people who have plenty of money for silly stuff so... Great review!
it's intentional that it sucks and is a problem for high end customers on a 1000$ motherboard...someone needs to be fired for that kind of intentional, you will still actively heat your oled+deluxe heatsink that you paid a lot of $ for that's inexcusable I also own an asus crosshair VIII dark hero X570 it has more plastic but the layout and bandwith sharing (not) is awesome ! so I did not expect that crap from ASUS..my bad I guess also two other major problems on that board..Intel scr... me again unlike X570 which was perfect :/ 1) when the manual says there's a trick....I'm "dumb" because I expected PCIEX16_1 to be x8 PCIE 5.0 after installing M.2_1 but no ! no what you get is a locked x8 multiplier so you will get pcie 4.0 x8 or 3.0 x8 depending on your gpu and thats very different, you're throwing away 13Gb/s on your gen4 gpu and 6.5Gb/s on a gen3 gpu, not a big problem on the extreme but on the glacial....I have to completely dismantle my pc now...because disabling the pciex16_2 wasn't enough I also lose much more bandwith than expected (lost into the void) so happy 2) they lied or forgot a small "detail" in their manual no it doesn't it has 4x SATA 6gb/s ports and 2x ASMEDIA controlled sata which suck and always have, was the same on Z390 asmedia SATA port chipset SATA port (same drive model) intel still with the garbage asmedia ports and bandwith sharing shenanigans I expected better from Intel and Asus drives I can connect mostly storage ones on the asmedia ports it's no big deal..but annoying, having to unbuild my computer because of the idiotic locked multiplier now that's bad
In my neck of the woods, that mobo is going for a very affordable and reasonable price of about 1480USD....
Makes my 3080 look cheap On a serious note the, Rog Maximus Z690 Extreme Glacial is over 3.5k in my neck of the woods. That's insane for a motherboard.
Whoa, what currency are you quoting? In my neck of the woods, the Maximus Z690 Extreme Glacial is going for the equivalent of 2522USD to 2572USD.....mind blowing!
Lots of opinions and commentary here! But talking about the ASUS Z690 Extreme brought me to thinking about another Z690 newcomer and seemingly equal contestant. I was generally not aware that EVGA was effectively in the MB business except for a few specialty model offerings or springlings over the years! WOW…a 10-layer PCB design and a 21-phase VRM. One heavy MB to handle and to behold and longevity and quality immediately springs too mind! This said and forgoing the talk that EVGA is all about overclocking and pricing, what is the ‘bottom-line quality’ of the KINGPIN (and some of its siblings) and comparing it to the likes of ASUS Z690 Extreme or the Z690 Aorus Xtreme? Does EVGA really has the resources and or know-how in truly committing in producing these kind of very limited production halo type MB’s? The EVGA BIOS development and product research alone and which ASUS can spread over thousands of MB’s sold, does not appear to be cost effective for EVGA and in wake that total sales of the KINGPIN will be rather limited and only address the very privileged few with really deep pockets. Besides overclocking as an exercise in a broad sense is almost dead! Anyone out there with thoughts and ruminations?
