EVGA Introduces Z690 DARK K|NGP|N Motherboard ($829.99) for 12th Gen Intel Core Processors

LazyGamer said:
Just to point out - most boards seem to be coming with exactly three PCIe slots. The first two are the 16 lanes to the CPU, so if you use the second one, you cut the lanes to the first one in half. The third one is a 4 lane slot.

And you'll further find that things get dicey when it comes to M.2 slot usage. For example, many of the lower-end Z690 boards, which is to say, <$500 these days, have four M.2 slots. You move up a bit and many drop one or more and give you a card to put in that third PCIe slot.

But what if you have a use for that one single extra slot, since using all of the M.2 slots also disables SATA ports usually leaving you with two.

I'm using four M.2 drives as well as two SATA spinners, as well as having 10Gbit networking and not wanting a board that lacks Thunderbolt. I'd actually have to make compromises on the above if I bought a more expensive board, or a cheaper one, than the Gigabyte Z690 Aero D I'm currently using - and I'm no fan of their BIOS or their RAM compatibility.
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Sounds like you need to move to workstation class and get yourself a threadripper with all of the PCIE lanes.
 
As antiquated as my TR is getting, it gets stuff done. I do appreciate the pci lanes for sure.
 
Grimlakin said:
Sounds like you need to move to workstation class and get yourself a threadripper with all of the PCIE lanes.
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Not that I'd mind - if AMD were to update the platform first. TR is pretty aged at this point, I find it somewhat hilarious how many my 12700k passes in benchmarks like CBR23.
 
MacLeod said:
Which is why I was always a huge fan of the TUF motherboards. All the durability but none of the fluff most people will never use. My old 990FX Sabertooth was virtually indestructible. I overclocked the balls off a 1090, 8150 and 8350....ran at insane voltages, stress tested for days, crashed a billion times but that thing never so much as whimpered and I put it in my kids build once I retired it and it was still working flawlessly when I retired it out of that.
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The old boards did have their share of fluff. They had additional IC's for thermal monitoring and about two to three times as many onboard thermal sensors and sensor headers as most boards. They even eclipsed ROG boards at the time for that. The older TUF boards had more comprehensive fan control than the ROG boards as well. Eventually, a lot of what made the TUF series what it was got rolled into the upper end ROG motherboards at some point and TUF was rebranded as a budget gaming brand.

Today, I don't recommend TUF boards unless someone is on a budget. It's unfortunate because I really liked the TUF series for what it was. That said, I understand why the best aspects of TUF were rolled into ROG. It made sense from a marketing standpoint. About the only thing that TUF offered was a more subdued aesthetic, which you can get on the WS boards. Those are closer to what TUF used to be although, they are more entry level workstation type solutions.

Still I miss the difference in personality and style that the TUF series used to offer. I also miss the days when buying a ROG motherboard meant you were getting one of the best motherboards available at that time. Now the brand is so diluted that ROG is virtually meaningless as the ROG STRIX stuff is pretty budget oriented. Some of the Hero boards aren't really much better either.
 
Dan_D said:
The old boards did have their share of fluff. They had additional IC's for thermal monitoring and about two to three times as many onboard thermal sensors and sensor headers as most boards. They even eclipsed ROG boards at the time for that. The older TUF boards had more comprehensive fan control than the ROG boards as well. Eventually, a lot of what made the TUF series what it was got rolled into the upper end ROG motherboards at some point and TUF was rebranded as a budget gaming brand.

Today, I don't recommend TUF boards unless someone is on a budget. It's unfortunate because I really liked the TUF series for what it was. That said, I understand why the best aspects of TUF were rolled into ROG. It made sense from a marketing standpoint. About the only thing that TUF offered was a more subdued aesthetic, which you can get on the WS boards. Those are closer to what TUF used to be although, they are more entry level workstation type solutions.

Still I miss the difference in personality and style that the TUF series used to offer. I also miss the days when buying a ROG motherboard meant you were getting one of the best motherboards available at that time. Now the brand is so diluted that ROG is virtually meaningless as the ROG STRIX stuff is pretty budget oriented. Some of the Hero boards aren't really much better either.
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I've heard that on a few reviews, how TUF isn't an upper tier line anymore and have more in common with the more budget oriented models. However from what I understand anyway, their VRM's and power management is still pretty stout and their overall build quality is really good. It does suck they're not what they used to be back in the 990FX days but at least they kept some traits of their toughness.

Honestly though I just get ROG boards now when I'm doing builds for friends and such. You can get them for around $160 and they seem to have the build quality, features and reliability of the top end boards just with fewer convenience features.
 
I used to love my Z77 Sabertooth board, was rock solid, price was decent too.
 
MacLeod said:
I've heard that on a few reviews, how TUF isn't an upper tier line anymore and have more in common with the more budget oriented models. However from what I understand anyway, their VRM's and power management is still pretty stout and their overall build quality is really good. It does suck they're not what they used to be back in the 990FX days but at least they kept some traits of their toughness.

Honestly though I just get ROG boards now when I'm doing builds for friends and such. You can get them for around $160 and they seem to have the build quality, features and reliability of the top end boards just with fewer convenience features.
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I can't speak to the VRM's other than to say, it didn't look like it on the ones I've physically seen. However, the build quality is absolutely identical to that of the ultra budget boards. TUF isn't what it used to be.

I also hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those $160 ROG boards aren't the same as the upper end boards at all. ROG doesn't guarantee good build quality or decent VRM's anymore.
 
Dan_D said:
I can't speak to the VRM's other than to say, it didn't look like it on the ones I've physically seen. However, the build quality is absolutely identical to that of the ultra budget boards. TUF isn't what it used to be.

I also hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those $160 ROG boards aren't the same as the upper end boards at all. ROG doesn't guarantee good build quality or decent VRM's anymore.
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Sounds like a good consumer article is due then.

What boards offer the best components for the best price for each socket type. Basically a ranking of cost/performance/quality across the boards so SOME guidance can be found. As clearly there is a misunderstanding of where quality for dollar lies.
 
Grimlakin said:
Sounds like a good consumer article is due then.

What boards offer the best components for the best price for each socket type. Basically a ranking of cost/performance/quality across the boards so SOME guidance can be found. As clearly there is a misunderstanding of where quality for dollar lies.
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There is a massive problem with that idea, although I do not disagree with you. The problem is having enough staff to do something like that. It would be a huge under taking for one person. Beyond that, motherboard manufacturers rarely post detail specs of the VRM designs anywhere and I'd have to pull their heat sinks to know for sure given how deceptive some board makers can be. (ASUS is the poster child for marketing deception like this.) Even then there is only so much you can tell by looking.

It's often challenging to figure out how the VRM's are designed in motherboard reviews. I usually figure it out but I've seen plenty of reviews out there that were wrong because they listened to the manufacturer. Many review sites and Youtubers reported ASUS' Twin-8 phase implementation on the ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero and Formula boards as being anything from dual 8 phase (without knowing what that is), to 16 phase and 8 phase with double inductors. Many sites reported the design as being anything other than what it really was and that's a fat 4 phase configuration.

When a motherboard manufacturer tells you something is say 16+2 phase, they don't tell you whether or not the board is really an 8-phase with doublers or a straight 16+2 phase configuration. You often have to look for the voltage controller if you can find it and see how many phases the controller supports. ASUS' ASM1401 for example is a 4 or 4+2 (something like that), so we knew that the Maximus XI Hero and Formula were four phase boards.

Manufacturers will also use very clever wording to further confuse you but not actually lie about what they are offering. One way they'll do this is tell you how many inductors there are. So they'll say something like "18 inductors" or x amount of power stages. In truth, they talk about how many components are used but not how many phases there actually are. If takes a bit of detective work to cut through the bullshit and find out what's going on with a given board model. And believe me, you have to do this every time and assume nothing when it comes to the board's price.

Build quality is somewhat subjective, but you can look at solder joints, PCB thickness, and some component selection to determine quality. But again, that's an undertaking if you want the article to be broad enough in scope to cover a lot of models.

People seem to be of the opinion that it's simply features that drive up the price and the cheap boards are the same as the more expensive ones, minus the fluff. While there are models that do generally follow that line of thinking, the vast majority of cheap boards and more expensive boards are further apart than people realize. The cheaper boards use inferior clock generators or voltage controllers. They won't have the same levels of adjustment offered in the BIOS as the more expensive boards because the hardware is different.

That being said, it doesn't always matter given we can't overclock all that much anymore anyway. That's probably the most confusing aspect of all. Knowing which of these features matter, and which ones don't. Sometimes its subjective and sometimes its not.
 
I just want to know on a what. Once every other year article if the board thst has a decent price and a name I recognize is actually a good board.

Remember when gigabyte motherboards were the good board for non overclockers and even good for light overclockers due to dual bios.
 
Grimlakin said:
Remember when gigabyte motherboards were the good board for non overclockers and even good for light overclockers due to dual bios.
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An example of this might be the Gigabyte Z690 Aero D board I'm using at the moment. Has a full native Thunderbolt implementation (2x TB4 ports on rear IO), as well as 2.5Gbit and 10Gbit ethernet, and 4x NVMe slots. It looks like a run-of-the-mill board from a power delivery perspective, though that's typically fairly decent when talking about Z690 boards in general - and it certainly isn't cheap!
 
Actually looking at that industrial design I LOVE it and the cost is high but not... Bonkers high.
 
Grimlakin said:
I just want to know on a what. Once every other year article if the board thst has a decent price and a name I recognize is actually a good board.

Remember when gigabyte motherboards were the good board for non overclockers and even good for light overclockers due to dual bios.
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There are just way too many models to evaluate a wide variety of them in any reasonable amount of time.
 
Dan_D said:
There are just way too many models to evaluate a wide variety of them in any reasonable amount of time.
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LTTs new 'labs' might be up to the task - but still, ASUS has like 20-something models just for Alder Lake?
 
29 LGA1700 boards from ASUS, and ~20 across the board for the other major manufacturers, according to Newegg:

1646174848587.png
 
I think there's quite a few boards that have WiFi and non-WiFi variants - why anyone would not spend the $10 more is anyone's guess - but we're still looking at over a dozen basic variants.
 
LazyGamer said:
I think there's quite a few boards that have WiFi and non-WiFi variants - why anyone would not spend the $10 more is anyone's guess - but we're still looking at over a dozen basic variants.
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Given the choice I would always opt for the version without WiFi. I don't need it and I don't want it.
 
Dan_D said:
Given the choice I would always opt for the version without WiFi. I don't need it and I don't want it.
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If I could do something else with the interface, I'd say the same - but it's a convenience in the rare event that it's needed, which may be well after the board is repurposed down the road.

And it's like $10 and a switch the the BIOS when it's not needed. Costs more to add it later, so for $10?
 
I have network jacks all over my house. I do not need WiFi for any desktop personally.
 
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