Forget about 4 DIMM Motherboards when you want to use OC Memory, two DIMM Slots are completely obsolete.

I told a m8 when he just got many issues with his extreme to get an Apex.

with Bios 0811 he finally got the exchange extreme working with one Dual Kit by G.Skill, but at which costs ?

running his 6000CL36 @ 5600 for stable daily operation.

Extreme has Backplate - Apex has not.

suboptimal design decision by Asus, since most Extreme users will use the Board in a case whereas Apex is destined to run in open test setups or on benchtables.

 

When using all DIMM slots:
DPC > T-Top > Daisy

When using just two DIMM slots:
DPC > Daisy > T-Top

 

All Motherboards since S1200/Z490/Intel 10th use dasiy chain topology, there is no more t-topology.

 

SO if using only 2 DIMM slots would there be no difference? Does the fact that the Apex has only 2 make it better for stability when only using 2 DIMM slots, or does it not matter whether 2 or 4 as long as you are only using 2?

 

If using only 2 sticks, go for a DPC mobo (Apex, Dark). It usually has about 166-200MHz more OC headroom. On Z370/90, I was seeing 200MHz difference between a 2 DIMM board vs 4DIMM T-Top board, using the same 16GBx2 modules. It was 3900-15-15-15-35-2T vs 3700-15-15-15-35-2T.

 

Only advantage I've ever understood with purchasing the Extreme vs Apex is a zillion fan headers for an extremely large water build maybe? Or the OLED screen if you like that kinda stuff.

I'd grab the Apex instead and use an Aquaero 6 for fan and pump control. Don't like using mobo fan headers OR Asus software, but that's just me.

Aquaero 6s are awesome.

Extremely happy with my Apex X and Apex XIII, have also owned Extreme V and Extreme VIII, but I'd never buy another Extreme board, way too costly now and Apex does everything I want from a high-end XOC motherboard.

 

Other than price is there any other reason you would not buy a Asus Extreme board? I mean $1000 is definitely a bit much and out of budget of most people, but I am fine with it just to get right board for build to get a board I can have up and running with good onboard audio and VRM thermals tonight and through New Years weekend.

The Prime Z690-A is looking quite good as well as VRM is good as well as thermals per Hardware unboxed. Plus it has Realtek S1220A onboard audio unlike the Tuf which has an ALC892/897 and per Tech Yes City is awful which s why I am switching.

I prefer all PCIE slots empty except for the video card one so do not want dedicated sound card as I like as much open space in bottom as possible. So looking for good onboard audio for Logitech Z906 speaker setup.

The Rog ones have ALC 4000 something Supreme which is better, but is the S1220A much better than ALC892/897 and is it well implemented?

Asus Tuf Z690 very very bad onboard audio:

 

Truly defining the purpose for your build should answer all your questions easily Apex vs Extreme or any other ROG motherboard.

Mine is an overclocked office work build, my applications respond extremely well with greatly improved responsiveness with high memory clocks, so for me 5866Mhz CL21 DDR4 is brilliant.

If your build is for gaming only, best requirements are completely different, as games still respond better at 3866Mhz CL14 or some low latencies vs high memory clock speed.

If you're apps require heavy CPU usage, then CPU OC single and multi-thread become more important.

If you need 128GB of mem for workstation apps, thats another consideration.

------

To answer your question and if price is not an object and you love all the wonderful extra features of the Z690 Extreme over the Z690 Apex, then all I believe you will sacrifice is maybe 200Mhz to 600Mhz in DDR5 speed, the 2DIMM Apex board should always run memory kits slightly better.

Gotta go with your heart, if you truly want the Z690 Extreme then make it yours.

 

Truly defining the purpose for your build should answer your question easily Apex vs Extreme.

Mine is an overclocked office work build, my applications respond extremely well with greatly improved responsiveness with high memory clocks, so for me 5866Mhz CL21 is brilliant.

If your build is for gaming only, best requirements are completely different, as games still respond better at 3866Mhz CL14 or some low latencies vs high memory clock speed.

If you're apps require heavy CPU usage, then CPU OC single and multi-thread become more important.

If you need 128GB of mem for workstation apps, thats another consideration.

------

To answer your question and if price is not an object and you love all the wonderful extra features of the Z690 Extreme over the Z690 Apex, then all I believe you will sacrifice is maybe 200Mhz to 600Mhz in DDR5 speed, the 2DIMM Apex board should always run memory kits slightly better.

Gotta go with your heart, if you truly want the Z690 Extreme then make it yours.

Do you know if the Extreme is worse overclocking RAM compared to Hero? I am avoiding Hero for now due to blowing up issues and am trying to sell one not used as I just found out lol. Have not had a buyer yet lol. Maybe Asus recall first or not sure if the one I have in hand is even affected?

 

As DDR5 speeds increase and latencies decrease, the Apex bios will keep improving and will always run DDR5 faster than the Extreme.

But whether that even matters or will make any difference for your build is totally up to you.

I wouldn't purchase any motherboard lower than the Apex, my work apps LOVE the high memory speeds, and boot times at 4.5-5.0seconds are unbelievable.

Again, simply define the purpose of your build and know what your apps work best with - THEN choose a motherboard.

 

If your Hero is not affected by the capacitor with the wrong orientation you could just keep that one or get refund/RMA if it has the fault.

i know two pople with an extreme and all they had so far is many issues with oc memory, even jedec did not work with 4 16GB Modules.

one of them spend like 3000 Bucks buying G.SKILL memory from ebay.

guess how p!ssed he was when i told him will NEVER work @ XMP with 4 Modules.

 

So many enthusiasts purchase memory without ever looking at a QVL from ROG or Gskill. Do your research before you buy anything, like duh!

My ddr4 running at 5866Mhz CL21 hyperspeed with the Apex XIII.

That little i5 11600K is a badass processor amazing IMC and 5.5Ghz every core. lolol

 

I wish my hero was part of the recall. I could return it and get an Apex too.
[/QUOTE]

Where did you purchase the Hero. Can you return it past return period because of fault? I cannot because I purchased it from someone else as a deal and the refund would go to them. SO have to do RMA to Asus and then once get it back or different one fixed sell it.

 

I wish my hero was part of the recall. I could return it and get an Apex too.

Where did you purchase the Hero. Can you return it past return period because of fault? I cannot because I purchased it from someone else as a deal and the refund would go to them. SO have to do RMA to Asus and then once get it back or different one fixed sell it.
[/QUOTE]

Its passed the 30days lol. My motherboard is one of that were done correctly.

 

According to Buildzoid, the Extreme has worse capacitors than the Apex. Also, 2-DIMM motherboards can usually overclock memory better than 4-DIMM boards. The VRM is overkill since you don’t need 24 power stages. My Strix has 16 power stages and I can hammer my 12900K with no VRM heatsink. I also obtained the highest non-LN2 scores in Firestrike and 3DMark CPU profile with my Strix so clearly anything higher than a Strix is useless for CPU overclocking unless you go LN2.

Skip to 1:13

 

According to Buildzoid, the Extreme has worse capacitors than the Apex. Also, 2-DIMM motherboards can usually overclock memory better than 4-DIMM boards. The VRM is overkill since you don’t need 24 power stages. My Strix has 16 power stages and I can hammer my 12900K with no VRM heatsink. I also obtained the highest non-LN2 scores in Firestrike and 3DMark CPU profile with my Strix so clearly anything higher than a Strix is useless for CPU overclocking unless you go LN2.

Skip to 1:13

I would have gone with a Strix if only it were compatible with Noctua NH-D15S coolers mounted the direction I want. None of them were. Shame on Asus for including too big a heatsink in that area, yet on Maximus boards which are even more VRM power stages, The Noctua coolers are fully compatible.

Well anyways settled on Prime Z690-A which is almost same as the lowest end Strix forget letter number, but the $350 standard ATX version in VRM, just less features especially no dual Gen 5 X16 slots and no Gen 4 other non GPU PCIE slots and such. And not the super high end onboard audio, but still good and far better than the Tuf Garbage onboard ALC897 10+ year old audio implementation per Tech Yes City review.

 

Thanks for all the help guys.

I settled on the Asus Prime Z690-A, so saved lots of money.

I did not need tons of features, but enough and DDR4 boards were so gimped and onboard audio sucked on best DDR4 board being the Z690 Tuf Gaming WiFi (non-WiFI version did not exist).

And all boards seemed to have mediocre VRM thermals per my conclusion across many reviews except for Asus Rog Strix/Hero, and Extreme boards and Gigabyte Xtreme and Master. Gigabyte is out because of disaster BIOS and bad experience with a X690 Master where static CPU speed set did not work as WIndows Task Managaer CPU speed fluctuated like a laptop even on Ultimate Performance power plan with Min and Max set to 100 even under load so no it was not thermal throttling.

Have not tried MSI, though in past they seemed much worse quality though recently has improved last few years. Though researching, The Tomahawk DDR4 and Carbon WiFi which have much better onboard audio and Tomahawk has decent VRM thermals per Hardware Unboxed, but very mediocre thermals ver Overclock3d.net so they were ruled out.

That left me with Asus Rog boards excluding Strix due to incompatibility with Noctua NH-D15/NH-D15S coolers. Extreme and Hero had very good VRM thermals as well. So I looked at Hero, but had a little pause due to Overclock3d.net having 6C higher CPU temp than Tuf gaming.. But I wondered if it was just a fluke or not a big deal so took the deal. Then I overthought and wondered if Apex or Extreme paying Premium would be better though no reviews on CPU temps though many factors play a role in that, but it gave me pause still. And the Apex and Extreme have even better VRMs than Hero, though both are top tier. And they both have excellent onboard audio like as good as high tier sound cards with the ALC 4080 or something.

I did more researched and discovered the Asus Prime Z690-A DDR5. It apparently appears very similar to Tuf Z690 except it has far better onboard audi with an S1220A which is pretty good and far better than the AL897 poorly implemented on the Tuf Z690. And the reviews it had top notch VRM thermals and very low CPU watt usage per Hardware unboxed. And it appears to be same board as Tuf Z690 but DDR5 vriant and no WiFi and same VRM with 1 or 2 more stages and less onboard RGB.

SO I went with this and testing it and so far so good with DDR5 6000MHz Trident Z RAM XMP profile loaded.

Only thing lacking that I need was an extra USB 3.0 motherboard header, but just had an adapter to convert to USB 2.0 to make all 4 front case USB ports work.

And I needed solid onboard audio as I did not want a dedicated sound card as I wanted all PCIE slots empty below video card for best air flow from bottom in my Phantkes Enthoo Pro II case to card. This case had best video card cooling thermals on air per Gamers Nexus and wanted to keep as open design as possible below

So it looks like it has and is going to work out for better and saved lots of money than overpaying on Extreme for features I will never use just to super VRM thermals and one extra USB 3.0 header and great onboard audio. Plus have no need for onboard WiFi nor anymore than just Gen 5 PCIE X16 video card slot. No need for anything past Gen 3 for other PCIE slots nor. Also no need for RGB garbage. And also of course you get Dual BIOS and BIOS flashback and way more USB and Thunderbolt ports which could come in handy, but doubt I need them at all

Problem is options are so limited I almost had to overpay to get what I wanted just for those extra features because VRM thermals and cool running board for air cooling are so important to me. And boards in reasonable price range in past never had those until I fond this one here in the Prime Z690-A. And it may even be better for CPU thermals as Tuf Gaming was and it is mostly same board with superior onboard audio and DDR5. Rog Maximus boards (Especially Hero???) might put out lots of extra current even on same settings as they are meant for most Extreme overclocking on water cooled or LN2. VRM is yes better on them than even Prime A and Tuf, but the VRMs are so beyond overkill on Z690 boards compared to past generations that it seems to not matter as the VRM on Asus Tuf and Prime A is outstanding in its own right with just as good of thermals for mild to moderate overclock.

 

I wonder what feels more responsive to my work apps, 5866Mhz CL21 DDR4 or 6000Mhz CL36 DDR5? I just don't know?

I'll have to wait for Raptor Lake and find out next year. Hoping for a simple overclock 8800Mhz CL30 with the best Gskill kits and a Z790 Apex board.

 

I returned my bad Hero and got the Apex.

 

I get my Apex in a couple days

 

Initially bought a Formula that died and decided to "upgrade" to the Extreme (there were no Apex's available at the time and I needed a working system). I'm not happy with it, as I have not been able to run ANY kit at XMP (even QVL'd kits at their QVL'd spec). That said though, I've at least got it stable with the G.skill 6400 kit @ 6000 with the rated timings. The board itself is fine for most of the average users out there, it's just not for me.

That said, I've got an EVGA Classified board coming tomorrow and plan on offloading my Extreme. I'll take a few hundred dollar hit I'm sure, but I'm hoping for better stability and more headroom overall.