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Best mobo Z390 for OC - Apex XI or Evga Dark?


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Please, who uses both mobo - say yours opinion.

I think better - Apex XI. Memory support 4800, Dark only 4600. Better powerstage - 16 vs 12 - 60A.

But Dark bigger (E-ATX), socket and connectors on 90 degrees, and expensive - 500$.

 

 

 

temps compilation.png

z390 rev9.png

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Dark has proper xp, for legacy and single thread.
Dark has 12 phases (using proper doubler) vs Apex with 16 (8 phases real with each 2 stages in parallel). Basically, Dark has better efficiency and needs less voltage for same frequency, Apex could handle more power draw (relevant if 10+ cores on 1151).
Dark has igpu support, for possible oc competitons or igpu gold.
Asus bios is more well known and probably cleaner.
Both support 4900+ 14-13 ez, so mem support is basically equivalent.
Apex much cheaper, even in US.
Dark no rgb, Apex rgb.

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51 minutes ago, Leeghoofd said:

Dark has the XP ACPI support advantage... awesome for older legacy stuff, think Luumi proved already its quite a strong board... 

Maybe that cpu shines even on older boards,we will never know.

Vrm can play an important role in freq and stability,not to mention that evga killed cpu’s in the past with the spikes in voltage untill they released proper bios.

Training ram,proper rtls and tertiary,max freq with same latencies i would like to see.

The best way are to be compared under ln2 and after ,if there is time, a short test on ambient :).

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6 minutes ago, Alex@ro said:

You can buy a Apex XI and a second hand Apex X for the price of dark, you have two boards, windows XP, etc. I am not saying that Dark is a bad board however the price is little bit too much for this platform. 

Alex, if we ignore the question of price - is Dark better for our business?

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Dark for sure, had the chance to try apex xi and nothing new rly from my apex X, maybe faster booting with tight rams. both boards have overkilled VRMs. If u want best scores go for Dark as it supports legacy, so 32M on XP is possible. Biggest downside for me is shitty evga eleet app, asus have much better turboV for OS OCing.

EDIT: i didnt rly considered price, well yeah Dark is expensive, depends if u want spi etc on legacy.

Edited by Slovak_Killer
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1 hour ago, Alex@ro said:

You can buy a Apex XI and a second hand Apex X for the price of dark, you have two boards, windows XP, etc. I am not saying that Dark is a bad board however the price is little bit too much for this platform. 

This makes good sense, sadly you can't buy a second hand apex anything for under $100 which is more than the price difference between dark and apex xi. 

51 minutes ago, Slovak_Killer said:

Dark for sure, had the chance to try apex xi and nothing new rly from my apex X, maybe faster booting with tight rams. both boards have overkilled VRMs. If u want best scores go for Dark as it supports legacy, so 32M on XP is possible. Biggest downside for me is shitty evga eleet app, asus have much better turboV for OS OCing.

EDIT: i didnt rly considered price, well yeah Dark is expensive, depends if u want spi etc on legacy.

So you're saying that the Apex boots faster and has software that works.  Only thing not to like is that it doesn't support XP.  In that case, what new does the dark offer?  Slow boot,  software that doesn't work, xp support which was available on prior apex models.   To me it looks like it's all about trade-offs and what one is willing to give up.

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Apex board makes you lazy with all them bios profiles in them. Evga is a challenge as I'm learning the x299 dark.

z390 Dark will be next choice :)

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4 hours ago, Mikecdm said:

This makes good sense, sadly you can't buy a second hand apex anything for under $100 which is more than the price difference between dark and apex xi. 

So you're saying that the Apex boots faster and has software that works.  Only thing not to like is that it doesn't support XP.  In that case, what new does the dark offer?  Slow boot,  software that doesn't work, xp support which was available on prior apex models.   To me it looks like it's all about trade-offs and what one is willing to give up.

Some Apex IX go for 100 or bit less on Ebay. Needs Hardmod + modded BIOS for Coffee (including 9900K). Put Alex 0094 BIOS and 1801 one from APex X and voila.

Sometimes you can get Z170 OCF and get 9900K support too BUT since is a 4Dimmer... OC RAM isn't so good (4000 12-11 is hard). 

Z390 Dark is the top for me but overpriced. Preffer to stay and Z170M OCF or Apex IX side for now.

Regards

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I really like the fact evga returned with a competetive highend board, but due to price and availability in germany it is no option for me, Maybe if I see it do 4266 c12 32m air like I could do on apex XI I will buy a used board if it ever appears at europe at a decent price, but not now. Really sad story XP support for XI is not planned obviously

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have both. I'll give you my perspective. I like to push things for 24/7 stable heavy watercooling. ie 5.3ghz with 4133mhz 1t memory

VRM wise, both boards VRMs are way overkill. 

The zDark is significantly easier to work with than the asus board. 

Yes the asus bios is much more elaborate with more settings. 

The zDark is straight to the point, and just gets things done. I purchased my zDark thru amazon for $440, and the Apex for $420. 

I will probably be looking to sell the apex. 

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18 hours ago, NorySS said:

I have both. I'll give you my perspective. I like to push things for 24/7 stable heavy watercooling. ie 5.3ghz with 4133mhz 1t memory

VRM wise, both boards VRMs are way overkill. 

The zDark is significantly easier to work with than the asus board. 

Yes the asus bios is much more elaborate with more settings. 

The zDark is straight to the point, and just gets things done. I purchased my zDark thru amazon for $440, and the Apex for $420. 

I will probably be looking to sell the apex. 

just let me know if u want to sell ur maximus xi apex ;)

 

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