The OC-obsessed Asus Maximus Z690 Apex is without doubt one of the most costly Z690 boards, although in equity it sits a great distance under Asus’ personal Maximus Excessive. At $720 (£570, $1199 AU) there isn’t any getting away from the truth that it is a very costly board and its fundamental opponents—the Aorus Tachyon ($550) and MSI Unify-X ($500)—each value considerably much less.
Motherboards particularly designed for overclocking have lengthy taken a again seat in favor of RGB-ified gaming designs. Overclocking by no means went away, although, and although the times of taking an affordable processor and motherboard and overclocking it to flagship tier efficiency ranges are lengthy gone, it is nonetheless good to see the entire massive producers nonetheless catering to the OC market, small although it’s. Boards such because the Tachyon, Unify-X, and the Asus Maximus Apex are often held in excessive regard, however as of late they have an inclination to come back with a painfully excessive value.
In higher information, Asus has ditched the roman numeral nomenclature. This makes it simpler to establish the board with out having to google it. As a substitute of being referred to as the Maximus XIV Apex, it’s now merely the Maximus Z690 Apex.
Earlier than we get to the board itself, it is value mentioning the bundled equipment. Asus features a PCIe 5.0 M.2 add in card, which provides a little bit little bit of future proofing. Because the M.2 slots on Z690 boards solely assist as much as PCIe 4.0, it is a good worth add for when PCIe 5.0 SSDs are a factor.
The cardboard itself helps one drive. We count on PCIe 5.0 drives to get highly regarded, so the large chunky heatsink will certainly preserve it operating cool in comparison with a chewing gum stick sized cooler or strip of aluminium. Observe that you will have to run the PCIe slots in 8x/8x mode to make use of the cardboard.
Z690 Apex specs
Socket: Intel LGA 1700
CPU compatibility: Intel twelfth Gen desktop
Storage: 5x M.2; 6x SATA
USB: As much as 2x USB 3.2 Gen2x2, 5x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 8x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 4x USB 2.0
Networking: Intel Wi-Fi 6E; Intel i225V 2.5G LAN
Audio: Intel Wi-Fi 6E; Intel i225V 2.5G LAN
Kind issue: ATX
Worth: $720 | £570
The opposite notable inclusion is an revolutionary gadget Asus calls the ROG True Voltician. It is basically an oscilloscope gadget that lets you monitor numerous parameters. It is most likely of restricted use to a typical gamer—although you could possibly say that about your entire board—however if you would like to see what’s occurring along with your overclock, or maybe troubleshoot a problematic gadget, it might be a great tool for the tremendous severe.
Now we come to the board itself. At first look we’re unsure concerning the look Asus has chosen, significantly the big dotted ROG brand atop the I/O part. Nevertheless it’s hardly a deal breaker. There are two RGB sections, one inside the principle VRM heatsink, plus one other ROG brand integrated into the chipset heatsink. It comes filled with OC switches and buttons together with numerous LN2 modes, sluggish mode, BIOS change, and voltage learn factors. There are even moisture detectors that can let you realize in case your CPU or DRAM space is getting a little bit soggy.
The Apex comprises the most effective, if not the very best VRM designs of all Z690 boards
You may notice that there are simply two RAM slots, which is a standard function of OC boards the place shorter traces, cleaner indicators, and subsequently superior DRAM overclocking is taken into account extra vital than most capability. Adjoining to the RAM slots is Asus’ DIMM.2 M.2 slot, the place you possibly can set up a daughter card with a pair of M.2 drives.
There are one other two M.2 slots on the board, so whenever you add the one from the PCIe 5.0 add-in card, you get 5 M.2 slots in complete. You additionally get twin PCIe 5.0 slots that function at both x16/x0 or x8/x8. There are additionally PCIe 3.0 x4 and 1x slots for different peripheral part boards. As for the old-fashioned connections; there are six SATA ports and a complete of 9 fan/pump headers with further water stream headers for customized water-cooling setups.
The Apex comprises the most effective, if not the very best VRM designs of all Z690 boards. A Renesas 24+2 Section VRM with 105A levels means you have got sufficient energy available to insta-kill your Intel Core i9 12900K with all core AVX benchmarks at 2.0v or extra in case you really need.
The CPU may go up in flames, however the board will not have a problem with it!
Asus equips the Apex with massive and chunky heatsinks. We like Gigabyte’s finned options, which give rather more floor space, however the Asus’ sheer bulk is best than many. We noticed a peak VRM temperature of 55c when operating a 12900K at full load. Not unhealthy. With respectable airflow, cooling gained’t be a problem.
The rear I/O contains a sturdy USB complement with a complete of ten ports; made up of a single Sort-C 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, 5 Gen 2 ports and 4 Gen 1 ports. You get PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, BIOS flashback and CMOS clear buttons, and a full set of audio ports.
Networking duties are dealt with by Intel i225-V and AX210 Wi-Fi 6E controllers. There are two faculties of thought right here. We do prefer to see 5 or 10G Lan as of late on excessive finish boards however is it superfluous on an overclocking board? Would WiFi 6 be sufficient? There’s a Realtek ALC4080 controller taking good care of audio duties. When you want bells and whistles comparable to Thunderbolt 4 you then’ll have to look elsewhere. At this value such issues might be thought of commonplace, however as that is an overclocking board, we’ll partly overlook these omissions, so long as you do not thoughts it too.
With regards to efficiency, most Z690 boards carry out fairly carefully to 1 one other, so long as they adhere to Intel’s 241W PL2 energy restrict with a 12900K. Not that you need to be operating at inventory with this board.
Ideally, we might get out the dusty LN2 pot to take the Apex by way of its paces, however that is hardly related to 99% of customers. Our 12900K runs into cooling limits properly earlier than the board breaks a sweat.
System efficiency
Gaming efficiency
Take a look at rig
CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K
GPU: Zotac RTX 3080 Ti Amp Excessive Holo
Reminiscence: G.Ability Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 C36
Storage: Adata XPG Gammix S70 2TB
Energy Provide: Corsair AX1000
Case: Thermaltake Core P8
Cooling: MSI MEG CoreLiquid S360
OS: Home windows 11 Professional
What’s extra vital for Alder Lake and overclocking is how the board handles excessive velocity reminiscence. Our G.Ability DDR5-6000 check package can hit 6,400MHz on the Apex, but it surely’s not straightforward and requires quite a lot of VDDQ voltage. It is doable we’re on the limits of our 12900K’s reminiscence controller as we will not hit any greater than 6,400MHz on a Group Delta package that’s XMP rated for six,400MHz.
Time will inform if we will simply plug in a DDR5-7000 package and be good to go. If any first gen Z690 board will be capable to try this, it’ll absolutely be the Apex.
The Z690 Apex will stay an OC favourite into the longer term, because of its frequent BIOS updates which incorporate suggestions from many extremely educated overclockers out within the wild. When you plan to seize a set of DDR5-6000+ and wish to extract each final body per second out of your rig, it is positive to have a protracted life forward of it.
And it truly is a top quality board, filled with OC pleasant options. It overclocks reminiscence extraordinarily properly—as you’d hope—and its BIOS feels very properly refined given how early we’re within the DDR5 period. However that is not sufficient to earn my advice.
For me it nonetheless has to supply worth as properly. And sadly, that is the place the Apex falls flat. It is actually troublesome to justify its steep asking value when in comparison with the Aorus Tachyon or MSI Unify-X. In truth in case you took away it is over-engineered design and the M.2 card, its function listing is not significantly spectacular when in comparison with mid-range boards. It could appear to be a bit wasted with an air or AIO cooled CPU.
The Asus ROG Maximums Z690 Apex is more likely to be a board that can have a protracted life as it’ll positively obtain ongoing BIOS assist, and it ought to be completely proud of second technology DDR5, PCIe 5.0 SSDs, and a thirteenth Gen processor. For now although, in a market the place any kind of notion of worth is tough to come back by, the Apex is a board that it is best to think about provided that you have already got an costly CPU and very quick DDR5 package to go together with it. For the remainder of us, diverting cash in direction of different elements is a much better technique to acquire additional gaming efficiency.
