mobo PCB Breakdown: EVGA Z790 DARK

[@puokki6225]

That bleeper speaker integrated to the motherboard sent me on a 90's flashback, trying to play Age of Empires late at night quietly without my parents noticing and failing before I even got started as the damn bleeper ratted me out on boot.

[@ferna2294]

Older beepers were EXTREMELY LOUD. I work with computers of all sorts of ages, but only certain servers and weird laptop models have beepers as loud as the ones that used to come in your regular 90s PC.

[@Sebyllis7350k]

Lmfao

[@t3h8ar0n]

I'm still running a z390 Dark with a 9900k running 5.3ghz all cores and ram with a filthy OC as well (its been running this virtually 24/7 for years now with no issues)... I will definitely be getting this z790 to pair with the 13th gen refresh coming later this year!

[@t3h8ar0n]

@@Wasmachineman direct die with EK full custom loop (both CPU and GPU on loop).

[@xflamousz]

Unfortunately on z790 the apex is just superior. Thats indesputable if you Look at the results people get with These Boards.

[@BigBidNus]

I bought a dark bc I didnt want a white board.. If the Apex came in black I prob would have bought one

[@t3h8ar0n]

@@xflamousz I won't buy Asus products anymore (I paid top dollar for their 1080 when it first launched and the thing couldn't even hit the clock speed advertised on the card and then they were bitches about giving me a refund). Since then I've gone with MSI for video cards and EVGA for motherboards and have had 0 issues.

[@jdoggsgarage4494]

Same here. 5.3 on a z390 dark/9900k for 3 years. Just upgraded to this board and 13900k. It’s relatively stable at 5.8 all core but runs a bit too hot so I’ve had to turn it down until I decide what water block to change to.

[@timothynolan7250]

I always love EVGA mothers boards!

[@givemeajackson]

14 layer PCB?? Holy shit! That thing must weigh a ton!

[@Queen_of_Coffee]

Yeah, it weighs quite a bit. I much prefer it to the cheapskate H series Asus board I got originally.

[@adammarette2491]

Who ever thought 90 degrees was so scandalous

[@dustanburrell1571]

It's not 4 minutes into this video knowing what I know about this board this dude's a freaking moron kingpin designed it this way to have a shorter path to the power connectors from my understanding which power being closer to the socket is a lot more beneficial to the overall experience than worrying about routing data connections around VRM. I wouldn't listen to a thing this dude says

[@ChrispyNut]

I'd use those M.2 dip switches for ensuring that an OS install went to the correct drive and couldn't mess up any other drives. This may not be an issue with different manufacturer . model names, but it was recently for me with a 970 Evo and 970 Evo plus drives as the plus was cut off the end in an installer 🤣 There are a few other reasons that come to mind, but they're far more fringe.

[@nepnep6894]

Also good for Windows since it plays Russian roulette with your drives on where to place the efi partition

[@ChrispyNut]

@@nepnep6894 Still does that, huh? Been Exclusively Linux for a couple of years and before that I'd usually remembered to unplug all but the drive I wanted Windows on because that (along with other things) had been such an irritation/pain/nightmare.

[@nepnep6894]

@@ChrispyNut yep since I dual boot and have tons of drives I actually got the dark for that reason. And having to go in and remove m.2 drives is a pain.

[@ChrispyNut]

@@nepnep6894 That's what I was thinking. I'm running 2x M.2s on a Z97 board using adapters, so unplugging's relatively easy compared to the most where they sit under GPU(s) and other PCIe cards. Being able to disable in BIOS would be even easier still (which I can do for one of mine, but not the other).

[@Ianochez]

I'm impress by the 90° layout of the cpu socket, I'm even more impress of the 90° layout of the rear I/O 🤣🙃

[@aliensounddigital8729]

Miss DFI. Loved all those colors. Now all the boards are Borg drones.

[@johnmachter40]

true. DFI Gamers boards were the shiz :)

[@sla5303]

my P45 T2RS+ was my favourite motherboard, took my Q6600 to 4Ghz stable with a lot of volts

[@lufiron]

Sup Buildzoid, I don't know if you remember but waaaay back in the day I asked you for the UPC code on your Asus Z270 Apex board. Looks like I found the board for my next build, I love shit like this.

[@doubleblack795]

The pcie switches are for ln2 so you can turn them off individually and keep them from shorting.

[@41chemist19]

Great video for a great board!

[@a_void]

45:41 Buildzoid making EVGA blush

[@larsjrgensen5975]

Thanks for the speech about memory speeds, I have heard so many times that DDR5 8000 is super easy to reach no problem.

[@adent6x7]

i love mobo speakers... that friendly little beep

[@DigitalMarksman]

I think 90 degree is really cool, since you can make the intake fans blow straight to your RAM sticks

[@DigitalMarksman]

The PCIe slots are awesome! I got 2 gpus for deep learning, watercooled, both work great if x8 speed provided.

[@johnmachter40]

wow after seeing this, i guess evga should be the company to go for for any computer parts. engineered to the max

[@jaydnisevil]

Depends.. watch his 3080 ftw3 review lol.. EVGA is very hit and miss.

[@johnmachter40]

@@jaydnisevil thanks

[@givemeajackson]

They also made some garbage boards, and some garbage cards too. their x99 boards were notoriously fucky. Honestly, every motherboard/gpu manufacturer occasionally makes fantastic stuff and also occasionally garbage stuff. Both my best and worst boards ever were asus.

[@rabel1545]

90 Degrees has the biggest upside with servers, because then the RAM doesn't conflict the airflow. Doing it on a desktop mainboard is, like you said, just a show-off.

[@Armi1P]

Thanks for EVGA for sending me this board for free, now I'm gonna tell you why this socket orientation is pointless, stupid and just for show. Classic buildzoid!

[@porklaser]

I really want a 27 degree maximum chaos edition.

[@ferna2294]

You just wanna watch the world burn.

[@Carsalesman47]

@@ferna2294 Samsies.

[@givemeajackson]

The salvador dali signature edition motherboard needs to happen.

[@givemeajackson]

​@@Wasmachinemanthe godfather of surrealism? I guess picasso would have worked too...

[@ZuckerbergDaReptilian]

Buildzoid is the only youtuber I turn off my ad blocker for.

[@Pro4TLZZ]

You could instead join his patreon and give him more money than he will ever earn off ad views from you

[@tomaspalkovic242]

Is there any noticable difference in VRM´s between Z690 Kingpin and this board?

[@moosecall45]

@actualhardcoreoverclocking have you done a breakdown of the x570 EVGA DARK?

[@JohnWick-tx4zw]

EVGA as a brand will be missed dearly.

[@johnmachter40]

Guys one question: Corsair sells premium psu cables. the 12V atx cable has a lot of capacitors soldered into the cable "to stabilize the power delivery" as they claim... is that only a marketing gag to sell those cables for 99$ or does that really improves a lot? i mean if the psu is good, caps in the cable are totally unnecessary, arent they?

[@ThatGuy-ht9sp]

Maybe caps closer to the board/card is better?

[@johnmachter40]

@@ThatGuy-ht9sp hm. maybe...

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

if you buy high end hardware it will have more than enough of it's own input filtering.

[@johnmachter40]

@@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking thanks. as corsair sells those expensive 100$ cable sets for their top high end psu's... it must be just a making money scheme then...

[@mylittlepwny3447]

Been waiting for this!

[@Queen_of_Coffee]

28:20 I have full blown achromatopsia. I see everything in 1440p grey scale because the cones in my eyes just don’t sodding work. So having a grey scale “colour” code is very good for me.

[@klounader]

EVGA as Dodge Challenger Demon - a stool with a powerful engine.

[@Carsalesman47]

Please do M-die 1T OC video. Pretty please?

[@scudsturm1]

in this area where u showed the non existent eps power connectors, i had some mainboards who put their 20 pin ATX connector there or in case of a Soyo pentium 4 478 socket mainboard, they put an AUX connector there

[@N0rth0M-1]

the only evga board i ever had was z490 dark kingpin and that thing booted dual rank b die at 4400 c17 daily stable, same ram and cpu on z590 apex only did 4000 c16 lol shame we can't really get evga boards in germany here

[@AlexanderDinebier]

Also ich habe es geschafft, ein Z790 Classified zu bestellen. Je nachdem wie zufrieden ich damit dann bin, würde ich es vielleicht durch ein Asus Z790 Extreme ersetzen. Das hätte halt doch ein paar Aspekte, die mir besser gefallen würden. Nur dummerweise bekommt man das Board aktuell nirgends für einen akzeptablen Preis.

[@N0rth0M-1]

@@AlexanderDinebier caseking hat jetzt dark kingpin boards in stock

[@AlexanderDinebier]

@@N0rth0M-1 Für mich nicht von Relevanz, weil zu wenig RAM Slots. Hab mein Z790 Classified mittlerweile. Normal wäre der Rechner eigentlich betriebsbereit, wenn EK Water Blocks endlich mal meinen Direct Die Kühler liefern würde.

[@antonystark9240]

There's no need to have a power connector near the VRM --- these are DC lines and they can be arbitrarily long and there are no propagation effects. There are those of us who still want a PS/2 port for our Northgate keyboards.

[@TAP7a]

You don’t own any M.2s? Appreciate its not the most interesting question you’ll be asked in a day but… why not? They seem to straddle price/performance very well. Are you already on full optane, do you not feel a reason to go beyond a SATA SSD, or what?

[@ChrispyNut]

They're irrelevant for what he uses computers for.

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

When I chose storage for my daily they were more expensive than now and for the test benches I prefer sata drives since they are easier to keep track of. As of right now M.2s are cheap enough that I probably end up buying one the next time I need a new drive.

[@Hogdriva]

why does the bios sticker have a copyright date of 1999 is the real question

[@AaronAverett]

Another benefit to getting the memory sticks farther away from the PCI-E slots is that they don't interfere with the graphics card mounting. I can imagine that, on a board that's meant for competitive overclocking, that may be a useful feature, in case the user wants to put heatsinks or a water jacket on the back of the graphics card, like we're starting to see with the high end nvidia cards.

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

the VRM heatsink is basically as tall as a memory stick and directly above the primary PCI-e slot.

[@Apollo-Computers]

Yep can't fit a backside gpu waterblock due to heatsink.

[@AaronAverett]

@@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking Yeah, but you could remove the heatsink. Can't very easily remove a memory slot. Edit: Seems kinda silly if you can just use the other slot, though.

[@DavoidJohnson]

Anyone else you could suspect was shilling with this review. But when AHOC comes up with a big old positive it means something.

[@Raptr121]

EVGA / Vince: I didn't ask if I should, only if I could. Because I can and will

[@trAp_Tuning]

YESSS FINALLY 🔥🔥🔥

[@Tubbytube6]

Will you make a pcb breakdown on the rx 7000 series?

[@BBWahoo]

What mobo is recommended for a 12700k? Replacing my 3950X

[@TheModmc]

awsome video for an awsome board

[@SammyM00782]

Ya know...they probably could have rotated it another 180 degrees and it would've had better trace routes. Right? I mean, I still don't see the point in it but am I making any sense?

[@defennia]

I got Evga x570 dark mobo before it almost became impossible to find them online.

[@Carsalesman47]

"...and there's another calculator under that calculator?"

[@theherrmann]

Keep making these Videos ❤

[@Byrkster]

Hey I have a question about my board and the noise it has near the I/O. Would you be willing to help me figure out what I need to do to get it to stop?

[@Multimeter1]

Really want this board, but skipping it for Z890 since it will have more CPU PCIE lanes finally for the m.2 SSDs, it has been shown when running games from an m.2 SSD using the CPU path instead of the slower PCH path m.2 slots, that you get less stutters in games and better frame times when games load assets. I really wanted this up until I saw that only 1 m.2 slot runs native on the CPU PCIE lanes. Loved my old X299 dark! Sold it recently. (I am aware that yes this is an intel issue, though... still this board is so over priced. EVGA I get has to make money, but 500$ and under would be more realistic now that the chip shortages have relaxed)...

[@UptownNYC]

You're gonna be waiting till next year for Z890. I skipped Z590/690 specifically because I knew what Z790 was bringing to the table (support for PCI-E 5.0 NVME right outta the box) and how long we would have to wait until the next socket was introduced. I'm happy with my Kingpin Z790 and the only reason I bought it was because I was tired of scalpers snatching up the ASUS Apex Z790 that I REALLY wanted and trying to overcharge on ebay. Fuck it, I paid for the Kingpin. I'd rather overpay and have EVGA reap the profit over scalpers!

[@Multimeter1]

@@UptownNYC I’m confused? Z690 board like the Strix E and MSI carbon support pcie 5 SSDs

[@Multimeter1]

@@UptownNYC also what’s wrong with z690 dark? It’s a good board also

[@ThatGuy-ht9sp]

I wonder if they are using gpu parts stock on these :-p

[@MisterNorab]

They've basically brought back the old turbo button with slow mode

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

slow mode has been a thing on OC boards for years.

[@dvr1337]

Why dont they remove sata completely i dont know anyone still using them

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

SATA is still good for bulk storage since SATA ports take up less space and bandwidth than M.2 slots

[@r3n846]

If I can get XP on my X570 Creation, I'm sure I can get XP on a regular Z790.

[@iDeparture]

Got xmp on a z790 ace 7200 this can do 8-8500 ambient in its sleep yeah

[@r3n846]

@@iDeparture Not XMP, Windows XP.

[@iDeparture]

@@r3n846 ah my mistake

[@Apollo-Computers]

I have z390 and z590 dark boards, only thing I hate about the vrm is the heatsink being so close to the first slot. I can't use my gpu block 3090 kp from Optimus on the boards.... It's been a while, but can the z590 dark vrm run without the heatsink?

[@Apollo-Computers]

@Shionne I don't use a case :) just an open bench table with the rads sitting next to it. I did end up cutting the 390 darks aluminum heatsink to make clearance. Since it was out of warranty. But I'm hesitant on the 590 dark as I had to rma it in the first week of use. That and it still has warranty and as soon as I cut the heatsink there goes warranty. I even tried to use the 390s heatsink for the 590 but the hole spacing was off by quite a bit.

[@rowankeltizar5961]

Is this board ever going to be available again?

[@JohnWick-tx4zw]

EVGA is slowly ramping down operations due to their owner refusing to sell or transfer ownership. All their major talent has left to ASUS MSI etc.

[@edwardarthurwardking6728]

I wish 1dpc atx boards will one day become cheap

[@sylwesterirla9246]

thanks

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

I want to see 45°. Also, modular VRM.

[@oinodin]

server motherboard entered room ...

[@CubanGav]

Loved you in the never ending story.

[@emike09]

I hate the idea of paying extra for components for Windows XP support. I'm sure the cost is low, but it's idiotic. Why the hell is running benchmarks on XP these days? It's time to move on.

[@michaelluster2694]

I thought the rotated socket was for better memory connection.

[@TeamTDU]

This is what I had read many times as well.

[@willjohnsonjohnson]

And yet this board hasn't been breaking DDR5 records.

[@DaboInk84]

Yes I have seen it discussed in many places that it is because it keeps the length of the lanes from the CPU to the DIMM slots as short as possible to allow for even greater stability. It may also have something to do with the design of KINGPIN LN2 pots and ensuring the best fit with the board, but I am less certain about that.

[@christopherjackson2157]

I've read that too But the engineers have said publicly it was to move the power connections over to the one part of board. Not sure where the memory theory originated

[@NatanFarinha2009]

it should be better because it doesn't split to 4x slots, only 2x, that's why it would improve DDR5 OC, but it doesn't need to be rotated, like in ITX motherboards.

[@alialbeloshi5425]

Which one better rog apex z790 or kingpin z790

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

I still don't have an Apex.

[@noobth77]

I many learn from here 😉

[@noidont8149]

I mis Diamond flower industries mother boards

[@jacksonlegge6977]

Does anyone know why the BIOS Update button is on the back of the board, when the USB port for it would be inside the case (and it's something you'd use very rarely), and the safe boot button is on the inside of the case when it's conceivable that someone would want to easily (and more frequently) use it when the board is in a case.

[@Sebyllis7350k]

Indeed a good question. Safe boot should be on the rear I/O AND the board, while BIOS flashback should just be a small button on the board.

[@grempal]

​@@Sebyllis7350kthe Dark is made to be used on a bench no one wants to fumble around on the back I/O for safe boot when they are on ln2.

[@grempal]

This board isn't designed to be used in a case it's designed to be used on a bench with exotic cooling. So the back I/O is actually the more inconvenient location for a button of the two you talked about

[@dustanburrell1571]

​@@grempalwow someone on here that understands hardware

[@ZachCameronWryNose]

8:55 Do you have a reason to not use m.2 SSDs?

[@NatanFarinha2009]

He explained why in an older video, if i remember correctly he only does benchmarking runs, overclocking, GIMP, video editing and opens PDFs, i don't even think he play games, and for all that you don't actually need a M.2 SSD, storage speeds doesn't impact bench performance.

[@Pleplerhep]

So, we getting a 13900k/ks vs 7950x3d?

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

I'm not getting a 7950X3D

[@newls1]

please god can you do "A Die" mem clocking video on this board??!!!

[@emuclone154]

so sad about the 790 apex being white.

[@doxydoxdelamanca9902]

Asus W680 mATX rotates it.

[@rekareaper]

Do a Z790 APEX vs Z790 DARK KP. Or Z790 DARK KP vs the world. XD

[@emperorSbraz]

inb4 45° socket.

[@bryantallen703]

Where the CLASSIFIEDs

[@watkinsjason]

A lot of bent socket pins, looks like this board was sent by eVGA for just examination purposes. Edit: oops, just the lighting apparently.

[@ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking]

that's just the lighting.

[@christopherjackson2157]

Really hard to judge pins in a 2d image ;)

[@watkinsjason]

@@christopherjackson2157Not hard to see with pics I've seen that come thru Reddit every week it seems. Easy to spot.

[@christopherjackson2157]

@@watkinsjason the issue is false positives not false negatives

[@stefanradunovic8318]

That board requires more mc voltage than apex and tachyon so no thanx

[@mechanicalmarmol2775]

sixth

[@butanding1987]

First.

[@rulik006]

1:09:00 why you didnt do RMA for Z690 Apex, asus should take back this garbage

[@Hectorscarclub13]

I was waiting for this!