The only downside concerns the price of this APEX version, which is currently around 750 euros while the Z590 version was available at 550 euros at launch. Now this rise in motherboards seems to affect almost all brands. Let’s hope that these prices decrease in the coming weeks in order to be modeled on those of the previous generation. Remember that you will also need to invest in DDR5.
Read more @ Overclocking (French)
MSI offers us with this MEG Z690 Carbon Wifi, a very interesting motherboard to launch on Alder Lake, all accompanied by DDR5. First of all, the performance is excellent with our i9-12900K and close to what we were able to achieve with the Maximus Z690 APEX. This “Carbon EK X” version also offers ultra-complete connectivity with five SSD slots but also many USB ports as well as the presence of an HDMI and DisplayPort output.
Read more @ Overclocking (French)
The ASUS Z690-Plus TUF Gaming WiFi D4 is all the PCI Express 5.0 and 12th Gen Intel goodness, but wrapped up in a package that supports DDR4 instead of DDR5. Naturally our first question was whether this was a wise move on their part, and how much of a difference it will make to the performance of your system. You don’t want to get a brand new CPU and get it hamstrung by RAM, but equally you don’t want to needlessly spend money if there is no performance benefit to be had.
Read more @ OC3D
As time has passed so MSI seem to be backing away somewhat from the Carbon effect which gives the Z690 Carbon WiFi its name, instead having just enough so that it’s obvious, without dominating proceedings. On the Z690 it is really only there on the bottom of the chipset heatsink, and the IO shield section at the top left. We are fans of the removal of any colour at all too, as some earlier Carbons had either red or gold on them, the newest addition to the range is stark by comparison.
Read more @ OC3D
There is so much to love about the MSI MEG Unify in terms of specification and build quality, but the thing that unquestionably smacked us round the face upon first view, and stays with us days later as we’re writing this, is the solidity of the build and the all-black aesthetic. A lot of the new Z690s are weighty, but even by their standards the Unify is up there with the Maximus Formula in pure heft. However, MSI have recently tried a variety of ‘looks’ for their motherboards, from heavy RGB lighting to the bold red of their Dragon logo and even some gold highlighted ones.
Read more @ OC3D
The Z690-E is the newest addition to that famous range and has seen a little bit of a revision to the aesthetics in comparison to other Strix products we’ve seen recently. No longer does the box have the famous multi-hued ROG Eye that is so readily identifiable, instead the packaging is much more like one of the Maximus/Rampage ASUS models. The board itself has also dispenses with the glitchy font that plagued the last hardware set and, instead, has a much more toned down look than you might expect to find.
Read more @ OC3D
These power phases are one of the key reasons why the Master is, in our opinion, the second highest model Gigabyte do on the Z690 chipset. 105A + 105A + 70A for the relevant phases match the Aorus Xtreme, whilst the Aorus Tachyon and Aorus Ultra have 105A + 60A + 70A. The Master also has more storage slots, with two extra SATA ports an 1 PCIe 3.0 M.2 more than the Xtreme models.
Read more @ OC3D
AORUS indicates on the back of the box that this model has 19 digital power phases, 16 of them dedicated to the processor, a VCCGT for integrated graphics and another 2 VCCAUX for PCIe and memory controller. They are phases of 90 amps, AORUS is using in this family high performance thermal pads with 1.5 mm thickness, capable of dissipating 9 watts per meter Kelvin, which make contact in the Z690 AORUS PRO with two bulky aluminum blocks, both chokes and MOSFETS.
Read more @ Noticias3D (Spanish)
The first look at the Z690 AORUS MASTER impresses, we start with the dissipation. In VRM the generous blocks we saw in the PRO version give way to a dense number of fins with a larger air contact surface for thermoconduction. The main M.2 connector, managed directly by the processor, is not far behind, the direct contact block is added to five levels of thick fins, the cooling of NVMe disks is more than assured in this connector.
Read more @ Noticias3D ( Spanish)
While only the product name is printed on the front in colorful reflective fonts, on the back we find a brief description of the most important features of the board, such as the flood of buttons and switches in the upper right corner and the optimized 2-DIMM layout, both special optimized for overclocking of CPU and RAM. In addition, the “12 + 1” phases and the tantalum polymer capacitors for the CPU power supply are listed, together with a schematic representation of the IO and a tabular listing of the specifications
Read more @ Igor’s Lab (German)