ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme Glacial

[ir_cow]

ASUS is bringing forward the ROG Maximus Extreme Glacial by collaborating with EKWB for the custom waterblock. Nothing is left out of this flagship motherboard with a Top-tier 24+1+2 VRM design, Thunderbolt 4, 10G LAN, PCIe Gen5, DDR5 and even a Gen5 M.2 socket! ASUS knows the bar is already set high and looks to break away from the pack.

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[mechtech]

Interesting sound chip. First time I see it and via usb?!? Did you have a chance to give it an actual headphones sound test??

 

[dirtyferret]

really? Glacial? "suggestive of the very slow movement of glaciers" is the meaning you want for a high end PC part? Was it cannabis day when Asus marketing came up with that name?

 

[ir_cow]

Interesting sound chip. First time I see it and via usb?!? Did you have a chance to give it an actual headphones sound test??

For which the ALC4082 Codec on the MB or the ROG CLAVIS USB DAC?

 

[AdmiralThrawn]

really? Glacial? "suggestive of the very slow movement of glaciers" is the meaning you want for a high end PC part? Was it cannabis day when Asus marketing came up with that name?

Still sounds better than the MSI Extreme Z690(extreme) MAE (Extreme)

 

[Outback Bronze]

Beautiful packaging. I would have been creaming my pants.

 

[Wirko]

Illuminated audio jacks - does that mean that the rest of the connectors, along with their labels, aren't illuminated?

 

[ir_cow]

Illuminated audio jacks - does that mean that the rest of the connectors, along with their labels, aren't illuminated?

Correct. Only thing that is illuminated is the audio-jacks.

 

[mechtech]

For which the ALC4082 Codec on the MB or the ROG CLAVIS USB DAC?

Both I suppose

 

[ir_cow]

Both I suppose

I guess I could have answered already with a response. That my fault. Anyways, you will disappointed as that my headphones are only $150. It sounded decent to me, but I am not a sound expect by no means. With my home theater I can hear the difference between MP3, CD and SACD (or HD-Track FLAC) when it comes to frequency cut-off. My headphones aren't good enough to disquish CD from SACD.

Igor has a good article for Realtek ALC4080 vs ALC1220. From what I gathered is mostly just it now routed through a USB controller.

The Realtek ALC4080 on the new Intel boards demystified and the differences to the ALC1220 | Insider | igor´sLAB

The Realtek ALC4080, which was launched in 2020, can now be found as a sound solution on many new mid-range and high-end Intel boards without the customer really knowing what’s behind it.

www.igorslab.de

 

[mechtech]

I guess I could have answered already with a response. That my fault. Anyways, you will disappointed as that my headphones are only $150. It sounded decent to me, but I am not a sound expect by no means. With my home theater I can hear the difference between MP3, CD and SACD (or HD-Track FLAC) when it comes to frequency cut-off. My headphones aren't good enough to disquish CD from SACD.

Igor has a good article for Realtek ALC4080 vs ALC1220. From what I gathered is mostly just it now routed through a USB controller.

The Realtek ALC4080 on the new Intel boards demystified and the differences to the ALC1220 | Insider | igor´sLAB

The Realtek ALC4080, which was launched in 2020, can now be found as a sound solution on many new mid-range and high-end Intel boards without the customer really knowing what’s behind it.

www.igorslab.de

Thanks

I only have a set of Sennheiser game one (well I guess EPOS now), since I needed an open headset most. No money for nice stuff with kids, and affraid they would poke holes in a nice set of speakers with their fingers lol

 

[Mussels]

Typo in line #1 of conclusion

" covered in detailed." (should be detail)
'it wasn't considered that impornant at the time.'
'enterprise level of connectivity' (levels)
6 Gb/s (accidental space?)
W1zz should hire me



Ad now for mah thinkys:

"This flagship is designed, marketed and purchased by those who desire the absolute best and a premium experience currently available without compromise."

" The actual limiting factor overall will be the monoblock itself. It's not that LN2 cannot be used with the monoblock removed, rather those XOC overclocks are better for motherboards designed around such activities. In any case, the waterblock topped out around at around 300 watts of cooling dissipation. This is nearly 30 watts lower vs. a stand-alone EK Velocity waterblock in my testing."

That should be a negative then, if it's a premium product for 'best of' yet users with a standalone block get better performance


And this is exactly what i feared, sigh

Reviewer Commentary: Speaking from experience, Windows 11 had to be re-installed after this review. It simply would not uninstall fully even after trying the special ASUS cleaning program as a last resort.

I think i've had that problem from asus, Aorus/Gigabyte and logitech now, where you need to manually hunt down services and hidden files, or just format to clean up after install their software - and for some products its required for firmware updates, making you burn an OS install for that function

 

[ir_cow]

That should be a negative then, if it's a premium product for 'best of' yet users with a standalone block get better performance

Technically yes. I was thinking that as well, but how to really compare the two. One is a stand-alone CPU only block and the other does the whole MB. Will this be a problem? I have my doubts it will just because for 24/7 use, 1.35v is where you want to stop on the CPU Vcore and a power draw of 300+ only comes from Prime95, or if you are passing 1.35~. For those hardcore overclockers, yeah this monoblock isn't going to cut it. Anyone aiming for 5.3-5.4 will be fine if they aren't running Prime95. Plus you kinda have to delid the CPU or it will be 100c on the cores either way.

And this is exactly what i feared, sigh
I think i've had that problem from asus, Aorus/Gigabyte and logitech now, where you need to manually hunt down services and hidden files, or just format to clean up after install their software - and for some products its required for firmware updates, making you burn an OS install for that function

I haven't had Aorus uninstall issues yet, only ASUS dating all the way back to X79 (2009). Yeah AI Suite sucks.

W1zz should hire me

Do you really want a 20hr workload ? I hope Wiz is paying well because just my own editing before I submit this took nearly 2 hours and I didn't catch it all (clearly). I can only imagine having to editing 2-3 articles a day. That would hurt my eyes. Also thanks for the typo catch. Some are bound to make it in

 

[mouacyk]

Price!?!

 

[Wirko]

Correct. Only thing that is illuminated is the audio-jacks.

Thanks. My comment was partly sarcastic because at this kind of price, I'd expect it to have (even more) lanterns everywhere, not just bells and whistles. And some sort of back panel illumination would actually come in handy at least for some people, some of the time, when you don't have a good overview and access to the rear panel.

 

[Mussels]

Do you really want a 20hr workload ? I hope Wiz is paying well because just my own editing before I submit this took nearly 2 hours and I didn't catch it all (clearly). I can only imagine having to editing 2-3 articles a day. That would hurt my eyes. Also thanks for the typo catch. Some are bound to make it in

Well yeah, I cant do traditional work anymore due to medical issues.
Sitting in front of a PC is about all I can do these days, might as well get paid to do it.
I've read like 70 books so far this year...

 

[the ram]

Hi nice review (connect extra graphic scards) a small mistake in the writing :V

 

[HenrySomeone]

really? Glacial? "suggestive of the very slow movement of glaciers" is the meaning you want for a high end PC part? Was it cannabis day when Asus marketing came up with that name?

Must have been the EK's crackpot influence... Top tier players like ASUS would do well to move away from that failing company to be honest...

 

[Mussels]

Must have been the EK's crackpot influence... Top tier players like ASUS would do well to move away from that failing company to be honest...

Glaciers are cold

They could do a bright red series called Magma with red coolant, and we wouldn't be asking "but isn't magma slow"

 

[samsam0919]

Garbage board that doesnt fit with ek gpu water block .

 

[Vario]

The ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme Glacial is available for US$2000+.

Wow!
Beautiful product, I have to say, but probably very niche. Thanks for the review.