*** The Official Alder Lake owners thread ***

[Vimes]

@mrk How would you rate your motherboard in terms of being good for a 12900k..? Thinking more about power delivery etc and any gains from slight overclocking, if possible..?
Are you happy with it overall..?
The Aorus Pro seems to be a DDR 5 board, apart from that a reasonable choice.

Thanks.

 

[BananaDunka]

Hi,

No major issues to note from this board really other than the XMP profile not working with my current RAM so have set frequency etc manually which is all good. Stability, features and performance wise I can't fault it really. Gigabyte tends to have solid mobo components which is why I generally stick to their boards. It's a new platform though and a new board not even a month old so only time will tell how things progress and what BIOS updates bring to the table too.

For cooling, seems the heatsinks used are of good quality, even under full load the VRMs and such are kept cool and I've only really got 2 exhaust case fans excluding the AIO's 2x exhaust fans pulling air through the rad as intake.

I have the 12700 of course so can't speak in terms of power and thermals that a 12900 would command but can't see it being any issue really as long as the CPU cooler is up to standard and the thermal paste used is good too.

 

[Vimes]

@mrk Thanks for that. Appreciate your reply.

I too have had a long history with Gigabyte boards. In the past their UK based support and returns has been superb. They had even repaired a socket on one of my boards that I damaged free of charge, including courier collection and delivery. My Z390 Master is a superb board, but it is up there with their OTT top range types of boards. It has helped, I reckon, with my 5.1Ghz all core OC of the 9900k.
Still deliberating, helped to not pull the trigger by not much in the way of stock of boards etc anyway.
Still as time passes it would be good to see more in the way of reviews of, for example, the Gaming X DDR4 board you have with the 12900k.

 

[TheFlyingFinn]

Here's a good video introducing the different motherboard options. This guy knows what he's talking about
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys6D2528yUs

 

[bro1983]

@bro1983 you’re running gear2 here btw. It’s gonna be quite limited in performance. Ddr4 should be gear 1

Got gear 1 working now upto 3766mhz 14-14-14-28 1T scores have gone up by 200. Just need more time tweaking cache ratios up to 42.

 

[Vimes]

@TheFlyingFinn I am watching that video now - many thanks for the link. I think I remember watching something earlier from the same YT'ber when he commented about the Aorus Pro, I didn't realise that could also be in DDR 4 flavour. Altho he did mention about Gigabyte perhaps having some DDR 4 issues at the moment.
I do like his approach to not seeming to need spending lots of money to get stability etc from your AL CPU and yet get a very capable motherboard.

I'll carry on watching.

 

[TheFlyingFinn]

I can't comment on Gigabyte's DDR4 offerings other than that I personally sent my Gaming X back before even trying it, just by reading about various BIOS issues. Not just XMP, but I've seen other issues mentioned as well like certain voltage settings not actually applying when booting up etc. I'm sure those issues will be fixed in BIOS updates, but I just wanted something that works straight from the box for now.

I will miss couple of features from the Gaming X though, like digital audio out. It looks like a great board.

 

[Vimes]

I can't comment on Gigabyte's DDR4 offerings other than that I personally sent my Gaming X back before even trying it, just by reading about various BIOS issues. Not just XMP, but I've seen other issues mentioned as well like certain voltage settings not actually applying when booting up etc. I'm sure those issues will be fixed in BIOS updates, but I just wanted something that works straight from the box for now.

I will miss couple of features from the Gaming X though, like digital audio out. It looks like a great board.

Point taken, what have you ended up with..?

IIRC, and I think I do, it took many BIOS revisions for the Gigabyte Master Z390 before the XMP profiles would work with my Corsair 3200 DDR4 memory. Also I did have certain voltage settings resetting back to defaults. Their latest BIOS, albeit only released this year, is fine. However you buy a board with the expectations of it working as expected today, not in a few years time.

 

[BananaDunka]

Voltages etc all auto/default for me. The only things I changed manually were RAM to get to the XMP timings and speed and voltage, pretty easy to do and settings saved all fine.

 

[TheFlyingFinn]

Point taken, what have you ended up with..?

IIRC, and I think I do, it took many BIOS revisions for the Gigabyte Master Z390 before the XMP profiles would work with my Corsair 3200 DDR4 memory. Also I did have certain voltage settings resetting back to defaults. Their latest BIOS, albeit only released this year, is fine. However you buy a board with the expectations of it working as expected today, not in a few years time.

I went with that MSI Z690-A Pro, seems like a good board overall. Very basic looking, but I don't mind MSI MPG Z690 EDGE WIFI DDR4 looks like a good board too and people seem to like it a lot, I just wanted something cheaper

Voltages etc all auto/default for me. The only things I changed manually were RAM to get to the XMP timings and speed and voltage, pretty easy to do and settings saved all fine.

Yeah I think main issue is that it seems very finicky which RAM it likes and which it doesn't. Anything with low latency seems tricky. But I'm sure they're going to get those sorted with BIOS updates.

 

[Vimes]

@mrk for me it used to be vcore offset voltages and sometimes LLC offsets that would reset. That wasn't due to a boot failure or something but just a reset. I would have an indication that was happening as it would try and POST but then loop. Until it would work for my XMP settings my 1.35v manual setting would sometimes reset. All good tho on the later BIOS revisions. Perfectly stable and great board, just wasn't that way from the start. A premium board as well in its day.

 

[Vimes]

@TheFlyingFinn Great choice. What CPU did you match it with and I know you have said it is a good board overall but have you been happy with the BIOS and overall hardware support etc...?
What cooler are you using..?
Thanks

 

[TheFlyingFinn]

@TheFlyingFinn Great choice. What CPU did you match it with and I know you have said it is a good board overall but have you been happy with the BIOS and overall hardware support etc...?
What cooler are you using..?
Thanks

I picked the 12700K, but I haven't actually gotten to build it yet. Been a bit busy and RAM has been slow to arrive heh. Will get to it during the weekend.
I chose the Noctua NH-D15S for cooler as it's supposed to have ~same performance as the NH-D15, but only one fan (can add one later if absolutely needed) thus better compatibility. Note that you probably need to order mounting brackets for it because most coolers don't ship with LGA 1700 brackets yet, so check that. I ordered the mounting kit direct from Noctua, it's free but I picked express shipping. Was 5€ and it arrived with DHL in 3 days. They are also in sale with some retailers.
Same goes for other cooler manufacturers as well, should check for compatibility.

I think I saw some here having the Z690-A Pro, maybe they can comment further?

 

[Vimes]

@TheFlyingFinn When you do get it built and up and going let us know how you go in, also if your RAM is picked up my XMP etc. Seems a solid board, from that video link.

Even tho I have not got anything even considered to buy I still purchased a Socket 1700 mounting bracket from Arctic Cooling for my 420mm AIO. Who knows it might end up being the only thing that I do buy for Alder Lake

 

[BananaDunka]

That's fair, you spend £200 on a mobo and it's reasonable to expect everything to work out the box. On the whole I've been impressed. I recall when I got the Gigabyte Z170 X Gaming 5 mobo back in 2016 that there were some bugs but got fixed fairly quick. Previous to that various Asus/MSI boards I had also had bugs that needed a few BIOS updates to solve too so it seems a running trend with all the big brands really. Asus have already released a Z690 BIOS for some boards that improved performance and regulated the voltage range too.

Thankfully for now the XMP issue has a workaround by manually changing the RAM values, not so sure about voltages not sticking though as I don't OC so no need to change any voltages of LLC etc.

For me as long as there's a workaround then I'm fine with waiting it out. Like Windows 11 missing various features with the taskbar and start menu, we know these will come back in future updates, but for now there are workarounds like StartAllBack and others.

No problems with performance on my end though which is the main thing that would have annoyed me. All my benchmarks seem to fall well inline with what reviewers have been showing on their CPU reviews so I'm good on that front with normal DDR4 RAM lol.

 

[TheFlyingFinn]

Yeah exactly, I just didn't want to risk having to go through the trouble of taking everything apart and exchange the mobo afterwards.

@TheFlyingFinn When you do get it built and up and going let us know how you go in, also if your RAM is picked up my XMP etc. Seems a solid board, from that video link.

Even tho I have not got anything even considered to buy I still purchased a Socket 1700 mounting bracket from Arctic Cooling for my 420mm AIO. Who knows it might end up being the only thing that I do buy for Alder Lake

I will make sure to report back

 

[BananaDunka]

Adobe have a workaround for the Photoshop 2022 crash bug on 12th gen CPUs, quite impressed by teh one to one support from the devs on their forum really. The workaround sorts it for me and they said they are working on a proper fix.

Details: https://community.adobe.com/t5/phot...-12th-gen-cpu-pc/idc-p/12531833/page/2#M31516

Edit*
The crash now happens when saving files, Adobe looking into it!

 

[SkeeterUK]

Any alderlake owners here play x4 foundations, if so, hows the fps, mainly the lows, does it dip much on stations like wharfs where loads of ships are etc or in big battles. Whats the lowest its gone to? Only ask as its a very heavy cpu game probs the heaviest out of all of the games out there lol so just wondering how alderlakes are coping with it.

 

[bro1983]

12600k 5.3Ghz love tweaking this setup still more to come from memory.

 

[JediFragger]

still mem to come from memory.

Good, that's where we want the mem to come from