Alternative to iGPU on an Asus Z790 Apex Encore

0121danwilliams84

0121danwilliams84

0121danwilliams84

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Hi all.

So, I have a situation where I am upgrading my PC and I have opted for the Asus Z790 Apex Encore and a 14900K.

I want to do a test boot with the system outside the case, as is good practice, as I am plumbing it into my water loop.

I have not used a motherboard without integrated graphics before. I do have another build I can borrow another GPU from, but I was wondering if I can avoid that.

I actually have an EK Lumen LCD monitoring screen thing and I was wondering if I can take advantage of any of the ports on the new motherboard (USB Type C or maybe even Thunderbolt? I have never used Thunderbolt before.)

Just looking for any other advice before I go ahead and take the more direct approach and open up my other PC that is in my media centre.

Thanks in advance!

Dan.
 
The 14900k has onboard graphics so you can use that. You just connect the displayport/HDMI cable to the I/O panel on the rear of the motherboard. These days the IGPU is on the cpu.

Do you have the board and cpu already? The reason I ask is that is a ridiculously priced board and one costing half the price will do 99.9% of what that will do.
 
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pastymuncher said:
The 14900k has onboard graphics so you can use that. You just connect the displayport/HDMI cable to the I/O panel on the rear of the motherboard. These days the IGPU is on the cpu.
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The Apex has no video out on the rear I/O, not sure if any of the USB-C ports support video-out alt mode.
 
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Looks like the only way to get video-out from the IGP is via the USB4 header, which isn't even 100% confirmed to work and seems like TB support isn't enabled by default so you'd need video-out to enable it in the first place even if it supports video, which I can't find confirmation of.
 
Thanks all, I was aware it did not have iGPU before buying, so not a new problem.

Seems the least taxing option is using a discrete GPU to quickly test the board outside the case as either the Thunderbolt card or EK Lumen screen will require additional display outputs, which defeats the point of using them anayway.
 
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pastymuncher said:
The reason I ask is that is a ridiculously priced board and one costing half the price will do 99.9% of what that will do.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit on the fence on this - when researching Z790 boards one thing which stuck out is that often the cheaper to mid-range Z790 boards can be a bit of a false economy if you have the money to buy better, sometimes even the higher end B760 boards offer more. If you actually have a use for more advanced USB-C functionality, PCI-e 5.0 options (though they are still woeful), better sound implementation, GPU and/or other x16 slot latch button, etc. etc. as well as the power delivery and thermals of the motherboard power in context of the 13900, 14700 or 14900 CPUs and so on.
 
I have gotten quite into memory overclocking recently and I have had a bit of a bad experience with my Gigabye X670E Master board so making the move back Intel after giving team red a good try for a few years.

I have just gotten a bit sick of my board in general and its going to get RMAd as I think its slowly dying and nothing I try at hardware or software level is saving it.

So, I mean reason number 1 is I like tinkering with things and this is a fun hobby. Reason 2, it's too expensive is being ignore by that other little voice in my head :cry:
 
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Rroff said:
If you actually have a use for more advanced USB-C functionality, PCI-e 5.0 options (though they are still woeful), better sound implementation, GPU and/or other x16 slot latch button, etc. etc. as well as the power delivery and thermals of the motherboard power in context of the 13900, 14700 or 14900 CPUs and so on.
Click to expand...
I've priced it up a few times and if you actually want all the features on some of these high-end boards, like 10Gb LAN, USB 4, DP over type-C, USB PD, then by the time you include the add-in cards (which seem to be notoriously unreliable anyway) the price is darn near what they cost. Though, in this case, the Apex is primarily an overclocking board so it actually doesn't have most of those features and sacrifices 2 dimm slots :D

0121danwilliams84 said:
Thanks all, I was aware it did not have iGPU before buying, so not a new problem.

Seems the least taxing option is using a discrete GPU to quickly test the board outside the case as either the Thunderbolt card or EK Lumen screen will require additional display outputs, which defeats the point of using them anayway.
Click to expand...
If you do use one, may I suggest a short one. My fingers recently had an encounter with a PCI-E latch and the PCI-E latch came off much better.
 
Yes guys, I have wrestled with all these thoughts myself, but I have yet to use more than 2 dimms in a system and they come in much higher capacity now, so can't see that being a negative for me and should help OCs hopefully.

I basically don't use a lot of the things I am losing by choosing a board that should hopefully (in theory) allow me to push the hardware.
 
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Tetras said:
If you do use one, may I suggest a short one. My fingers recently had an encounter with a PCI-E latch and the PCI-E latch came off much better.
Click to expand...

The Apex has Q-Release for the PCI-e slots, one of the reasons I tend to lean towards, and bought, the more expensive boards as they've started including a button at the back of the board to unlatch the PCI-e card which makes things so much easier. Another of the reasons I consider the cheaper Z790 boards to actually be something of a false economy in some ways.
 
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