It's a good thing Asus fixed their mistake, hopefully they'll do the same with the price. $800 for this is too expensive, at this price range they should at least provide a full copper VRM waterblock to justify the price. The product is lame but the video is awesome, really good analysis. Thanks der8auer

Man, you must be the mad scientist? Very interesting approach, and good feedback to the manufacturers. In the end it will only make the products better.

ASUS cutting corners, I’m not surprised. Managed to shave 10C on PCH of a B650F-E simply replacing their poor thermalpad. Same with NVME and the TUF 4080. MSI uses a much better thermalpad to start with.

Really cool video. Would love to see more engineering themed videos like this :)

The best IT journalism available today. No drama, no bashing, facts.

This type of video is so helpful! objective data with evidence! thank you for taking the time to film in English!

Absolutely amazing video! I was considering this board and so this video was perfect!

Great video 👍👍 I am really geeked out over how awesome the lazer machine is 🙌👍

Way too cool. I'd look forward to going to work everyday if this kind of investigation was my job. Brilliant stuff Roman ... thank you once again!

I very nearly purchased one of the z690 formula 😮‍💨 but went for the ASU’s gaming-e instead, which is a fantastic board! Great informative video as per usual keep up the absolute quality content 👍 💪

This was a nerdy delight. Thanks!

Thank you for testing this! Good to know for sure the composition of the VRM block. I had the z690 formula, and I was able to get the VRM block replaced after waiting on ASUS for 4 months (Their CS is a nightmare). I had stability issues with my 13900k and Corsair Dominator Platinum 5600 DDR5 though, and got the z790 Formula instead, which is rock solid now and running a 14900k and Corsair Dominator Titanium 6000 DDR5. I didn't pay a dime for any of these part upgrades btw, they were all changed out for upgraded parts under warranty because of stability issues that couldn't be pinpointed via troubleshooting. The board is pricey, but I attribute it to the white tax. There really isn't a better white board right now with the same features for Intel z790, or even z690. I certainly don't need to add the VRM block to my WC loop, but I'm going to because this is my mid-life crisis Convertible Corvette - just in the form of a PC instead.

Very informative video! Z790 Formula is in my shopping list already after I saw it how it looks.

Awesome str8-fwd analysis of Asus' clumsy Z690 fiasco and recovery. Valuable content!

That equipment for material analysis is cool af, I am impressed.

Top content. I don't shop Asus or Intel myself, but this is reassuring for those that have bought this board already. That it isn't an EK block and "cheaps out" to boot would be more reason to hesitate buying at the price the Formula carries.

outragiously cool analysis - subed :)

You have all the fun tools :D

this content really justifies everything and the review is good ...good job bruh

I think I will wait for a solution from EK, we all know it's always trustworthy. I just keep aluminum far away from my loops. Even they are nickel plated. It's just ridiculous from Asus, not to stick with copper and nickel.

Damn man you have the coolest tools to play with. Please tell us what machine that was you used. Maybe take a tour of the company that makes it. When I was 19. I worked at a electroplating plant in Bristol, Ct. USA. I learned so much metallurgy that summer before going off to college. I got to use a XRF (X-ray Fluorescence) analyzer to determine what the metal we had to plate was made of and what the quality was before sticking them in the pot. Not to spec metals didn't plate well and was an expensive waste. All raw parts were checked before being put on the line. Sometimes the owner rejected whole batches! (he was pissed) I went to work in nuclear power plants a couple of years later. That experience started my 1st career. Lab tools, machine tools, all that are big boy toys to me. I love working with that level of tech. Thank you for sharing this info. HEY maybe you can teach Mercedes Benz a few lessons and get them to cut their losses in China.. Export your products there IF THEY HAVE THE MONEY. Otherwise the average Chinese person can't afford German Quality. They certainly don't make it. That's why that previous version of that MB corroded, MADE IN CHINA. They cut corners or outright lied about the material. Asus did NOT do due diligence in quality control. They kept the extra money to would cost for themselves. That's a high priced cheaply made product. Really the price should be 300 euros less in my book. How much does the B.O.D need to live? The average Taiwanese gets paid $4/hour working the line. Common man how are people supposed to afford Asus products now. I've been their customer since 1998. If corporations don't pay a living wage none of us can afford their products. I think you know that yourself. Love your work and your products.

Great content! Could you please do an investigative piece on the ek velocity2 direct die kit aswell? I have spent way too much time and money trying to get it to work but having the same problems as everyone else, it's impossible to get it to mount properly. Right now I'm contemplating just getting the iceman instead but the velocity2 looks so beautiful and I'd have to redo the hardlines aswell so I'd much rather have it on there. :/

Showing off your new toys/tools :P

This is the same block as the replacements sent out for the z690 version or if you sent it in.

The heatsink is Al with a Cu plated flash layer then the Ni plated top layer. That is the usual plating process sequence. Decorative parts would then be Cr plated. If you polish the cut/filed section the layers would be clear and you would spectroscope the layers in the section.

Asus holds itself as a premium producer of premium products but seems to have started the slide down from previous high position and good brand name by attempting to reduce production costs to increase profit margin, a very slippery slope....

what were you using for elemental analysis?

I’ve never had a motherboard or GPU other than from ASUS in my systems, but the last few years have shown that it’ll be a long time before I buy another ASUS product.

What is situation with x570 formula and its block??

Wow, you applied materials science to conduct an inspiring review.

Thanks for the video. You mentioned you tried the 8000 RAM but it didn't work, and wasn't on the ASUS QVL. I checked the ASUS site and it does show 8000 if paired with Intel 14th gen. Is their site wrong? And can you let us know which RAM you ended up using? Thanks again.

@der8auer EN Hey Roman. I think that the 14th Gen TG Frame is completely broken on ASUS z790 boards. Completely destroys memory stability on the encore. Others have reported the same thing. Is there any way you can check on this and maybe see if there's a solution to it? I'm past my return date for Amazon.

I am Japanese. I should have found your video earlier. Now I am in a simple water-cooled environment for CPU only, but I rate it high in self-satisfaction.

Chiq ( the ginger cat ) is interested with the Z790😸.

Doing the lords work, making sure less consumers get scammed.

thid you hear anything about a waterblock thad fits the vrm and the cpu so thad you have 2 ports ?

I still use Maximus V Formula. It is a water and air cooler. I have a heat sensor stuck in between the fins. Usually reads the same with the CPU temperature. On idle.

I had the z690 formula and mine was all corroded inside the vrm block as well. Not related but I also had tons of stability issues with that board, I was not happy with it, loved the look though.

My guess is contact corrosion due to the use of different materials or simply too low layer thicknesses in the coating. In addition, nickel layers are only really free of pores and "closed" from a layer thickness of 30µm and more. The silicon that was measured in the coating can also be so-called "endogenous inclusions" that originate from the aluminium manufacturing process.

Will this motherboard support non-k overclocking like old z690 one?

Fortunately the X570 Formula doesn't seem to suffer ( or at least mine hasn't ). Asus seem to have gone rather downhill since those days - I think I'm basically stuck with Asrock for future builds ( until they explode again ) because all the others are demonstrably terrible. Fancy producing motherboards? :D

Z690 Extreme Glacial doesn't have this issue, which is a solid co-op between EK and ASUS.

I was thinking of getting this but its so damn expensive. I used to have the Z690 formula until the whole mobo broke and had to return it. The ram slots are also too close to the socket and i couldnt fit my AIO wires trough there without them pushing on the ram.

I wonder if the cover is a polyimide or a coated sintered metal?

You should introduce the cool cat. I think people would like to meet him !!

These fin blocks within the VRM loop channel remind me of the Galaxy Geforce 6600GT AGP, it has the same weird design from solid copper that is over the memory chips, a very weird solution.

Jeepers I have the Z690 board registered with Asus but have never been notified about a recall, can I just get the new piece to replace the fake EK waterblock?

Emery Board and sand the chip edge and minor surface if needed / chips thermal capability it’s acoustic dampening has effects on polish and cleaning

Where can you even get a VRM heat sink?

Didn't Asus have this issue back in the day during SandyBridge/Haswell times with their watercooled VRM boards - one of the reasons they collaborated with EK for the Formula line to fix this. Seems like you're better off getting a Hero board and spring for an EK monoblock, will more than likely end up at the $800 pricepoint but with a decent quality block.

I have the z690 formula, contacted ASU’s and was promised to be sent a new vrm block. This was in March and now in December I still don’t have the replacement block.

Fascinating

der8auer has the best gadgets

I have Z690 Formula but haven't noticed any corrosion after 2.5 years. I have changed the liquid recently and it was clean. Is there a way to tell without dissasembling it? Do all the units corrode?

I have the ASUS formula x570 and it has the water cooling heat sink for water as well, I wonder if they have the same issue as this Z790

Why do I love this guy ?

Miss the lga775 massive copper vrm coolers.

I bought the formula z690 in 2021 and I think like 4 months later I fund something in the vrm block that blocked but I just cleaned a bit and moved on. Later 2023 when the news got I open my vrm this time and fund a lot of corrosion. Contacted my pc store in sweden and got a full refund. I will probably never buy any formula again even if it fixed now. Bought the apex z790 instead and Im very happy. But if the vrm got corroded that means my rad, block, and fittings is fucked too? I didnt find any on my block.

Aquacomputer always seemed like the real top dog, both quality and performance. EK looks cleaner and does monoblocks so is popular I guess.

So did you not test the fins on top of the metal block?

FWIW, Gigabyte did the same mixed metals thing with their gpu blocks. But they did not ever fix it.

I love this motherboard

What about max ram ddr5? I wish it can handle 8400mhz I didn’t like the apex encore and looking for white pc build

active VRM cooling just isn't needed on the z690/z790. Back when i was running a ryzen build, an especially for FX I was running 40mm noctua fans on the VRM, but when I did my last build with the 13900k, VRM's only get to 40-45C while the cpu is pulling almost 300W. Fans just aren't needed on the VRM's, so I moved them to the m.2 ssds which do need some active cooling under those motherboard slabs.

In Australia this MB costs around $1399 AUD.

For $800 I'm expecting a monoblock from EK or something like that. MSI EK X MBs come with that and are much cheaper in comparisson.

I had corrosion issues with an EK rad in my loop! Not using them again..

Glad you dug deeper into that plastic looking part. In my head before you tested it, I thought it looked like glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate. I think the material analysis shows that I could be right 😄

I already bought this board and currently using it. I am glad to find out it won't cause corrosion issues in mu loop.

I would buy a board at that price if it had ipmi, or watercooeled vrm done properly, but that seems like the kind of cost cut version you'd see on a $600 version of the same board or something. Them passing this off as premium after the screw up last time just makes ASUS look even worse than they already do. I wish they didn't sacrifice function for form, and then charge the customer like they hadn't compromized on anything.

6:20 Wait, since when do you have this microscope? I have one at work too, it’s the shit 😍. I don’t have the laser material analysis functionality, but they wanted to upsell this to me many times. But we have a REM EDX machine for that, so i don’t need it anyway.

I like how EK doesnt get blamed, like ever...

Asus also uses 5 GbE on this z790 board vs 10 GbE on the z690... so a regression there.

It’s amazing to see how much engineering efforts Asus paid to cut the corner they’re not supposed to cut.😂😂

2:48 Kinda like the MSI mobis with ek mono locks, actually subpar cooling. Just ek in name

they did the same thing on the Z97 Maximus formula board, they used aluminum, idk why they didn't just use cooper.

Man i was gonna buy this for my first water cooling build. Not now...

Pcb power ram independent tuning , have fun

Like having a $1500 gpu with bad solder joints on some capacitors due to thermal conductivity from pcb and surrounding parts making it hard for solder to get hot enough without it being wicked away

I heard that this board handles 4 memory modules @ 192gb in a far superior way vs any other board. Can you test the memory handling of this thing? No one who has reviewed this board tried more than 2 sticks. A lot of modern industries require as much ram as possible now, and if this board does 192gb @ 6800mhz, it would be really worth considering despite the price (even if you dont watercool) Like maybe the supported teamgroup kit CTCED596G6800HC36DDC01 x2 at it's stock settings.

I dont get why ek didnt supply the blocks if they put their name on it

They’ve been using that exact fin style vrm block since at least the Maximus X Formula. Idk why that style is “odd” unless you’ve never opened a formula vrm block. The only thing they’ve changed is materials.

All the cool Keyence toys. . .

I think the fins are there when the heat sink is dry, the temps were probably a bit high only with a copper block

Only critical problems i had so far(including components dying) were with Asus products, sad to see such a big company build such terrible products

Do love button top right side of board

Gunna try Linux Garuda for gammers on my old ddr3 pc to learn more B4 i decide to try it on my ddr4 pc m2

Asus begin Assus, what a surprise

People complaining about Motherboard prices 🤣 the Z790 Formula probably can't overclock like the Apex/Apex Encore but at least it has more features. A lit up ROG logo, screen in the middle. Nice back plate, and it's white. Premium feel all around and it doesn't feel like a cheap $200-300 motherboard.

My Asus Crosshair 4 Extreme had a Koolance waterblock and it was flawless. I always avoided EK I never liked how many different manfuacturing issues they have had over the years.

That plastic case to me it seems to be High-Density Polyethylene but I might be wrong tho

The stamping on the black plastic piece will tell you what it is made of. You just have to decode it.

Hmm, that plastic cover... Polycarbonate? Polyoxybenzylmethyleneglycolanhydride? or some sort of CF infused composite perhaps?

isnt easier just to full copper nickel plated and do some grooves on it? i dont get why they do these, sure boosts the costs so much to manufacture.

Just having them take like 1 second longer in solder bath boom capacitor solder issues gone

Isn't this like the billionth time this has happened on Asus' integrated waterblock EK VRM coolers?

Trying to figure out why Bally/Midway hasn't sued you for the Pac Man bite in the intro lol.

My asus motherboard which is quite high end has a bug with the blue leds staying on at all times. Ggs.

better if they make a solid path instead of two-layer paths. It will be good for the liquid cooler.

Maybe that black cap is ceramic and that is why it shows silicon.