1mluer wrote:
I just got a response from my presales query. They said it will not be shipping to the USA and that I should buy it from the UK without a warranty.
I am still shaking my head on this one. the US market is HUGE and they don't want to release it's best products here. I am just like most of you and LOVE my Apex motherboard. ASUS are you punishing us ? Why do I have to pay an artificially hiked price because some UK vendor knows they have a lock on distribution.
I am sooooo seriously thinking about dumping everything ROG at this point. You have insulted me as a consumer.
================================================== =============================== response below
Thank you for contacting ASUS product support. My name is John T. and it will be my pleasure to assist you.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. I assure you that it is important that your issue gets resolved and we will continue to work on your case. It is our goal to provide prompt issue resolution for our customers. If your issue remains unresolved we would like to contact you by phone to avoid further delays. If this is acceptable, please provide the best phone number, day, and time for us to reach you.
I apologize for the inconvenience on your part. We appreciate you taking your time for this case. Upon checking on our end, the MAXIMUS XI APEX will not be released in the US as of the moment. We do not have any specific time frame when this will be open for sale in the US. If you really wanted the motherboard, you can order from the stores in the UK but it may affect the warranty of the product since it will be in the UK region not the US region.
Please let me know if you encounter problems along the way and I will be glad to provide assistance. Thank you for choosing ASUS.
This is my post on another thread back in February. It still holds true today and my guess it will never hit North America. They are working on next gen stuff by now. I had to go to the UK to buy it and they threaten without warranty but I have had no issues and the system runs great.
I actually thought Asus and EVGA constructed and signed a "gentleman's agreement" of sorts early on, where ROG would not sell the Apex XI in US/Canada, and EVGA would not sell the Z390 DARK in certain portions of the Far East for the first 90days or 120days. But now we are 7months+ in production on both boards, and I just cannot figure this one out either. The Biggest Headscratcher from ROG Evah!!!
Then I thought ok, its got to be the US tariffs, all the ROG boards were shipped prior to the December 31st/January 1st 10%-15%price hike - except the Apex 11 boards, so Asus maybe does not want the Apex 11 to compete with and lower sales of the other Maximus XI boards. Yea, I admit that theory is rather farsighted and most likely improbable, and since by now everyone who wants a Maximus XI board has surely already purchased and offering the Apex 11 would now only increase sales, enthusiasts buying two ROG boards instead of only one.
And it does not help that back in April 2018, the availability of the amazing Apex X (10) boards just simply VANISHED, from the planet worldwide, try to find one from that month and forward, can't be done except from the sharks/scalpers wanting $799 and $899 for the motherboards.
So what's a low latency single-threaded hyper-enthusiast to do?
Well, I have the amazing Asus ROG Apex X board running an 8700K at a daily 5.2Ghz 6/12. It will run 5.3Ghz single and slightly threaded benchmarks it's binned and delidded 18months of use and I love it as my 2ndary research build.
As my primary work computer yes, I waited and waited for the Apex XI to come to North America, just like everyone else, I didn't care for the loss of the X-styling cutouts or that the DIMM.2 (1/2 of it) was wired to the CPU lanes, or that it was ATX and not the grand E-ATX, but I was still going to buy it. Then along came the Z390 DARK, and had to grab it for my primary rig, if only to halt the endless waiting. The Z390 DARK with 8086K (5.3Ghz bin and delidded) completes 5.6Ghz single-slightly threaded benchmarks all day long on Noctua Air, and I run a Daily OC of 5.4Ghz with 4600Mhz 18CL Gskill Trident Z Royal silver at 4400Mhz 17-17-17-34 with an AIDA 64 latency of 37.4ns. (Could probably hit 34ns if I knew something about 2ndary and tertiary timings, but I don't. lol
🐵I had a few issues with my 1st Z390 DARK, very weird (non-ROG) behaviors and unexplainable electrical phenomenon, using ROG boards since 2012, I was hesitant and did not know what to expect. THEN, after working ideally for 14days, my 1st Z390 DARK would intermittently reboot windows 10 while working, at arbitrary time intervals 2minutes 5minutes 10minutes, so I actually had to get on the phone with EVGA and troubleshoot and RMA my VERY FIRST motherboard in my history of building pcs since 2009. I so regretted NOT grabbing the Apex 11 from the UK at that point. Did an advanced RMA and the 2nd Z390 DARK has been perfect since February and I love it. It still behaves in a very weird way, when going for newer-higher benches, the memory training is just funky man, lol and the double training reboots, yea you go nuts thinking the board is DEAD, when in fact, it's normal and it restarts itself after about a zillion pre-tests, but always comes back on - ready for more. And boy does it perform compared to my Apex X.
But that's another story for another day.
Sorry for the extended wall of emotional hypertext, when Z470 Comet Lake launches of course I will be waiting for the Apex 12 and hoping we can indeed purchase with a 3-year warranty in the US and Canada. I still love my ROG, hope Asus takes the Apex 12 back to E-ATX and adds a PCIe cover/shroud and makes it a $499 or $549 "superboard" with aesthetics like the Rampage Vi Extreme Omega.
At least the PCIe cover.
😛Long time ROGer, still in absolute disbelief over the Apex XI's nonexistence in North America.
😞I tried to add some benchmark screenshots, but my screen goes gray and the upload is forever. Will try again later if anyone wants to chat about Apex 10 Apex 11 Z390 Dark benchmarks and Single-Thread Slightly-Threaded performance. I've got some good results. My Cinebench R15 Single is 243, at 5.5Ghz in January when I didn't know the bios. Think I can complete a 5.6Ghz run now with bios 1.06, so maybe score closer to 250.
🙂edit: ok figured out the image posting - here's some screenshots: All these values are Z390 Dark 8086K with Noctua C14S cooling.
I do have (5) radiators Hardware Labs Multiports (4) 120mm and (1) 240mm mounted on the CaseLabs open test bench frame along with a Singularity Computers res and D5 pump top and AquaComputer PWM D5 pump, none of them have ever been wet, lol no tubing no fittings no coolant, I purchased all the water cooling gear in anticipation of buying a Rampage VI Extreme X299 motherboard way back in Spring 2017, then Coffee Lake was announced and when delidded, the 8700K/8086K are so incredibly thermally efficient and high-clocking when you grab a cherry-picked CPU - there was no need to ever complete the loop. Running a single Noctua 140mm Industrial all black fan with black corner pads (I purchesed separately) at 700rpms daily and inaudible for working, increasing to 1200rpms for benching and new oc attempts.
🙂... and NO, AIDA 64 memory latency values do not improve/decrease with increased CPU clock speed. 5.0Ghz on the CPU is the same 37.x value as 5.5Ghz on the CPU with memory timings remaining constant. Although AIDA 64 is clock frequency limited at lower clocks, meaning if you go below the minimum clock speed it needs to perform the test, your values will be artificially high recorded in nanoseconds.
I'm not certain what that minimum clock speed is for the 8700K/8086K but I would guess 4.9Ghz and 4.8Ghz all core all thread is too low.
Also to compare and contrast, I could set up an 8086K single core boost (per core) 5.6Ghz 5.5 5.4 5.2 5.2 5.2 6core 12thread overclock in my Apex X bios, it was awesome to work with for hours, a single core at a time would boost to 5.6Ghz, all 6cores recording 5.6Ghz eventually, yet not simultaneously. lol By contrast I'm able to set up a single core boost (per core) overclock of 5.8Ghz 5.7 5.6 5.2 5.2 5.2 with the Z390 Dark (screenshot below) Are either those configurations Prime 95 stable? Oh heck no.
😉 lol yet both profles are work app stable. Go Apex X!
A really great guy here in the ROG forums once told me, do not worry or concern yourself with Prime 95 stability if you are not competing in overclocking competitions, only building a computer for working, you know your way around your bios, don't mind tweaking and adjusting if need be and your OS and work apps are completely stable without issue for a fortnight (two weeks), then consider your computer STABLE.
That great guy was/is 8-Pack, and I never got a chance to thank him. He was so right, stability is always relative. If you are building PCs for clients to set and forget, then of course you want absolute stability for them so you don't get called back to the work-site continuously. But if you work as your own IT guy from a home office and love the hobby, then Work App and OS stability are all you really need. Thanks 8-Pack bro!
🙂Sorry for sort of hijacking this thread, guess I haven't posted in a long time, guess I caught the fever. lol
😛
Z790 Epiphenomenal Raptor Bench
ROG Z790 Apex / Intel 13900KS SP111 P121 E93 MC83
Gskill 8000 kit - TM5 stable at 8200MT/s 38 48 48 121 VDD and VDDQ 1.5v
WD_Black SN850X 1TB 7300MB/s Reads 6300MB/s Writes
LG 32in 4K IPS 32UP83A-W