Asus Z690 ProArt Creator WiFi (Thunderbolt 4) + i7-12700K + AMD RX 6800 XT

[gandem]

Ha, I would also recommend a water cooler (eventually). This air cooler is ginormous!

I have an earlier iteration of this cooler on my 9900K. It's a beast! IMO is the best air cooler you can get, kept it cool as a cucumber. Was just worried about the reports of the temps on Alder Lake.

@ummario The water cooler linked in post #1 is excellent should you choose to go that route!

 

[etorix]

I regret now the purchase of Noctua NH-D15, instead of a water cooler. It was very difficult to assemble, and even one of the cooler fans is not properly aligned (maybe 2 cm above) because the base of the fan touches the MB Plastic cover.

I'd suggest to remove this fan and configure the cooler as a NH-D15S (single fan pushing air through the second tower).

 

[CaseySJ]

All network ports are now working again. I have one old network cable I use as a temp drop from my gigabit switch. It was causing intermittent issues when going through the switch, but the same cable would work fine directly connected to the router. I have cut that cable with scissors to prevent the temptation of ever using it again!

This has my full endorsement!

After almost a week of testing with Tthunderbolt, I finally decided to disable Maple Ridge for the time being. Running my UltraFine and dock on the patched Titan Ridge and things have finally settled down. The devices are recognized on cold boot, but sometimes I need to restart once to get it all fully functional. The one oddity is hot plug does not work unless I have the port occupied on boot, then I can hot plug all day long on that port. So I'm leaving my TB3/2 adapter plugged into my dock. Then after I boot I can pull the adapter and plug any drive I want in, as many times as needed. Maple Ridge does work relatively well, just not as consistent as Titan Ridge. I'm hoping that eventually firmware will be patchable making it more reliable, or maybe Apple will release a new Mac Pro with Maple Ridge. I know that's a BIG maybe, but "You're tellin' me there's a chance!"

On motherboards with built-in Thunderbolt (i.e. Thunderbolt on PCH instead of PCI) we believe that Maple Ridge firmware resides in the BIOS chip instead of a dedicated flash ROM. We might be able to hack an Asus BIOS file, which is the expertise of @Elias64Fr.

But PCIe cards such as GC-Maple Ridge do have dedicated flash ROMs. The GC-Maple Ridge has the old familiar Winbond chip. Our attempts at modifying Maple Ridge firmware on these devices did not succeed.

 

[ummario]

I'd suggest to remove this fan and configure the cooler as a NH-D15S (single fan pushing air through the second tower).

I thought doing that. My question is if it will be enough to cool down the i9-12900k. I will try that later after the system is running. Thanks

 

[CaseySJ]

** AppleALC Layout 13 for Realtek ALC-S1220A Modified **
Auto-Switching Enabled​

After a bit more experimentation I've modified Layout 13 to auto-switch between the rear green Line Out and front Headphone jacks. If the attached version of AppleALC is used it will show 3 inputs. Their names will depend on what is connected to the front headphone jack.

If nothing connected to front headphone jack, then rear green Line Out is active:

If headphone connected then front headphone jack is automatically enabled:

 

[etorix]

If a NH-U14S can cool my 165W Platinum 8255C, a D15S should do for your i9-12900K. Beside, you may not be able to put the motherboard in the case without removing this fan…
Looking closely at the pictures, you may have put the fans backwards—unless you intend to suck fresh air from the back and exhaust at the front. The Noctua fans are meant to push air through the towers, with the rear case fan(s) doing the final exhaust.

 

[gandem]

This has my full endorsement!


On motherboards with built-in Thunderbolt (i.e. Thunderbolt on PCH instead of PCI) we believe that Maple Ridge firmware resides in the BIOS chip instead of a dedicated flash ROM. We might be able to hack an Asus BIOS file, which is the expertise of @Elias64Fr.

But PCIe cards such as GC-Maple Ridge do have dedicated flash ROMs. The GC-Maple Ridge has the old familiar Winbond chip. Our attempts at modifying Maple Ridge firmware on these devices did not succeed.

Nothing worse than troubleshooting intermittent problems! That cable looked perfect too, after 4 checks on a cable tester it finally failed on the tester when I jiggled it a little- ugh!

Thank you for clarifying on the Maple Ridge efforts.

 

[ummario]

If a NH-U14S can cool my 165W Platinum 8255C, a D15S should do for your i9-12900K. Beside, you may not be able to put the motherboard in the case without removing this fan…
Looking closely at the pictures, you may have put the fans backwards—unless you intend to suck fresh air from the back and exhaust at the front. The Noctua fans are meant to push air through the towers, with the rear case fan(s) doing the final exhaust.

Thanks for the tips @etorix I will definitively take care of that later . I must admit that I'm always confused which way the air goes from the fans

My case has 2 big fans at the front, and 3 smaller at the bottom. All of them sending air into the interior (i think). My idea was to put the fans from the cooler with the same air flow as the front case fans, so that the air would go to the back of the case.

 

[dehjomz]

Has anyone tested audio via HDMI/DisplayPort on this board? On my Radeon VII, audio output via HDMI/DisplayPort is atrocious. Skipping, hisses, and pops. The 1003 BIOS update updated the USB-pd firmware which addressed (but did not eliminate) the issue. Audio quality is somewhat better in Windows vs macOS but there are still hisses and pops.

I used the DP in port to route the Radeon’s DP output via Thunderbolt, and the audio on my USB-c monitor (plugged in via Thunderbolt) is terrible. However, audio via the Rear Panel is fine. The issue is related to audio coming from the Radeon.

I need to triage. I will have to try a different video card, monitor, etc., to see. I never had this issue on Gigabyte.

 

[etorix]

I must admit that I'm always confused which way the air goes from the fans

Look for carved arrows in the fan frame, showing which way the blades rotates and the air flows.