Well that’s good that you’re happy with a beta experience.
My issue isn’t so much so that problems can’t be fixed. My issue really is at the end of the day I want Intel and it’s partners to succeed. Same with AMD and Apple. But some of the problems with Z590 are so fundamental that it begs to wonder why rocket lake was even launched in March.
Regarding Z590, the following tidbits are experiences that some people have had:
- They couldn’t get XMP running at all on early BIOSs (with memory kits that had zero problems running at XMP in motherboards from years ago).
- Thunderbolt hot-plug is broken for some Thunderbolt 3 peripherals.
- Some motherboards do not hold the overclock when the processor is under load, despite setting a 0 avx offset, as well as disabling TVB frequency clipping. Some of the early BIOSs downclock the CPU and override any overclocking settings when the CPU is under load on all cores.
- Others have found that sometimes their Intel network controller disappears and only comes back if they cut power to the motherboard or if they clear cmos.
These are fundamental usability problems that ruin the user experience and did not occur on my 2018 Macintosh or my Z490 Vision D.
Z590 costs more than its predecessor, but has a variety of issues, and in some ways is an experiential regression. This must be called out for what it is.
The products were released in a beta state. The Asus HERO’s 0704 BIOS you mention is a beta BIOS, same with the f5d BIOS on the Z590 Vision D. The release BIOSs were even worse, only good thing with the Asus HERO’s release BIOS is that it had Thunderbolt 3 hot-plug functionality. 0704 may have broken that with its update to the version 26 of the NVM of the Maple Ridge controller.
Regarding your point about Thunderbolt 4 being a done deal, that’s not my position. My position is that the compatibility and stability issues we’re seeing (such as network controllers disappearing unless you clear cmos or cut power to the board) shouldn’t even be occurring in the first place. Regarding broken thunderbolt3 hotplug, the Thunderbolt 4 marketing materials claim: “backward compatibility with thunderbolt3.” But this is only true (on some motherboards if the Thunderbolt 3 device is plugged in prior to boot time.
I figure they’ll iron these issues out but these fundamental problems aren’t a good look for Intel. They used to be better than this.
Finally, regarding your point of the Z490 Vision D not doing the latest USB, I’m not sure I understand what you mean. It doesn’t have USB 3.2 20Gbps on the front panel connector (unlike some Z590 motherboards), and it has a Titan Ridge controller, compared to maple ridge on Z590. But Gigabyte’s Titan Ridge implementation is solid with its NVM50, and is roughly the same speed as Thunderbolt 4. With Thunderbolt 4, Intel didn’t update the maximum speed, it still tops out at 40 Gbps. Instead Intel updated the minimum specifications of what could be certified as Thunderbolt 4. With Thunderbolt 3, some implementations topped out at 20 Gbps, others at 40 Gbps. With Thunderbolt 4, the minimum (and maximum) is 40 G\bps. This should quell user confusion.
Titan Ridge is just fine, and I have yet to see what the benefit of Maple Ridge is, given Titan Ridge has working hot-plug and Maple Ridge doesn’t (at least on the Z590 Vision D). Gigabyte’s stock Titan Ridge nvm50 even supports the new Thunderbolt hubbing feature that has been implemented in some new Thunderbolt 4 docks in both Windows and macOS. So Titan Ridge is just fine. Although I don’t think the custom firmware that enables Thunderbolt bus in macOS on the Z490 Vision D is compatible with the Thunderbolt hubbing feature of the new Goshen Ridge Thunderbolt 4 docks.