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ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced that new ROG Maximus Z890 Apex motherboards have been used to achieve 5 world records, 19 global first-place records and 31 first-place records. In the hands of some of the world's premier professional overclockers, the Maximus Z890 Apex has coaxed dazzling performance out of the latest Intel Core Ultra processor (Series 2) lineup and the latest high-performance memory kits.

Veterans of the overclocking scene will not be surprised to learn that these records were achieved with an Apex motherboard on the bench. This series has an undeniable pedigree. Since the very first model, ASUS has designed Apex motherboards for the singular purpose of helping the world's most talented overclockers shatter barriers on their way to new records.

ASUS today unveiled a lineup of Z890 motherboards from the ROG Maximus, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, Prime and ProArt families, supporting Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2). ASUS is marking the occasion with all-new motherboard features that accelerate performance and streamline the build process. ASUS AI Advisor is a new natural-language build assistant powered by AI. AEMP III, NitroPath DRAM Technology and DIMM Fit unleash DDR5 memory kits. NPU Boost provides overclocking of the integrated NPU in an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) CPU for accelerated AI performancei. ROG M.2 PowerBoost provides more M.2 slots on a motherboard than ever before. On top of all that, there is Thunderbolt 5, WiFi 7 and new PC DIY features to discuss.

Primed to perform with Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) in a new socket
Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2) use the new LGA 1851 socket. Users of these processors will need an Intel 800 series motherboard to use one, and a Z890 motherboard specifically to take advantage of CPU overclocking. These options feature up to 24 cores in a new disaggregated architecture. Performance-cores, aka P-cores, take center stage with their high clock rates, while a cluster of Efficient-cores, aka E-cores, provide high-end multithreaded performance.

AMD today made four key announcements for its Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture. These mainly aim to improve upon the products as originally launched in August. To begin with, AMD announced a 105 W cTDP (configurable TDP) mode for the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 7 9600X processors, with full warranty coverage. This setting can be enabled in the UEFI setup program of a motherboard running its latest version of UEFI firmware, which encapsulates the AGESA ComboAM5 PI 1.2.0.2 microcode. The setting raises the PPT (package power tracking) value of the 9700X and 9600X to 140 W, and treats them as if they were 105 W TDP processors. These chips were originally launched by AMD with 65 W (88 W PPT), and as reviewers quickly found out, unlocking power improves performance at stock clock speeds, as it improves boost frequency residence of these chips.

Next up, is the AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 microcode itself, which introduces the 105 W cTDP mode for the 9700X and 9600X along with warranty coverage, which we just talked about; plus works to improve the core-to-core latency on the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X. These are processors with two CPU complex dies (CCDs), each with either 8 or 6 cores enabled. To the software, this is still a single-socket (1P) CPU with 12 or 16 cores. Although some awareness of the dual-CCD architecture is added to the OS scheduler to help it localize certain kinds of workloads (such as games) to a single CCD, reviewers noted that core-to-core latency on the dual-CCD chips was still too high, which should affect performance when a software's threads are migrating between cores, or if a workload is multithreaded, such as media encoding. AMD addressed exactly this with the new AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 update.