Although these long, cold, and dark nights are starting to come to an end, EVGA has launched its darkest and most devilish desktop motherboard to date, the EVGA Z690 Dark K|NGP|N Edition. Designed in collaboration with legendary extreme overclocker Vince 'K|NGP|N' Lucido, the Z690 Dark K|NGP|N Edition boasts an impressive feature set including support for DDR5-6600 memory, three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, eight SATA ports, and a large 21-phase power delivery to push Intel's Alder Lake to the extreme.

Built around the Intel's high-end Z690 chipset, the EVGA Z690 Dark K|NGP|N Edition isn't a conventional motherboard by any stretch of the imagination. It is based on the E-ATX form factor and has interesting design characteristics, including a transposed LGA1700 socket that allows extreme overclockers to mount LN2 pots more easily.

To make the board more robust, EVGA includes a large black metal backplate on the rear of the board to reinforce the PCB. This also includes right-angled connectors, including two 8-pin 12V ATX CPU power inputs and a 24-pin 12V ATX motherboard power input that intrudes into the PCB with a handy cutout designed to make cable management more effortless. It also includes an impressive accessories pack that features an EVGA flat test bench plate that we saw in our previous review of the EVGA Z590 Dark motherboard.

Looking at the feature set, the Z690 Dark K|NGP|N Edition includes two full-length PCIe 5.0 slots that can operate at x16 and x8/x8, with three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots that sit in between the PCIe slots and underneath a large black finned 'Dark' branded heatsink. There are eight SATA ports for conventional storage and optical drives, six of which are from the chipset with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 support, and two that come via an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller.

Even though the Z690 Dark has a solid feature set for enthusiasts, the real focus by EVGA with this model is on extreme overclocking. This includes a large 21-phase power delivery cooled by an active heatsink with two fans. It also has a 10-layer PCB throughout and contains an overclocker's toolkit in the top right-hand corner that consists of dual two-digit LED debuggers, a power button, a reset button, dip-switches to disable PCIe slots, and a slow mode switch. There's also a probe-lt header where users can monitor voltages in real-time from various components on the board, such as the CPU and power inputs.


The large black metal backplate on the rear of the EVGA Z690 Dark K|NGP|N Edition

In terms of connectivity, there's plenty on the rear panel, including one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. For networking, EVGA uses two Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers and includes Intel's latest AX211 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi. Despite focusing on performance, EVGA has also gone with a premium audio solution, including a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec and an EVGA NU Audio SV3H615 headphone amplifier with five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output.

The EVGA Z690 Dark K|NGP|N Edition is currently available to purchase at the EVGA website for $830. However, at the time of writing, purchases are limited to one per household, and it seems as though it's only available to EVGA Elite Members at this time.

Source: EVGA

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  • Wereweeb - Friday, February 18, 2022 - link

    So you need to pay 800 bucks to get an actual VRM heatsink, with things such as *heatpipes* and *fins*, instead of some terrifyingly mediocre extruded aluminium modern art piece.
  • PeachNCream - Saturday, February 19, 2022 - link

    BREAKING NEWS!!!

    EVGA unleashes motherboard branded with the screen name of some old guy that was willing to sell usage rights to his faux identity for money! Come see the bog standard feature set! Gaze in awe at the bullet points made and checkboxes checked in the marketing materials! Stare in fascination at the blinkenlights! Most importantly, please give EVGA your money because they made a monumental effort to target a specific, gullible market segment of potential buyers. Oh and don't forget to brag to people you barely know over Discord about your purchase because word of mouth advertising helps.
  • Questor - Sunday, February 20, 2022 - link

    Lots of EVGA haters here. I have not had a problem with the half dozen EVGA motherboards owned over the years. I have had several problems with ASUS, a bad ASRock board and never have had a board from MSI work. I have given MSI several chances. They have made the worst of each. I had zero problems with Gigabyte

    Then again, not a single problem with DFI and EPoX was great. Yet I have seen/heard/read/watched the rivers of tears about these two until they were finally out of business. Too bad. We need choice and innovation. Competition pushes innovation and helps to keep prices down.

    We have lost a lot of this. For decades we were told there wasn't enough room to add more 3 pin fan headers by motherboard makers. Four-pin PWM headers were out of the question. Then suddenly we get RGB and ARGB headers galore with lots of blinky things jamming up our vision. That is what passes for innovation now that a few board makers control the space of many in the past.

    I won't pay the kind of money this board and others like it demand. However, there is nothing that would keep me from buying another EVGA motherboard product in general, be it board or PSU. My experience with the brand has been nothing less than stellar.
  • Tom Sunday - Tuesday, June 7, 2022 - link

    Indeed…lots of EVGA haters here. Amazing the more expensive the MB or product the more haters. I wonder why that is? For me like with many other enthusiasts it’s never the pricing but the performance and purpose. Just like my blond girlfriend. Her assets like with the 'Kingpin' are clearly visible. She can also walk the walk and talk the talk. As such beauty and need are in the eye of the beholder.
  • Bulis - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link

    There are different ways and different methods to do it, some of them are new other ways are old, but they all work one way or another. https://unblockedrun3.us

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