Getting the most out of Intel's Core i9-11900K primarily relies on two main factors: premium cooling for the chip itself, and a solid motherboard acting as the foundation. And while motherboard manufacturers such as EVGA can't do anything about the former, they have quite a bit of experience with the latter.

Today we're taking a look at EVGA's Z590 Dark motherboard, which is putting EVGA's experience to the test as one of a small handful of LGA1200 motherboards geared for extreme overclocking. A niche market within a niche market, few people really have the need (or the means) to overclock a processor within an inch of its life. But for those that do, EVGA has developed a well-earned reputation with its Dark series boards for pulling out all of the stops in helping overclockers get the most out of their chips. And even for the rest of us who will never see a Rocket Lake chip pass 6GHz, it's interesting to see just what it takes with regards to motherboard design and construction to get the job done.

EVGA Z590 Dark Overview

EVGA occupies an unusual spot within the wider motherboard market. The company has eschewed low-end and mid-range motherboards entirely, opting to focus on high-end boards. Case in point: of the handful motherboards they currently offer, the major of them are Dark boards aimed at extreme overclocking.

The end result is that while EVGA doesn't make (or sell) a lot of boards, what they do make stands out. And in the case of the Dark series (and thus the Z590 Dark) that starts with outright over-engineering motherboards in order to equip them with far more (or far higher grade) components than are actually needed. For a motherboard to operate within its parameters, such as Intel default settings on processors, they don't require things like ridiculously high phase counts to achieve this. But for extreme overclocking, it's another matter.

Some may say that overclocking isn't as popular as it once was, and to some degree that's true. Due to the advancements from both Intel and AMD on its methods and definitions of 'turbo' and 'boost,' it's not as fundamentally needed as it once was.

But don't tell the EVGA Z590 Dark that. Going so far as to support aggressive sub-ambient CPU cooling methods like liquid nitrogen (LN2) and dry ice (DICE), the EVGA Z590 Dark is a serious contender for those looking for maximum performance. An overclocker's toolkit is designed to make sub-zero overclocking more accessible, including dual Probelt voltage monitoring points and a dual two-digit LED debugger that can even read out current CPU VCore and temperatures.

It uses a transposed LGA1200 socket for better CPU pot mounting. Above the CPU socket is two horizontally mounted memory slots with support for DDR4-5333 out of the box and a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB, more than ample for anyone's desktop system. Other fanciful design traits include right-angled connectors, including the power connectors along the right-hand side, s |USB headers, and 4-pin fan headers.

With that said, not everything is aimed at overclocking, so the Z590 Dark includes a solid and fundamental feature set to boot. There's plenty of variety for storage with one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2, one PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2, one PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2, one rare PCIe 3.0 x4 U.2 slot, and eight SATA ports. Also present is a premium onboard audio solution and plenty of networking options with two 2.5 GbE controllers and an Intel Wi-Fi 6 CNVi. Other features include USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C connectivity on the rear panel through native support on the Z590 chipset, while the Z590 Dark also has four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports.

Touching on the performance of the EVGA Z590 Dark in our testing, it showed that it's competitive with other Z590 boards we've tested. It's not as power-efficient as some other Z590 models, but we got good results in our POST time test, and it displayed incredible performance in our DPC latency testing. The performance in our compute and gaming benchmarks also shows the Dark is competitive with other models on test.

The EVGA Z590 Dark undergoing our VRM thermal testing

When it comes to overclocking, which the EVGA Z590 Dark is primarily designed for, we admittedly didn't see anything overly special compared to other Z590 boards – but then we "only" used a premium Corsair 360 mm AIO, rather than something more exotic. Still, the EVGA OC Robot utility built into the firmware was able to provide us with an impressive 5.4 GHz all-core stable overclock, but with a CPU VCore of 1.541 V and a whopping power draw of 497 W. Pragmatically, this overclock did run with a minus 3 offset on AVX workloads which meant it passed our POV-Ray benchmark. Still, we did see thermal throttling due to the insane amount of heat generated. Power delivery thermals were also respectable, but we would have liked to have seen better thermal performance than we got considering this board has an active cooling design.

Reflecting its high-end nature, the EVGA Z590 Dark carries a price tag of $599. And somewhat surprisingly, this isn't too outlandish for an enthusiast-grade overclocking motherboard in today's market, particularly when sizing up other high-end boards. Still, motherboards such as the MSI MEG Z590 Ace ($430) offer a much more comprehensive feature set with very competitive performance levels for users who aren't going to be applying dry ice to their CPUs. So where the Z590 Dark excels is going to be different from other high-end boards, and that's something that suits EVGA just fine.

Read on for our extended analysis.

Visual Inspection

Opting for a unique and unconventional set of design characteristics, the EVGA Z590 Dark is primarily geared for extreme overclocking. This includes a transposed LGA1200 socket with plenty of space for users to mount an LN2 pot, as well as adopting right-angled connectors throughout, including power connectors and fan headers. Looking at fan headers, there are six in total, with two designated for CPU fans and six for chassis fans or water pumps. EVGA includes an RGB LED logo on the rear panel cover, with two ARGB and two RGB headers onboard for users to add external LED strips.

Dominating the lower portion of the board is a set of large black heatsinks and the board's PCIe slots. EVGA includes two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that can operate at x16 and x8/x8, with one half-length slot electronically locked down to PCIe 3.0 x4. In between the full-length slots is a trio of M.2 slots, one with support for super-fast PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drives, one limited to PCIe 3.0 x4, and the other limited to PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA. The third M.2 slot shares bandwidth with the bottom full-length PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA slot. 

Other storage options include one PCIe 3.0 x4 U.2 slot for stackable storage and eight SATA ports. Six of the SATA ports support Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays, while an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller powers the other two.

Looking at DRAM support, the EVGA Z590 Dark has two horizontally mounted memory slots above the LGA1200 socket, which is designed to bolster the overclocking ability. The two memory slots can support up to DDR4-5333 out of the box with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB. Not only this, but it allows extreme overclockers better access to the CPU socket.

EVGA also includes an extensive overclocker's toolkit, which is primarily located along the top edge of the board. A power and reset button pairing is included, with a 3-way BIOS selector switch as the Z590 Dark comes with three BIOS ROM chips. Also included is a set of PCIe dip switches that allow users to enable or disable them, as well as a small clear CMOS button.

Focusing on the power delivery on the EVGA Z590 Dark, it is equipped with a sizable 21-phase power delivery which is split into 16+1+1. There are sixteen Renesas ISL99390 90 A smart power stages dedicated to the CPU VCore, which are doubled up using eight Renesas ISL6617 doublers. This means the CPU VCore section is technically an 8-phase design, so the power delivery operates at 8+1+1. This is a slight stretch labeling it as 21-phases. In essence, it is, but the CPU VCore is using a doubled 8-phase design.

EVGA also includes a pair of ON Semiconductor NTMFS4C05N high side and NTMFS4C10N low side MOSFETs for the VCCIO2 voltage, one Renesas ISL99360 60 A power stage for the  VCCSA, one and one ISL99360 A power stage for VDDR voltage. Overall it's a pretty comprehensive power delivery and one that has been designed with extreme overclocking in mind. The CPU socket also uses the flatter tantalum capacitors, which stop obstructions when mounting an LN2 pot.

Keeping the power delivery cool is a large pair of heatsinks that are interconnected to the chipset heatsink via a single heat pipe. Helping keep things running cool is a pair of 40 mm cooling fans that vent the air out via the rear of the I/O shield.

The Z590 Dark uses a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec with an assisting EVGA NU SV3H615 amplifier for integrated audio. EVGA is also using four large yellow Bennic Bi-Polar audio capacitors, which are premium quality. The ALC1220 HD audio codec omits any EMI shielding, and EVGA uses a line of separation from the rest of the board's components.

EVGA includes one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports on the rear panel. The Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec and EVGA NU SV3H615 power five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output, while an HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4 video output pairing provide integrated graphics support. Networking support consists of two RJ45 ports powered by individual Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers, with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 CNVi delivers both wireless and BT 5.2 connectivity. Finishing off the rear panel is a PS/2 combo port and a small clear CMOS button.

What's in The Box

The accessories bundled with the EVGA Z590 Dark include two Probelt voltage monitoring cables, three M.2 thermal pads, and screws, as well as an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 antenna set. It wouldn't be a motherboard accessories bundle without SATA cables which EVGA provides four, and an EVGA case badge and a small USB flash drive with the board's software and drivers.

EVGA also includes a printed backboard that allows users to set a system up like a test bench, which also has a visual map of the board's components. Also included are ten long standoffs and ten screws to allow users to install the motherboard onto the backboard.

• Quick installation guide
• Bench table stand
• 10 x standoffs and screws
• Intel Wi-Fi 6 antenna
• Driver/software installation USB drive
• 4 x SATA cables
• 3 x M.2 thermal pads
• 2 x Probelt OC cables
• EVGA case badge

BIOS

The EVGA Z590 Dark firmware is consistent with other boards in its line-up, such as the X570 Dark, which we previously reviewed. The GUI. features a black and teal blue color theme throughout, with teal highlighting on the selected option and white text throughout.

The initial splash screen has four main options for users to select from. This includes entering the setup options for more advanced configuration of the settings and a default mode which will set all of the board's options to default settings. EVGA also includes a Gamer Mode that lets the firmware overclock the processor to a conservative level, which we will explore in the O.C. section of the review. The EVGA OC Robot pushes it to what the board thinks are the stable limits of the processor.

Entering the Enter Setup option from the splash screen takes users into the board's configurable settings. This includes an O.C. section where users can overclock the processor and integrated graphics on supported chips. For users looking to overclock the memory, EVGA consists of a dedicated area that includes memory overclocking presets provided by world-class overclockers KINGPIN and Luumi. 

Other options include the advanced section with access to the board's chipset-related options and allowing users to enable or disable integrated controllers for networking and audio. Within the Boot section, users can boot to a specific installed drive and set the boot priority. In contrast, the Save and Exit section allows users to save the desired settings and boot into the operating system.

There's also a section within the advanced menu to access the H/W monitor settings, allowing users to customize fan profiles on each board's eight 4-pin fan headers. Overall the EVGA Z590 Dark firmware is consistent throughout; it's responsive. It has everything needed for extreme overclockers and enthusiasts to push Intel's Rocket Lake processors to its capabilities; this depends entirely on the level of cooling installed.

Software

Most of the following software analysis comes from our EVGA X570 Dark review due to the identical software packages supplied.

Much to EVGA's credit, it includes its software and driver installation files on a small USB stick instead of providing an optical disc. As we said in our EVGA X570 Dark review, we applaud this and wish other vendors would follow suit as optical media such as C.D.s and DVDs are often not supported on newer systems.

After plugging in the USB drive and opening the executable file, users can install all of the motherboard's core drivers, including the chipset, Intel Management Engine, and the integrated controllers. Users can also install the EVGA Eleet X1 and N.U. audio software, as well as Intel's UHD integrated graphics drivers, and use one of the inclusive EVGA wallpapers provided. 

Looking at the EVGA ELEET X1 software, the utility amalgamates various elements, including overclocking, system monitoring, and control of both the integrated RGB LEDs and external ones users choose to install. There's plenty of overclocking options for users to customize for overclocking the CPU and memory on the fly within Windows. Options include CPU frequency (all-core only), CPU VCore, DRAM voltage, SoC, VDDP, P.L.L., and these can be adjusted without rebooting the system. This includes memory latencies that are handy for extreme overclockers looking to fine-tune settings without POSTing into Windows at unstable settings.

Overall, EVGA provides a functional and helpful set of software without delivering too much fluff. Users can change audio settings via the EVGA NU audio function or use Realtek's Audio Console for basic tuning. The EVGA Z590 Dark is geared for overclocking, the software does the job required, and we couldn't ask for any more than that. 

Board Features

The EVGA Z590 Dark is an E-ATX motherboard that is primarily designed for pushing Intel's 11th generation Rocket Lake processors to the limit using sub-ambient cooling methods. It does have plenty of premium features including two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at either x16/x0 or x8/x8, with a half-length PCIe 3.0 slot electronically locked down to x4. The Z590 Dark has a transposed LGA1200 socket with two memory slots horizontally mounted above it with support for DDR4-5333 with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB.

For storage, the EVGA Z590 Dark includes three M.2 slots, with one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2, one PCIe 3.0 x4 slot M.2, one PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2, with a PCIe 3.0 x4 U.2 port, and a total of eight SATA ports. Six of the SATA ports are powered by the chipset and support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays, while the other two are driven by an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller. 

On the overclockers toolkit is a pair of Probelt voltage monitors with cables for these supplied in the accessories bundle, with dual two-digit LED debuggers, a power button, a reset button, a slow mode switch, a safe boot button, and a triple BIOS selector switch. Cooling options consist of eight 4-pin headers, with two designated for CPU fans, and six for chassis fans or water pumps.

EVGA Z590 Dark E-ATX Motherboard
Warranty Period	3 Years
Product Page	Link
Price	$600
Size	E-ATX
CPU Interface	LGA1200
Chipset	Intel Z590
Memory Slots (DDR4)	Two DDR4 Supporting 64 GB Dual-Channel Up to DDR4-5333
Video Outputs	1 x HDMI 2.0b 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
Network Connectivity	2 x Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC1220 EVGA NU SV3H615
PCIe Slots for Graphics (from CPU)	2 x PCIe 4.0 (x16, x8/x8)
PCIe Slots for Other (from PCH)	1 x PCIe 3.0 x4
Onboard SATA	Six, RAID 0/1/5/10 (Z590) Two (ASMedia)
Onboard M.2	1 x PCIe 4.0 x4 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4 1 x PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA
Onboard U.2	1 x PCIe 3.0 x4
Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps)	N/A
USB 3.2 (20 Gbps)	1 x USB Type-C (Rear panel)
USB 3.2 (10 Gbps)	4 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 1 x USB Type-C (One header)
USB 3.1 (5 Gbps)	2 x USB Type-A (Rear panel) 4 x USB Type-A (Two headers)
USB 2.0	6 x USB Type-A (Three headers)
Power Connectors	1 x 24-pin Motherboard 2 x 8-pin CPU 1 x 6-pin PCIe
Fan Headers	2 x 4-pin CPU 6 x 4-pin Chassis
IO Panel	2 x Antenna Ports (Intel) 1 x PS/2 Combo port 1 x USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C 4 x USB 3.2 G2 Type-A 2 x USB 3.2 G1 Type-A 2 x RJ45 (Intel) 1 x HDMI 2.0b Output 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 Output 5 x 3.5 mm Audio jacks (Realtek) 1 x S/PDIF Optical output (Realtek) 1 x Clear CMOS button

There's plenty of connectivity 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. If this isn't enough for users, EVGA includes one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C header (one port), and three USB 2.0 header (six ports) available to use. Other input and output on the rear panel include five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD codec and EVGA NU SV3H615 amplifier pairing, while EVGA also includes one HDMI 2.0b and one DisplayPort 1.4 video output.

Focusing on networking, there are two Ethernet ports, both controlled by individual Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers, while an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 CNVi offers both wireless and BT 5.2 connectivity.

Test Bed

With some of the nuances with Intel's Rocket Lake processors, our policy is to see if the system gives an automatic option to increase the power limits of the processor. If it does, we select the liquid cooling option. If it does not, we do not change the defaults. Adaptive Boost Technology is disabled by default.

Test Setup
Processor	Intel Core i9-11900K, 125 W, $374 8 Cores, 16 Threads 3.5 GHz (5.3 GHz Turbo)
Motherboard	EVGA Z590 Dark (BIOS 1.05)
Cooling	Corsair iCue H150i Elite Capellix 360 mm AIO
Power Supply	Corsair HX850 80Plus Platinum 850 W
Memory	G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 CL 14-14-14-34 2T (2 x 8 GB)
Video Card	MSI GTX 1080 (1178/1279 Boost)
Hard Drive	Crucial MX300 1TB
Case	Corsair Crystal 680X
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit: Build 20H2

We must also thank the following:

Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews
Sapphire RX 460 Nitro	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC	Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs	Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs
G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX	Crucial Ballistix DDR4	Silverstone Coolers	Noctua Coolers

System Performance

Not all motherboards are created equal. On the face of it, they should all perform the same and differ only in the functionality they provide - however, this is not the case. The obvious pointers are power consumption, POST time and latency. This can come down to the manufacturing process and prowess, so these are tested.

For Z590 we are running using Windows 10 64-bit with the 20H2 update.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single MSI GTX 1080 Gaming configuration with a wall meter connected to the power supply. Our power supply has ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real-world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our testbed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.

In our power testing, the EVGA Z590 Dark performed well, although it wasn't as power-efficient as other Z590 models we've had on test.

Non-UEFI POST Time

Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we look at the POST Boot Time using a stopwatch. This is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows-specific features.)

EVGA put on a solid display in our non-UEFI POST time testing, with some of the quickest boot times into Windows we've seen. We did manage to shave around half a second of time when disabling the networking and audio controllers, however.

DPC Latency

Deferred Procedure Call latency is a way in which Windows handles interrupt servicing. In order to wait for a processor to acknowledge the request, the system will queue all interrupt requests by priority. Critical interrupts will be handled as soon as possible, whereas lesser priority requests such as audio will be further down the line. If the audio device requires data, it will have to wait until the request is processed before the buffer is filled.

If the device drivers of higher priority components in a system are poorly implemented, this can cause delays in request scheduling and process time. This can lead to an empty audio buffer and characteristic audible pauses, pops, and clicks. The DPC latency checker measures how much time is taken processing DPCs from driver invocation. The lower the value will result in better audio transfer at smaller buffer sizes. Results are measured in microseconds.

Perhaps the most surprising result in all of our testing came in DPC latency, which we test at default settings out of the box. The EVGA Z590 Dark gave us our lowest latency of all the Z590 motherboards we've tested, with a latency of 47.4 microseconds which is incredible.

CPU Performance, Short Form

For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We put the memory settings at the CPU manufacturers suggested frequency, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.

For Z590 we are running using Windows 10 64-bit with the 20H2 update.

Rendering - Blender 2.79b: 3D Creation Suite

A high profile rendering tool, Blender is open-source allowing for massive amounts of configurability, and is used by a number of high-profile animation studios worldwide. The organization recently released a Blender benchmark package, a couple of weeks after we had narrowed our Blender test for our new suite, however their test can take over an hour. For our results, we run one of the sub-tests in that suite through the command line - a standard ‘bmw27’ scene in CPU only mode, and measure the time to complete the render.

Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7.1: Ray Tracing

The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 1-2 minutes on high-end platforms.

Rendering - Crysis CPU Render

One of the most oft used memes in computer gaming is ‘Can It Run Crysis?’. The original 2007 game, built in the Crytek engine by Crytek, was heralded as a computationally complex title for the hardware at the time and several years after, suggesting that a user needed graphics hardware from the future in order to run it. Fast forward over a decade, and the game runs fairly easily on modern GPUs, but we can also apply the same concept to pure CPU rendering – can the CPU render Crysis? Since 64 core processors entered the market, one can dream. We built a benchmark to see whether the hardware can.

For this test, we’re running Crysis’ own GPU benchmark, but in CPU render mode. This is a 2000 frame test, which we run over a series of resolutions from 800x600 up to 1920x1080. For simplicity, we provide the 1080p test here.​

Rendering - Cinebench R23: link

Maxon's real-world and cross-platform Cinebench test suite has been a staple in benchmarking and rendering performance for many years. Its latest installment is the R23 version, which is based on its latest 23 code which uses updated compilers. It acts as a real-world system benchmark that incorporates common tasks and rendering workloads as opposed to less diverse benchmarks which only take measurements based on certain CPU functions. Cinebench R23 can also measure both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.

Compression – WinRAR 5.90: link

Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.

3DPMv2.1 – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link

3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.

NAMD 2.13 (ApoA1): Molecular Dynamics

One frequent request over the years has been for some form of molecular dynamics simulation. Molecular dynamics forms the basis of a lot of computational biology and chemistry when modeling specific molecules, enabling researchers to find low energy configurations or potential active binding sites, especially when looking at larger proteins. We’re using the NAMD software here, or Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics, often cited for its parallel efficiency. Unfortunately the version we’re using is limited to 64 threads on Windows, but we can still use it to analyze our processors. We’re simulating the ApoA1 protein for 10 minutes, and reporting back the ‘nanoseconds per day’ that our processor can simulate. Molecular dynamics is so complex that yes, you can spend a day simply calculating a nanosecond of molecular movement.

Gaming Performance

For Z590 we are running using Windows 10 64-bit with the 20H2 update.

Civilization 6

Originally penned by Sid Meier and his team, the Civilization series of turn-based strategy games are a cult classic, and many an excuse for an all-nighter trying to get Gandhi to declare war on you due to an integer underflow. Truth be told I never actually played the first version, but I have played every edition from the second to the sixth, including the fourth as voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy, and it is a game that is easy to pick up, but hard to master.

Benchmarking Civilization has always been somewhat of an oxymoron – for a turn based strategy game, the frame rate is not necessarily the important thing here and even in the right mood, something as low as 5 frames per second can be enough. With Civilization 6 however, Firaxis went hardcore on visual fidelity, trying to pull you into the game. As a result, Civilization can taxing on graphics and CPUs as we crank up the details, especially in DirectX 12.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)

The latest installment of the Tomb Raider franchise does less rising and lurks more in the shadows with Shadow of the Tomb Raider. As expected this action-adventure follows Lara Croft which is the main protagonist of the franchise as she muscles through the Mesoamerican and South American regions looking to stop a Mayan apocalyptic she herself unleashed. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the direct sequel to the previous Rise of the Tomb Raider and was developed by Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics and was published by Square Enix which hit shelves across multiple platforms in September 2018. This title effectively closes the Lara Croft Origins story and has received critical acclaims upon its release.

The integrated Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark is similar to that of the previous game Rise of the Tomb Raider, which we have used in our previous benchmarking suite. The newer Shadow of the Tomb Raider uses DirectX 11 and 12, with this particular title being touted as having one of the best implementations of DirectX 12 of any game released so far.

Strange Brigade (DX12)

Strange Brigade is based in 1903’s Egypt and follows a story which is very similar to that of the Mummy film franchise. This particular third-person shooter is developed by Rebellion Developments which is more widely known for games such as the Sniper Elite and Alien vs Predator series. The game follows the hunt for Seteki the Witch Queen who has arisen once again and the only ‘troop’ who can ultimately stop her. Gameplay is cooperative-centric with a wide variety of different levels and many puzzles which need solving by the British colonial Secret Service agents sent to put an end to her reign of barbaric and brutality.

The game supports both the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs and houses its own built-in benchmark which offers various options up for customization including textures, anti-aliasing, reflections, draw distance and even allows users to enable or disable motion blur, ambient occlusion and tessellation among others. AMD has boasted previously that Strange Brigade is part of its Vulkan API implementation offering scalability for AMD multi-graphics card configurations. For our testing, we use the DirectX 12 benchmark.

Overclocking

The skill of overclocking is one that can take thousands of hours to get to grip with the hardware, software, and then a new processor generation comes along which requires half of it to be learned again! Getting the right combination of settings to deliver an optimized yet stable enough system to deliver the performance can be time-consuming and tedious. Despite the excellent work from both Intel and AMD over the last couple of years with its interpretations of 'turbo' and 'boost,' this doesn't typically affect all of the cores equally, and instead focuses on one or two for that immediate single thread push. On an eight-core processor such as the Intel Core i9-11900K, providing whatever software of application is being used can utilize the cores and threads, typically more performance can be had from pushing all of the cores higher. At present, Intel employs some of the most aggressive methods of automatic overclocking with its Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB), and more recently with Rocket Lake, its new Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT) on its 11th Gen Core i9 K and KF processors.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage when it comes to overclocking the processor has to deal with the extra thermal and power implications. As Intel pushes its silicon almost to its limit right out of the factory, adequate cooling is needed. Due to previous experiences when overclocking our i9-11900K in previous Z590 reviews, we've seen power consumption figures surpassing 350 W when overclocking, which is a phenomenal amount of wattage for an eight-core chip. Even at default settings, new processors from both Intel and AMD typically run warmer than previous generations. Hence, we recommend using premium cooling solutions such as AIO CPU coolers or even large tower coolers to help manage the extra heat generated. But even with that said, in a good amount of our 11th Gen CPU overclock testing, it hasn't been worth the effort. The EVGA Z590 Dark, however, is geared for overclocking so we should see typically better performance than 'standard' Z590 models.

Experience with the EVGA Z590 Dark

As the EVGA Z590 Dark is one of around five overclocking-focused motherboards on the market, a lot of the firmware is dedicated to overclocking both Intel's 11th generation processors and the attached memory. All of the board's overclocking settings can be found within the OC section. This can be accessed by selecting the Enter Setup option from the initial splash screen.

Looking at the settings available within the OC section, users can overclock both the processor and Intel's UHD integrated graphics. Users can simply overclock the processor by adjusting the CPU Multiplier on an all-core or per-core basis and changing the CPU VCore. Much of the bread and butter with the Z590 Dark is the option for extreme overclockers, which includes an LN2 mode that unlocks the CPU VCore beyond what's available in 'normal' mode, and should only be done by experienced users. There's plenty of voltage options available and users can adjust all of Intel's TVB and ABT settings for more aggressive or conservative power control.

EVGA also includes extensive memory overclocking options. This includes the ability to enable XMP 2.0 memory profiles on compatible kits, as well as customize frequency, change Intel's Geared memory mode from 1:1 to 1:20, as well as loads of latency configuration options. EVGA has included a range of memory overclocking profiles for users with high binned memory, with profiles available from both KINGPIN and Luumi, who are two of the most renowned extreme overclockers in the world.

Included as part of the firmware is the EVGA OC Robot, which is a handy tool for letting the boards overclock the processor for users. What makes this unique is that the EVGA OC Robot includes a built-in stress tester which tests each frequency and voltage variation from a lookup table. Once it has gone through the motions, it outputs an all-core CPU overclock including both what it thinks is a stable frequency and CPU VCore. Users can go to retest the settings or apply them by clicking the apply button.

Overclocking Methodology

Our overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with POV-Ray and Prime95 to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.

For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from the previous testing, start off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed. The process is repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (105ºC+). Our testbed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.

Overclocking Results

Overclocking our Core i9-11900K provided some interesting results on the EVGA Z590 Dark motherboard. Included with the Z590 Dark are the EVGA Gamer Mode and EVGA's OC Robot which is an automatic overclocking utility. We tested both and found that the Gamer Mode provided no real benefit over the board's default settings, giving us little more than a higher power draw during POV-Ray. The EVGA OC Robot came up with an all-core CPU Frequency of 5.4 GHz with a whopping 1.541 V on the CPU VCore. These settings did run, but with massive thermal throttling, and it came close to pulling 500 W of power, which is an insane power draw for an 8-core processor.

Testing overclocks manually from 4.7 GHz and beyond, we managed to achieve an all-core stable overclock of 5.2 GHz at 1.42 V on the CPU VCore. This was a little disappointing as we have been able to achieve 5.3 GHz all-core on this processor on other overclocking-focused models we've tested, so we know it can do better. We did notice very large levels of VDroop in our testing at both 5.1 and 5.2 GHz. From 4.7 GHz to 5.0 GHz, VDroop was relatively tight, however.

Overall we would have expected to achieve at least 5.3 GHz all-cores on the EVGA Z590 Dark, but it seems the real bread and butter of this board's performance will likely be unleashed with more extreme cooling methods.

Power Delivery Thermal Analysis

One of the most requested elements of our motherboard reviews revolves around the power delivery and its componentry. Aside from the quality of the components and its capability for overclocking to push out higher clock speeds which in turn improves performance, is the thermal capability of the cooling solutions implemented by manufacturers. While almost always fine for users running processors at default settings, the cooling capability of the VRMs isn't something that users should worry too much about, but for those looking to squeeze out extra performance from the CPU via overclocking, this puts extra pressure on the power delivery and in turn, generates extra heat. This is why more premium models often include heatsinks on its models with better cooling designs, heftier chunks of metal, and in some cases, even with water blocks.

The 21-phase power delivery on the EVGA Z590 Dark (operating in 8+1+1 with doublers for the CPU VCore)

Testing Methodology

Our method of testing is if the power delivery and its heatsink are effective at dissipating heat. We do this by running an intensely heavy CPU workload for a prolonged method of time. We apply an overclock, which is deemed safe and at the maximum that the silicon on our testbed processor allows. We then run the Prime95 with AVX2 enabled under a torture test for an hour at the maximum stable overclock we can, which puts insane pressure on the processor. We collect our data via three different methods which include the following:

• Taking a thermal image from a birds-eye view after an hour with a Flir Pro thermal imaging camera
• Securing two probes on to the rear of the PCB, right underneath CPU VCore section of the power delivery for better parity in case a probe reports a faulty reading
• Taking a reading of the VRM temperature from the sensor reading within the HWInfo monitoring application

The reason for using three different methods is that some sensors can read inaccurate temperatures, which can give very erratic results for users looking to gauge whether an overclock is too much pressure for the power delivery handle. With using a probe on the rear, it can also show the efficiency of the power stages and heatsinks as a wide margin between the probe and sensor temperature can show that the heatsink is dissipating heat and that the design is working, or that the internal sensor is massively wrong. To ensure our probe was accurate before testing, I binned 10 and selected the most accurate (within 1c of the actual temperature) for better parity in our testing.

To recreate a real-world testing scenario, the system is built into a conventional desktop chassis which is widely available. This is to show and alleviate issues when testing on open testbeds, which we have done previously, which allows natural airflow to flow over the power delivery heatsinks. It provides a better comparison for the end-user and allows us to mitigate issues where heatsinks have been designed with airflow in mind and those that have not. The idea of a heatsink is to allow effective dissipation of heat and not act as an insulator, with much more focus from consumers over the last couple of years on power delivery componentry and performance than in previous years.

For thermal imaging, we use a Flir One camera to indicate where the heat is generated around the socket area, as some designs use different configurations, and an evenly spread power delivery with good components will usually generate less heat. Manufacturers who use inefficient heatsinks and cheap out on power delivery components should run hotter than those who have invested. Of course, a $700 flagship motherboard is likely to outperform a cheaper $100 model under the same testing conditions, but it is still worth testing to see which vendors are doing things correctly. 

Thermal Analysis Results

We measured 65.1ºC on the hottest part of the CPU socket during our testing

The EVGA Z590 Dark is using a large 21-phase power delivery system, which is actually operating in an 8+1+1 configuration. The CPU VCore section consists of sixteen Renesas ISL99390 90 A smart power stages operating in an 8-phase layout with eight Renesas ISL6617 doublers, while the SoC section is using one Renesas ISL99360 60 A power stage. Keeping the power delivery cool is a large pair of heatsinks that are interconnected by a single heat pipe which also connects it to the chipset heatsink. To further aid in heat dissipation, EVGA includes two 40 mm cooling fans that vent hot air out via ventilation holes in the pre-attached rear I/O shield.

Focusing on the thermal performance of the EVGA Z590 Dark's power delivery, it put in a solid performance despite not operating as cool as some other Z590 models we have tested. It trades blows with the equally adept GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Tachyon, but the EVGA board does have the added advantage of an actively cooled VRM design. We observed temperatures of 71°C from the integrated thermal VRM sensor, with temperatures of 74°C and 72°C respectively from our pair of K-type thermocouples. 

Overall the EVGA Z590 Dark does perform well, but we would have expected better given the pair of cooling fans and the large heatsink design, as well as the large design of the power delivery.

Conclusion

We recently reviewed EVGA's first AMD Ryzen motherboard, the X570 Dark, and we were highly impressed with the performance levels on offer. Now it's our time to see how EVGA does in more familiar territory – Intel motherboards – and give our thoughts on the Z590 Dark. Ultiamtely we're looking at an enthusiast-grade motherboard designed for pushing CPUs beyond their limits on extreme cooling methods, and not many motherboards are capable of that.

Many of the EVGA Z590 Dark's features are aimed at overclocking, including an overclocker's toolkit with plenty of features to talk about. Particular highlights include a three-way BIOS selector switch – yes, this board has three BIOS ROM chips if a user manages to corrupt two of them. As well, it offers a slow mode dip switch, PCIe on or off dip switches, and a pair of EVGA Probelt voltage monitoring headers. Even the transposed LGA1200 CPU socket is mounted this way to aid overclocking, as this allows extreme overclocks better access to mount CPU pots.

Above the socket is a pair of horizontally mounted memory slots supporting DDR4-5333, with a maximum combined capacity of 64 GB. EVGA also includes an LN2 mode within the firmware that helps alleviate cold boot bugs when using sub-ambient cooling methods. This also allows for more CPU VCore to be put through; this isn't meant for everyday users, and only experienced users should play about with these settings.

Despite being an overclocking-focused motherboard, the Z590 Dark has plenty for regular users, as well. This includes three M.2 slots, a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 3.0 x4, and one PCIe 3.0 x4 with support for SATA drives. Unfortunately, the third M.2 slot does share bandwidth with the half-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, but EVGA includes two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at x16 and x8/x8 to satisfy users. Other storage options include a PCIe 3.0 x4 U.2 slot, which is rare in and of itself, and a total of eight SATA ports, six of which support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays.

For connectivity, EVGA uses dual Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers and an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 CNVi, which provides plenty of options. We're a tad disappointed EVGA didn't include Wi-Fi 6E for the price, and we're not sure why it didn't. However, it does have one of Z590's natively supported USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C ports, along with four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A and two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports on the rear panel. Audio is also decent, with a Realtek ALC1220 HD spearheading things and EVGA's NU Audio SV3H615 amplifiers help bolster things. 

Focusing on performance, and the EVGA Z590 Dark did very well in our system tests, with a spectacular showing in our DPC latency and non-UEFI POST time testing. In our computational and game tests, the EVGA performed competitively with other Z590 models we've tested.

With overclocking being one of the touted strong points of the EVGA Z590 Dark, we did manage to achieve 5.4 GHz all-core at 1.541 V on the CPU VCore with the help of the EVGA OC Robot. As expected, due to the enormous amount of CPU Vcore voltage applied, we instantly encountered thermal throttling, even with a minus-three offset set for AVX workloads. In our manual testing from 4.7 GHz to 5.0 GHz, VDroop control was tight, but beyond this, that's when things got a little awry, with much more CPU Vcore applied at full-load than we set within the firmware. Performance in our VRM thermal testing was also respectable, but we would have liked to see better performance given the board's actively cooled power delivery.

Final Thoughts: Dark By Design

We've now reviewed three of the big four overclocking motherboards designed for Rocket Lake, including the GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Tachyon, the ASRock Z590 OC Formula, and now the EVGA Z590 Dark. And so far, the consensus is this: all of them will give solid performance when paired with an Intel Core i9-11900K.

Meanwhile, as this is our last Z590 motherboard review, it's nice to end things with one of the more interesting ones. It's no secret that EVGA and Vince 'KINGPIN' Lucido are stalwarts within the industry, and they certainly know how to deliver an overclocking motherboard with lots of functionality. The EVGA Z590 Dark is no exception to this. It uses its large 21-phase power delivery to good effect, but in reality, it's it's a 17 to an 18-phase design by most standards; EVGA has added all of its elements, including VCSSA, VCCIO, VCCIO2, and VDDR phases, to provide a bigger number for marketing purposes. There's of course nothing wrong with this in practice, but it is operating at 8+1+1 with doublers, and it has to be stated constructively. 

The EVGA Z590 Dark has an MSRP of $600, and EVGA is currently selling it at just that price on their website. For perspective, the GIGABYTE Z590 Aorus Tachyon runs for $530, and the ASRock Z590 OC Formula is $550; so the Dark ends up being the most expensive of the trio.

Ultimately, for users looking for a solid motherboard for a simple system, a cheaper high-end Z590 motherboard will offer much more in terms of both features and controller sets for the price. Still, when it comes to extreme overclocking, a regular board won't be anywhere near as good as the EVGA Z590 Dark, and that's a role that EVGA's board is serving well.