Planning in purchasing the Z690 Dark Kingpin. I understand that many ‘air-coolers’ do not fit in their regular mounted position and thus require to be mounted horizontally? Naturally this going strongly against the normally recommended and favored factory install methods to achieve their stated and advertised maximum cooling results. I am sure that many AIO’s will fit, but I am vehemently opposed in using liquid cooling solutions. With that I was hoping that my new (15-Noctua fan) Corsair 1000D will help out and overcoming my particular quirks. What I am looking for are recommendations for air-coolers and especially from those readers who have already installed horizontally mounted air-coolers in their EVGA MB products! Thoughts?

First off thank you for your kind reply and the included link-information. Yes of course you are correct on all counts. I have not yet pushed the button on the ‘Dark Kingpin’ and are still dancing around with the Z690 ASUS Extreme or the AORUS Xtreme. Or the often drummed-up  fact to better wait as a new tech-generation is basically 5-months away? I am still a relative novice in all of this, but being retired, curious and with lots of time on my hand, I am willing to learn and experiment based on the fact what these MB’s inherently have to offer and to challenge me with. I will most likely be keeping my new PC build for 8-plus years or more as I am still carefully and appreciably nurturing along a pre-build XPS 730x (Windows 7 Ultimate) which I purchased in 2008 for a cool $6,000! Times have changed since then and I am definitely now ready for a premium upgrade to put it mildly. Certainly a 360 AIO option after all is possible as my on-hand Corsair 1000D is accommodating in this regard! As to the ‘Kingpin’ I would probably treat it like my 2013 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster which has never in all of these years seen 85-mph with 8,400 original miles and no rain ever. But what can one expect from an old retired man with no agenda and no restraints?

justin_43
 
No problem! I'm glad you are considering other boards as well. Especially the ASUS Z690 Extreme. That's the board I would go with personally if I was in your situation. I have had a bunch of past ASUS extreme boards (although not z690) and they have always been really great rock solid boards with all the features you could ever want. Not to mention ASUS has the best BIOSes (in my option anyway).

I ended up with a Classified after having a Z690 Maximus and then a Z690 Extreme.  Memory stability on the Asus boards is not a thing, despite what their QVL might say.  If you take a look as Asus' forums or Overclockers.net, you'll find no shortage of folks reporting issues. 
 
I've been using Asus boards for the last several years (last 3 boards prior to 12th gen were all Maximus Heroes), so I was pretty disappointed by my experience.  BUT it gave me an excuse to come back and buy an EVGA board, since I hadn't had one since my 790i Ultra SLI back in 2009.
 

wheise 
Hey Tom, what did you end up doing?

 
Greetings from Stehekin, WA and thanks for checking-in! The snow is still falling at the cabin in the sky and all is very quite here. Air-Cooling for my first EVGA MB go-around? “I plainly surrendered to the words of the many and installed a rather much to expensive 360 AIO.” FYI: I actually just upgraded to a Z790 KP as I sold my virtually new Z690 KP system to a friend in Point Roberts, WA. Just barely breaking even if any! My initial forum post on the ‘air-cooling’ question was related to the fact that I would not be planning in any event to overclock my KP MB and only purchasing such for its weight, looks, high quality, strong specifications and with probably more QC care taken in the limited EVGA production runs versus ASUS pumping out their MBs by the hundreds of thousands. Currently I am still working on the Z790 KP install and as usual prepping all of my new MBs outside the enclosure first including loading the OS as well. This said I have temporarily been (normally) running the Z790 KP with an old Scythe Mugen 5 air-cooler, as I as of yet have not ordered my new primary cooling hardware. My temps (without overclocking) have been running a quick and steady-state 95-100 degrees celsius. My thoughts today: "I am poised to purchase a Lian Li Galahad 360 (UNI fans) and with expected medium work loads: 40-60°C and gaming full specs up to 80°C." Besides with my money already invested in the MB, GPU and PSU alone why take a chance with being on the air?
 

Hello from Petoskey, Michigan and thanks for the update. I too am looking at the EVGA z790s not for overclocking but for the quality. And I am too coming to the conclusion that I will not be able to air cool it or keep it in my old but beautiful Silverstone Temjin case.