It doesn’t seem it’s as simple as it was when I was looking at building gens back. I’d rather not have to spend £700 (I’m in the UK, so everything is already more expensive) to get a very good board.
It seems many mid and high end boards have pcie issues, especially with the newest m.2 memory. Not enough lanes and/or using 1 slot slows all the others, even if not using the newest memory.
A bunch of boards with bad VRM setups acting as secondary heaters that lower performance.
It seems ASUS, the old solid choice with good software is now an issue for various reasons.
Maybe ASROCK aren’t trash anymore or are pushing their boards more
It’s seems gigabyte software is still an issue as well as the boards with many complaints.
MSI highly mixed opinions
Motherboard pricing is ridiculous we know, but I was wondering if there was anything that was truly all around good without spending so much and I couldn’t find information about this.
(My personal situation is I won’t be overclocking, I just want to run a good solid PC that will last me a decent amount of time with good parts and software to go with. So things like audio matter, whereas is not often mentioned.)
Unsure if there are things to look out for I’m missing and even then don’t know how to know if I’m choosing wrong and which boards have which issues bar a few cases.
Been using an aorus z690 pro with my 14900k. Been really stable even using the instant 6ghz feature. Reasonable price as well for the features vs performance. However if you plan on any sort of overclocking I would rather recommend msi. From all the guides/videos I’ve gone through, theres barely any help with aorus/gigabyte. Aorus Default settings also have unlimited power/voltage and has been difficult for me to undervolt stably. Where it seems like msi just has a lite load mode with like 20 profiles for varying degrees of performance which I personally would prefer instead of manually fiddling with voltages for hours on end and still getting some random crash while opening a web browser
I got a msi z790 mag tomohawk max WiFi with my 14900k, everything solid so far. Running 48 gigs of ddr5 at 7200 stable
I’m running a Gigabyte Z790 UD AC with my 13900K, and it’s been great. I have 32GB of DDR5-6000 and it’s run great with no issues. Plus the board was fairly reasonably priced.
If you don’t care about overclocking memory, then your best bet is to get a mid to high range board in the $300-400 range. Below are what I feel are solid options:
- Asus Z790 Strix E - $439.00, high end 4-DIMM w/18+1 90A power stages - Best overall BIOS & hardware IMO
- Asus Z790 Strix F - $369.00, midrange 4-DIMM w/16+1 90A power stages. Basically same as above with a slightly nerfed VRM & w/o PCIe5.0
- GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS MASTER - $449.00, high end 4-DIMM w/20+1 105A power stages - Best hardware
- GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS PRO - $389.00, midrange 4-DIMM w/18+1 90A(?) power stages - Solid hardware and the best aesthetics.
Disclaimer I own the Asus Z790 Strix-E and it’s been great. I’ve had absolutely zero issues but if I could go back I would’ve bought the OG Z790 Apex or the Z790 Apex Encore since I’m not a huge fan of 4-DIMM motherboards.
Asus strix
I have an ASUS RPG STRIX z790-e wifi and it’s awesome. Clocks the 14900k at 6.2 for the pcores, and 4.8 for the ecores, dynamically boosts.
Has intel drivers for GNA and DTT, which allow for application optimization in the 14th gen, which gets 10-15% more performance in supported games (quite limited right now, but not on the game manufacturers to support - intel is actively adding games).
Great board, excellent support. Also supports non-standard memory configurations - I’m running 4 channel 128gb (4x32gb DDR5) and it’s 100% stable, which is hard to come by.
“…m.2 memory…” - OP
You mean m.2 storage. Yes, it’s that important to understand the differences. I think you’re looking at anecdotal evidence from complaints on the internet.
Can you imagine how many boards are created by ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI? Millions is my guess. What you don’t see are millions of complaints. Many complaints are actually the board problem and most are user problems.
If you’re that worried, wait for the 15k-series processors and board. Sometime late 2024 is the rumor. I, myself, find that Z790 based boards absolutely stunningly and feature filled.
I have msi edge wifi ddr5. I’m happy with it.
Non-main pcie slots do occupy the lanes from chipset instead of cpu. This means the ssd in the main slot should maintain its performance, and others should be slower.
Here it is
https://msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z790-EDGE-WIFI/Specification
Well I love my z790 dark hero. It’s got great features , aesthetically pleasing, and solid build quality. Not to mention asus bios is by far the best on the market as far as I’m concerned. Other choice would be a z790 apex encore.
Any Z790 is pretty good.
Leaders based on my personal experience is any Asus ROG series.
MSI Tomahawk Max the one to get. Otherwise if you dont care for warranty and or price, go for higher end models in Asus. MSI Godlike is also great obviously.
MSI boards have a certain fitness and good standard electronics due to which I prefer. But my preference can change if others make better or MSI defaults. For now in z790 boards, its the best.