Motherboard and ram advice?
Motherboard and ram advice?
Hello! Regarding the motherboard, the Asus Prime Z790-P with 14-1 50A VRM is suitable for an i7-13700K. I’m not focused on overclocking, so I’ll probably try undervolting instead. For RAM, comparing a 6000 CL30 to a 5600 CL40 would likely offer only minor gains unless you need much more memory. The extra cost might not be justified unless speed is critical.
Undervolting offers limited gains with a 13700K compared to a 13700. Choose wisely—opt for the more affordable option if possible.
In my country I can get two 32GB 5600CL40 units for around 410$, while the 6000 variant is two 32GB 6000CL32 models for about 800$ or more. Alternatively, ordering a kit from Germany would cost roughly 600$. If I try to convert the 5600 kit to a 6000 model, that seems like my best option.
Didn't realize you needed 64GB of RAM, yeah stick with the 5600MT/s kit then since the 2x32GB 6000MT/s kits are crazy expensive basically everywhere. Every 5600 kit made today should be able to do 6200MT/s without too much fuss, just loosening out the timings a little and upping the voltage, so if you're willing to run a memory stress test that's a good option. Nope, that's the only thing that might happen. It genuinely doesn't matter. Wouldn't really recommend a Gigabyte Z690 DDR5 board though, those boards have a super weak memory topology that really struggles with relatively pedestrian memory speeds (6000MT/s is hit or miss, and it's not unheard of for 5600MT/s kits to have issues POSTing, though that's been mostly ironed out at this point). Everything else about that board is fine, it's just that the RAM setup is sketchy (especially if you want to go up to 128GB in the future, that board struggles hard with 4 DIMMs) and there are other boards for similar prices that don't have those issues.
I'm comfortable with the prime z790-p ddr5. The setup seems to be set up well. I used a Case Phanteks p500a for better CPU cooler clearance, which helped reduce the GPU power cable bend. My PSU is an FSP 1200w platinum ATX with 3.0 MB memory and a 3.5mm ATX connection. For storage, I have two Kingston kc3000 2TB drives and a Kingston fury 5600MHz 32GB RAM stick. I haven't chosen the TUF 4090 yet but plan to try it out.
Regarding CPU mounting frames, thermal right or Thermal Grizzly are both worth considering. Some users report good results with them, while others mention only minor temperature drops. For air cooling, it's definitely an option—especially since this will be my first watercooled PC. It’s a bit nerve-wracking, but failures are rare these days.
Adding two 2x16GB 6000 series 3200MHz RAM kits might work, but XMP profiles require specific configurations. For Raptor Lake, you’ll likely need to use the default profiles or disable XMP entirely. Four sticks won’t be sufficient for that setup.
It's a strong board. It performs well. The Thermalright model is around $10 and offers noticeable performance gains. I've used one on my 13700K and it helped lower temperatures significantly (though I didn't run A/B tests for precise numbers). You should be able to cool it effectively, even under heavy workloads, as water cooling typically reaches the mid-80s. An air-cooler would likely keep things below 100°C during peak use. The chances of issues with an AIO are low, so you don't need to worry much about that.