Should I pick a new Z790 card with fast DDR5, or stick with an old Z690 card that uses slower DDR4?
Should I pick a new Z790 card with fast DDR5, or stick with an old Z690 card that uses slower DDR4?
I have a tough choice. I got this cheap, broken Gigabyte Z790 board with DDR5 support that doesn't work because of its BIOS. I managed to fix it on my own. Now I have two options: keep my working PC with the Z690 board and buy some new DDR5 parts, or keep my old setup with the repaired Z790 board and sell it for money. Which one should I pick? What would you recommend?
It's pretty easy to fix. The first owner said he couldn't update his BIOS and tried using Gigabyte's Q-Flash Plus feature instead. That didn't work right because the Q-Flash was just spinning endlessly, never stopping. The board wouldn't react to any buttons at all. I asked him what version of the BIOS he wanted to load when this happened. Since I bought it in that broken state, I found out later that his old BIOS was version 1.0, but my board is actually running on 1.1. So, I got a USB stick with the right version and put it into the slot while connecting power. Without touching any buttons, Q-Flash started working (the LED would flash) and kept spinning around. My first guess was to check the battery voltage, which was only 0.5V low. After replacing that battery and plugging in power again, no LEDs lit up. But when I pressed the Q-Flash button now, it went through the upgrade process smoothly and stopped on its own.
Honestly, it's not a big deal for gaming. It only matters if you actually care about having more speed to play better games at 1440p or 4k. Let's compare DDR5 and DDR4 using the Core i9-14900K by testing with fast DDR5-7200 versus slower DDR4-4000 memory, keeping in mind... www.techspot.com
I am playing games right now at 1440P resolution, but let's give that a try. I found a short-used, barely opened, and sealed 32GB Patriot Viper 7400 kit that is still under warranty for just $100. I'm buying it to upgrade my PC because it will be more ready for the future. I am an older man, so this might actually be my last computer.
You're right, just keep that in mind because having extra RAM later won't hurt you much. But some companies are slowing down making DDR4 chips lately, which means those parts might become pricier and tougher to buy soon.