I am here once again looking for some guidance. I am having some trouble on deciding which motherboard to buy and which features I need.
I would like to buy an micro-ATX board because I like the compact size, my previous build is the same, and it allows me to keep repurposing builds when I get new hardware. For example, my current build will go into my living room, and I prefer to keep a small footprint for wife approval. I could go ITX as well, but this limits me if I repurpose something for my homelab.
The problem is now knowing what features I need for my 15-13600k. I know I need flashback with a 600 series board. What I don’t know is what kind of VRM config I should be looking for and if PCIe 5 will be worth it. I know PCIe 5 isn’t a focus point now, but if I keep this build for as long as I do my others (5+ years) maybe I could leverage it later?
If PCIe 5 isn’t a factor to even care about, I am looking at the following boards (under 200 EUR):
GIGABYTE B660M Gaming X DDR4 (145 EUR)
ASRock Z790M PG Lightning D4 (200 EUR)
ASRock H670M-ITX/ax (195 EUR)
If PCIe 5 might be worthwhile a few years from now, then it looks like I need to go ATX. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone with another CPU to borrow to upgrade the BIOS.
Unless your workflow depends on high transfer speeds between CPU and RAM, stick to DDR4 for now. DDR5 is ridiculously expensive and so are the mainboards it goes on. And there’s much more choice for SFF boards with DDR4 over DDR5, as you’ve already found out.
Should you determine DDR5 is a must-have for your next build, consider the AMD 7000 series CPU. Much more efficient then Intel, still not cheap and in contrast to previous Ryzen releases, Zen4 comes with iGPU included. Which may or may not be beneficial if you decide to run a 7000 series AMD Radeon GPU as well
I have to eat right now but i will come back at this topic later on.
However in regards to the vrm implementations on most Z790 boards,
or Z690 boards should basically be sufficient for the 13600K.
But i could take a look at a few models if you can give me a price indication,
on what you are looking for.
In regards to ddr4 vs ddr5, this kinda depends on the specific workloads you are doing.
DDR5 generally has some performance benefits over DDR4 on the new intel cpu´s.
But this just highly depends on the said applications you are running and or games etc.
So going with DDR4 on intel you will loose a little bit of performance.
However you can get cheaper ram kits and motherboards eventually.
So that is really a matter of personal preference and of course budget.
In regards to intel vs AMD the 13600K vs the 7600X specifically,
well that is a no brainer in my opinion the 13600K is really the better cpu,
in every way except for power consumption.
pcie-5 will not really have that much of a benefit right now.
