MSI MPG Z790 EDGE WIFI DDR4 Or ASRock PHANTOM GAMING Z790 Nova WiFi

[LFaWolf]

Hey everyone,

I have been out of touch with what is up to date with Intel's latest. My current build of x299 i9-10940x and MSI XPower x299 was built in 2019, but recently I got memory BSOD until I set the memory to JDEC Spec of 2133MHz. Honestly. I don't see much performance penalty with that, but in a hurry I went ahead and bought the MSI board when it was on sale ($250) because I need to have at least 5x NVMe slots. The purpose of this machine is 95% for work, and 5% for gaming. I was planning to re-use my current DDR4 because I read TPU's comparison of DDR4 and DDR5, and I "think" my set of DDR4 is about the same speed of 5600MHz of DDR5. I was planning to skip the entire DDR5 to go with DDR6, as you can see I don't upgrade very often, 5-6 years or so.

Now, I am having second thoughts because the ASRock Board seems to be a good one and good value, and it has a reinforced backplate compared to my MSI board. My cooler is the heavy Noctua NH-D15. I can probably keep the MSI DDR4 board as backup...

So my questions are -
1. Would I see much more performance if I go with 2x32GB of 6800MHz DDR5 compared to my current DDR4? That is as fast as I can find 2x32GB from Newegg. I compile a lot of code and the current machine can compile code in about 2 minutes. A full build with test cases take about 10 minutes. I hit 40+ GB of memory usage daily, so 2x48GB would not work for me.
2. Is it better for the board to have the reinforced backplate given I am going with Noctua NH-D15 cooler? Would the heavy cooler bend the MSI Board? My current MSI x299 Board does have the reinforced backplate.
3. Is spending $600 more to get the ASRock Board and DDR5 memory "worth" it? There is a slight $30 or so discount buying the combo from Newegg. I know whether it is worth it or not is subjective, but what would you do if you are in my shoe?

MSI Board -
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z790-EDGE-WIFI-DDR4

ASRock Board -
https://pg.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z790 Nova WiFi/index.asp

My current DDR4 memory -
https://www.gskill.com/specification/165/184/1562832133/F4-3600C16Q-64GVKC-Specification

I am keeping my Strix 3090 GPU and EVGA PSU. Not looking at AMD's solution as I had major problems with AM5. I plan to get the 14900K.

 

[ir_cow]

DDR4-4000 (Gear 1) will out perform most DDR5 below 7600 in games. There are benefits to DDR5 like much larger sizes and lower voltages, but if you are just going to enable XMP and not mess with the BIOS settings, the best DDR4, might not actually configure itself for that.

Lots of configuration choices. However, since you use 40+ GB daily, I would pick DDR5 and stick with DDR5-6000. This is because DDR5-6800 dual-rank is pretty much the max 13/14th Gen IMC can handle.

Check out this review. Neo Forza MK5 DDR5-6000 96 GB CL40. 96GB is nice

EDIT: Any DDR5-6000 96GB will do. That is the only one I reviewed so far, but pick the brand you like or is in your budget.

3. Is spending $600 more to get the ASRock Board and DDR5 memory "worth" it? There is a slight $30 or so discount buying the combo from Newegg. I know whether it is worth it or not is subjective, but what would you do if you are in my shoe?

No, buy a Gigabyte Z790 Elite AX X and call it a day. $250 and its danm good MB for that price.

 

[LFaWolf]

DDR4-4000 (Gear 1) will out perform most DDR5 below 7600 in games. There are benefits to DDR5 like much larger sizes and lower voltages, but if you are just going to enable XMP and not mess with the BIOS settings, the best DDR4, might not actually configure itself for that.

Lots of configuration choices. However, since you use 40+ GB daily, I would pick DDR5 and stick with DDR5-6000. This is because DDR5-6800 dual-rank is pretty much the max 13/14th Gen IMC can handle.

Check out this review. Neo Forza MK5 DDR5-6000 96 GB CL40. 96GB is nice

EDIT: Any DDR5-6000 96GB will do. That is the only one I reviewed so far, but pick the brand you like or is in your budget.


No, buy a Gigabyte Z790 Elite AX X and call it a day. $250 and its danm good MB for that price.

Ah, I forgot TPU also reviews memory kits. As for the Z790 Elite AX, I need 5 NVMe slots as I have segmented all my work and games (1) into their own drive, and I just want to have an in place upgrade. I have too many programs installed and it would be a nightmare to have to reinstall everything again.

 

[ir_cow]

I get not wanting to reinstall stuff. Not many MBs have 5 slots and most of them you lose USB ports , Thunderbolt and or PCIe slots. Have you considered a add-on card?

Intel doesn't support 4+4+4+4, but it does 4+4 so you can do 2x nvme at least.

Either you can buy a card or get a MB that includes this.

Here is the block Diagram for the NOVA. Looks pretty decent. You get six M.2 slots, but be aware one shares the x16 slot and it seems the SATA and USB ports will be impacted as well. Not much you can do about this because of the limited CPU lanes. This is where HEDT has desktop CPUs beat. Also AMD as well.

 

[LFaWolf]

Yes, my current x299 board has 3 NVMe slots and I am using an expansion card (x8) that houses 2 additional NVMe drives and it works very well for me. Both the Edge and Nova have at least 5 NVMe drives.

I cannot find any Z790 board that supports x8 x8 (with 4 slots in between) x1 (I have a x1 Creative Lab ZX-R sound card). I need 4 slots because I think the next RTX 5090 will need 4 slots as well, just like most 4090. Hence I am not thinking of using an PCIe expansion card again. Do you know of any board with 4 slots spacing?

I tried to set up an AMD 7950x for an employee and it was a nightmare. Long boot time and after everything was set up, I was getting BSOD at least once a day. Granted, it was very early on and some BIOS updates probably fixed it later on, but I don't want to deal with that again. But curious, any AM5 board that you know of that fits the bill?

 

[kapone32]

Yes, my current x299 board has 3 NVMe slots and I am using an expansion card (x8) that houses 2 additional NVMe drives and it works very well for me. Both the Edge and Nova have at least 5 NVMe drives.

I cannot find any Z790 board that supports x8 x8 (with 4 slots in between) x1 (I have a x1 Creative Lab ZX-R sound card). I need 4 slots because I think the next RTX 5090 will need 4 slots as well, just like most 4090. Hence I am not thinking of using an PCIe expansion card again. Do you know of any board with 4 slots spacing?

I tried to set up an AMD 7950x for an employee and it was a nightmare. Long boot time and after everything was set up, I was getting BSOD at least once a day. Granted, it was very early on and some BIOS updates probably fixed it later on, but I don't want to deal with that again. But curious, any AM5 board that you know of that fits the bill?

Asus X670E E Strix Gaming
MSI X670E Carbon Wifi
Asus X670E Crosshair
MSI X670E Ace Max
Asus X670E Pro Art

 

[LFaWolf]

Asus X670E E Strix Gaming
MSI X670E Carbon Wifi
Asus X670E Crosshair
MSI X670E Ace Max
Asus X670E Pro Art

I will check them out, thanks.

 

[ir_cow]

I tried to set up an AMD 7950x for an employee and it was a nightmare. Long boot time and after everything was set up, I was getting BSOD at least once a day. Granted, it was very early on and some BIOS updates probably fixed it later on, but I don't want to deal with that again. But curious, any AM5 board that you know of that fits the bill?

Lots of AMD choices, but it will have to be X670E because of the extra PCIe Lanes. Boot times are kinda still long if you have dual-rank memory (which you will for 64 / 96 GB). 2-3 minutes isn't the end of the world.