Help choosing Intel mother board.

[rwgast]

Hello, I am in the middle of building a new PC in a new ASUS prime AP201 case (ITX/mATX only), and I am having a hard time choosing a motherboard. I was hoping I could get some opinions on the two I have narrowed it down too. I'm planning on going 13th gen Intel with DDR5 6000 cl30 ram, and am looking at mATX not ITX form factor, so my choices are not abundant. The two boards i have been looking at is an Asus Prime z790 or a MSI Mag b760 Mortar.

 

I really like the Asus board better because it is a z790 so I can OC, and it has one more m.2 than the MSI. The thing is there aren't any reviews and I cant find much information on it, there is an Asus Prime z790M-plus d4 which looks like the same board except it uses ddr4. I just think its crazy that these ASUS Prime boards are z790 chipset and only cost $200usd especially the ddr5 version. As a matter of fact the ASUS Prime is the only mATX z790 with ddr5 support I could even find.

 

[FI Fheonix]

9 minutes ago, rwgast said:

Hello, I am in the middle of building a new PC in a new ASUS prime AP201 case (ITX/mATX only), and I am having a hard time choosing a motherboard. I was hoping I could get some opinions on the two I have narrowed it down too. I'm planning on going 13th gen Intel with DDR5 6000 cl30 ram, and am looking at mATX not ITX form factor, so my choices are not abundant. The two boards i have been looking at is an Asus Prime z790 or a MSI Mag b760 Mortar.

 

I really like the Asus board better because it is a z790 so I can OC, and it has one more m.2 than the MSI. The thing is there aren't any reviews and I cant find much information on it, there is an Asus Prime z790M-plus d4 which looks like the same board except it uses ddr4. I just think its crazy that these ASUS Prime boards are z790 chipset and only cost $200usd especially the ddr5 version. As a matter of fact the ASUS Prime is the only mATX z790 with ddr5 support I could even find.

 

Is there any reason that you like the Asus board more than the MSI one? You can overclock on both and are you even planning on using that second m.2 slot?

[rwgast]

Can I overclock on both? I thought that the mortar max was the only b760 board that could OC. The MSI page says it has Core Boost.. idk what that means, is it fully overcloackable like a z790? I plan on buying an MSI rtx4080, so i would rather buy the MSI mobo becuase im ocd and only want one companies software.

[mariushm]

Also look at z690 motherboards ... z790 vs z690 is just a matter of how many pci-e lanes created by chipset are pci-e 4.0 and how many are 3.0 - there's still 28 pci-e lanes in total created by chipset.

With DDR5, and mATX, here's some options :

 

ASRock Z690M PG Riptide/D5 : https://pg.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z690M PG RiptideD5/index.asp

(kinda on the budget side, riptide series is sort of cheap on vrm power stages/mosfets and heatsinks, old ALC897 audio, minimal io shield)

 

ASUS ROG STRIX Z690-G GAMING WIFI:  https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z690-g-gaming-wifi-model/

This one looks good feature wise.

[brob]

If you want to OC get an unlocked (K) CPU and Z790 or Z690 motherboard. Otherwise get a locked CPU (non-K) CPU and B760, B660, H670, or H770 motherboard.