Best motherboard and DDR5 2 X 16GB 7200 CL 34-36 XMP RAM kit for Core i7-13700K that will be rock solid perfectly stable at XMP with little to no work

[Wolverine2349]

I am coming back to Intel after bad experience with AMD.

I am going to get a Core i7-13700K and e-cores will be disabled and will use P cores only as I wanted 8 of them. Will clock them at 5.3 to 5.4GHz static and air cool it for colder temps and much lower power draw than 13900k/KS at 5.6/5.7GHz

Now I want to go DDR5 route and I want it to work this time. I had nothing but a terrible experience with 5 different Asus Z790 boards (yes even including Apex) and 5 different DDR5 kits ranging from 6000 to 7200 in which they gave WHEA or random BSODs running OCCT Large Data Set variable test proving not stable. This was across 3 different 13900K/KS CPUs (Those were all sold and for good money)

I want to give DDR5 another go but I want 7200 to work well.

Now Asus is absolutely rule out.

affxct over at overclock.net stated intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake have signal balancing issues.

https://www.overclock.net/threads/o...and-discussion.1799628/page-880#post-29162576

They mention it is worst with Asus and best is eVGA Dark Z690/Z790 where it works with little to no work.

Is the eVGA Dark good and could you recommend a good 2 X 16GB 7200 DDR5 kit that would work well with a 13700K and eVGA Z690 Dark?

Are there any other motherboards that are good. affxct mentions that even MSI and Gigabyte have issues as well and eVGA works best. Is that true in your opinion??

And is the eVGA Z690 Dark good overall? Any thing to be concerned with about it?? Like does it have a VRM fan as I do not want one. And if it does can you disable it or unplug it or does it even run?

Can you share your thoughts.

Help greatly appreciated.

[Shimejii]

There is not a reason to honestly get a 7200 mhz kit, The gains just arent there even with a 4090 that make it worth buying. The stability of 6000-6400 with tight timings and good CAS should be vastly more important then "it goes high speed brrrr" 

 

There is always work for Ram speeds beyond 6400, its whether or not you bother to do the stability testing and such.

[Hinjima]

5 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

I am coming back to Intel after bad experience with AMD.

I am going to get a Core i7-13700K and e-cores will be disabled and will use P cores only as I wanted 8 of them. Will clock them at 5.3 to 5.4GHz static and air cool it for colder temps and much lower power draw than 13900k/KS at 5.6/5.7GHz

Now I want to go DDR5 route and I want it to work this time. I had nothing but a terrible experience with 5 different Asus Z790 boards (yes even including Apex) and 5 different DDR5 kits ranging from 6000 to 7200 in which they gave WHEA or random BSODs running OCCT Large Data Set variable test proving not stable. This was across 3 different 13900K/KS CPUs (Those were all sold and for good money)

I want to give DDR5 another go but I want 7200 to work well.

Now Asus is absolutely rule out.

affxct over at overclock.net stated intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake have signal balancing issues.

https://www.overclock.net/threads/o...and-discussion.1799628/page-880#post-29162576

They mention it is worst with Asus and best is eVGA Dark Z690/Z790 where it works with little to no work.

Is the eVGA Dark good and could you recommend a good 2 X 16GB 7200 DDR5 kit that would work well with a 13700K and eVGA Z690 Dark?

Are there any other motherboards that are good. affxct mentions that even MSI and Gigabyte have issues as well and eVGA works best. Is that true in your opinion??

And is the eVGA Z690 Dark good overall? And thing to be concerned with about it?? Like does it have a VRM fan as I do not want one. And if it does can you disable it or unplug it or does it even run?

Can you share your thoughts.

Help greatly appreciated.

What do you need this fast ram speed for? 6400mhz with tight timing is more than plenty and past that point is quite the diminishing return.
Seems like you have gone through quite a lot of hassle for quite little benefit.

[RONOTHAN##]

A good chunk of 13th gen chips will need to have the PLL voltages set in order to get 7200 stable at all on any board. If you're unlucky with your CPU, 7200 will never "just work" like you want it to. 

 

The dark is a solid board, both revisions are good but the Z790 is better. 

 

34 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

They mention it is worst with Asus and best is eVGA Dark Z690/Z790 where it works with little to no work.

This sounds like an EVGA fan boy ngl. Their boards are good, and probably the cheapest to get a mostly reliable 7200 experience with a Z690 dark, but then again any 2 DIMM board will be a fairly similar experience at that clock speed. The differences between the boards don't show up until 7800+, below that they all will have about the same luck getting those frequencies stable. 

 

If you really aren't willing to put any effort into this, get a 6400 kit as that should work on everything with no effort. If you're willing to put a little bit of effort into tuning the PLLs, 7200 should be easy-ish on any 2dimm board, at which point the Z690 Dark is likely the cheapest. 

 

 

As for the memory kit, again get a 6400 CL32 kit if you want to put in no effort, and if you're willing to put in a little effort get something like this TeamGroup kit as it's guaranteed Hynix A die and will do 7200 CL34 with little effort. 

[Wolverine2349]

1 hour ago, Hinjima said:

What do you need this fast ram speed for? 6400mhz with tight timing is more than plenty and past that point is quite the diminishing return.
Seems like you have gone through quite a lot of hassle for quite little benefit.

 

 

Trying to future proof. I want this build to last as long as possible while still giving ok performance years from now, Of course the newest tech will blow it out of the water in a few years time, but sometimes the difference between higher speed and standard will be playable and not playable down the road kind of like how the Sandy Bridge overclocked CPUs still hung in there for ok experience for gaming for years to come. and how HT chips stood test of time vs the i5 non HT quad counterparts.

 

Another reason why I want DDR5 instead of true and tested DDR4.

[Wolverine2349]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

A good chunk of 13th gen chips will need to have the PLL voltages set in order to get 7200 stable at all on any board. If you're unlucky with your CPU, 7200 will never "just work" like you want it to. 

 

The dark is a solid board, both revisions are good but the Z790 is better. 

 

This sounds like an EVGA fan boy ngl. Their boards are good, and probably the cheapest to get a mostly reliable 7200 experience with a Z690 dark, but then again any 2 DIMM board will be a fairly similar experience at that clock speed. The differences between the boards don't show up until 7800+, below that they all will have about the same luck getting those frequencies stable. 

 

If you really aren't willing to put any effort into this, get a 6400 kit as that should work on everything with no effort. If you're willing to put a little bit of effort into tuning the PLLs, 7200 should be easy-ish on any 2dimm board, at which point the Z690 Dark is likely the cheapest. 

 

 

As for the memory kit, again get a 6400 CL32 kit if you want to put in no effort, and if you're willing to put in a little effort get something like this TeamGroup kit as it's guaranteed Hynix A die and will do 7200 CL34 with little effort. 

 

 

Ok that is helpful info. Sounds like eVGA Z690 Dark is cheapest cost wise to get a reliable 7200 experience? You mention any 2 DIMM board also will do well. How is the MSI Z690 Unify X? Asus Z790 Apex or Asus anything no thank you are they have been a nightmare regarding DDR5 any overclock XMP or not stability.

 

And you mention to get a 6400 kit if I want no effort and it should work on anything??? Well I had multiple 6400 and even a 6000 kit and across like 5 different boards (do not remember how many different boards they were tested on), and none were fully stable at any XMP and all were Asus boards. I had an an MSI Z690 Unify X and 6600 appeared stable with a beta BIOS at XMP, but one BIOS update and it was very bad. Even underclocking the RAM to 6000 and it still would give a WHEA or BSOD randomly in OCCT Large Data set variable. So no a 6400 kit is not rock stable on anything XMP unless things have improved by now???

 

I am willing to put in a little work to get CL 34 or CL36 7200 XMP stable, but want it to be set XMP and minor a few settings like the PLL adjustments to be stable and that is it. And fully stable, not just well it feels stable, but will BSOD in Battlefield (perhaps that is the WHEA in OCCT Large Data Set variable is forewarning the BSODs people experience in Battlefield when they claim their DDR5 is otherwise stable???)

 

So is eVGA Dark in your opinion really better than other 2 DIMM boards or just as good and least expensive option for a 2 DIMM board. Well not much less than Unify X, but much less than Asus Z790 or even Z690 Apex and Asus and DDR5 overclock from experience yikes so I am ruling them completely out.

 

If I want perfect stability with RAM is DDR5 just not there yet at XMP like DDR4 3600 CL14 XMP?? Or is it it just needs to be tuned a little then will be just as rock stable as DDR4 3600 CL14 in anything?

[RONOTHAN##]

16 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

How is the MSI Z690 Unify X?

It's the board i use, and I do like mine. Whether I'd recommend it or not is up for debate, there was a manufacturing defect in a lot of them where the A channel will not work over ~7400. Mine is not one of those, and with my CPU and memory kit 7200 works if I set the PLLs, 7600 works if I bump up VDD2, and 7800 works on the latest beta BIOS if I bump VDD2 and lower VDDQ TX. If I had a better CPU, 8000 would be possible, though right now it has retrain stability issues so while it will boot and can run stress tests indefinitely (I had it run or 14 hours once), it doesn't reliably work. 

 

27 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

I had an an MSI Z690 Unify X and 6600 appeared stable with a beta BIOS at XMP, but one BIOS update and it was very bad.

Yeah, there were two BIOS revisions for that board that were borderline unusable with A die. The A90 BIOS fixed most of those issues and is kinda good (CPU overclocking is a bit broken as the ring won't use ratios between 4.6 and 5.0), A.A0 was a bit better (it lowered VDDQ TX requirements for me), and the current beta (A.B3) is really good, it won't boot super high frequencies but it's the highest I've been able to bench y-cruncher. 

 

36 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

So is eVGA Dark in your opinion really better than other 2 DIMM boards or just as good and least expensive option for a 2 DIMM board

It's going to be on average better than something like a Unify-X or Z690 Alex, but assuming you've got a decent sample of all of them they should perform about the same amount of effort until 7800 ish, admittedly with different IMC voltage requirements and other nuances. 

 

41 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Or is it it just needs to be tuned a little then will be just as rock stable as DDR4 3600 CL14 in anything?

It needs a bit of tuning with Intel. It's still capable of getting fully stable, I've done it where it won't crash anywhere, it's just a bit more effort than most DDR4 platforms

 

44 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

And you mention to get a 6400 kit if I want no effort and it should work on anything??? Well I had multiple 6400 and even a 6000 kit and across like 5 different boards (do not remember how many different boards they were tested on), and none were fully stable at any XMP and all were Asus boards.

What cooler do you have and we're you using a contact frame? I agree a bit that ASUS boards aren't great (at least the ones I used were pretty terrible), but they all did 6400 with no effort. This sounds more like a mounting pressure issue than anything board related, since that can have a huge impact on memory overclocking performance. 

[Wolverine2349]

27 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It's the board i use, and I do like mine. Whether I'd recommend it or not is up for debate, there was a manufacturing defect in a lot of them where the A channel will not work over ~7400. Mine is not one of those, and with my CPU and memory kit 7200 works if I set the PLLs, 7600 works if I bump up VDD2, and 7800 works on the latest beta BIOS if I bump VDD2 and lower VDDQ TX. If I had a better CPU, 8000 would be possible, though right now it has retrain stability issues so while it will boot and can run stress tests indefinitely (I had it run or 14 hours once), it doesn't reliably work. 

 

Yeah, there were two BIOS revisions for that board that were borderline unusable with A die. The A90 BIOS fixed most of those issues and is kinda good (CPU overclocking is a bit broken as the ring won't use ratios between 4.6 and 5.0), A.A0 was a bit better (it lowered VDDQ TX requirements for me), and the current beta (A.B3) is really good, it won't boot super high frequencies but it's the highest I've been able to bench y-cruncher. 

 

It's going to be on average better than something like a Unify-X or Z690 Alex, but assuming you've got a decent sample of all of them they should perform about the same amount of effort until 7800 ish, admittedly with different IMC voltage requirements and other nuances. 

 

It needs a bit of tuning with Intel. It's still capable of getting fully stable, I've done it where it won't crash anywhere, it's just a bit more effort than most DDR4 platforms

 

What cooler do you have and we're you using a contact frame? I agree a bit that ASUS boards aren't great (at least the ones I used were pretty terrible), but they all did 6400 with no effort. This sounds more like a mounting pressure issue than anything board related, since that can have a huge impact on memory overclocking performance. 

 

 

In speaking of training for DDR5 and it not being reliable, I have heard that being an issue too.

 

Which 2 DIMM board is best in terms of stable DDR5 RAM training?

 

And yes I did use a contact frame, though on one or 2 of the boards, removing it and going back to Stock ILM made 0 difference (It was an Asus Z790-F Strix I think)

 

And cooler I was using is a Noctua NH-D15S. Some of the time used a Dark Rock Pro 4.

 

Though you stated you got 6400 RAM working no issues on Asus boards?? Did you do any stability testing or did the system just feel stable? Like did you run OCCT Large Data Set Variable as that test always confirmed DDR5 XMP unstable by throwing a random WHEA or BSOD. across 5 different Asus boards and 5 different DDR5 kits ranging from 6000 to 7200 even when downclocking the RAM.

[RONOTHAN##]

22 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Which 2 DIMM board is best in terms of stable DDR5 RAM training?

Going off pure max numbers, the Z790 Apex and Z790 Dark are the best two. The Apex is a bit unreliable, some are good and a some are pretty bad, while the Dark is pretty consistently solid. The Z790 Tachyon is also up there, though it's a little behind those two. 

 

24 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

And cooler I was using is a Noctua NH-D15S. Some of the time used a Dark Rock Pro 4.

Were you using the 1700 holes or the 1151 holes that are on ASUS boards? That can cause a difference, and it might just be that the cooler wasn't mounted right. 

 

26 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Though you stated you got 6400 RAM working no issues on Asus boards?? Did you do any stability testing or did the system just feel stable?

2 hours of VST, 8 hours combined of TM5 with two different config (1usmus and Extreme), 4 hours of HCI Memtest, 4 loops of Memtest86, and did 2 retrains with an hour of TM5 each. Yes, they were fully stable. Didn't run occt just because I've found VST usually better at picking up on that type of instability, plus VST is free. 6400 was on auto memory controller settings (no PLLs or anything). That was on a first revision Z690 APEX with the broken A channel (terrible board, I resold it within two weeks of buying it) and I believe one other I helped a friend with, though I forget the exact board. It was across multiple CPUs and it always just worked. 

[Wolverine2349]

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Going off pure max numbers, the Z790 Apex and Z790 Dark are the best two. The Apex is a bit unreliable, some are good and a some are pretty bad, while the Dark is pretty consistently solid. The Z790 Tachyon is also up there, though it's a little behind those two. 

 

Were you using the 1700 holes or the 1151 holes that are on ASUS boards? That can cause a difference, and it might just be that the cooler wasn't mounted right. 

 

2 hours of VST, 8 hours combined of TM5 with two different config (1usmus and Extreme), 4 hours of HCI Memtest, 4 loops of Memtest86, and did 2 retrains with an hour of TM5 each. Yes, they were fully stable. Didn't run occt just because I've found VST usually better at picking up on that type of instability, plus VST is free. 6400 was on auto memory controller settings (no PLLs or anything). That was on a first revision Z690 APEX with the broken A channel (terrible board, I resold it within two weeks of buying it) and I believe one other I helped a friend with, though I forget the exact board. It was across multiple CPUs and it always just worked. 

 

 

Always was using the LGA 1700 holes. I made sure of that due to height difference

 

And you had that stability with 6400 on Z690 Apex?? I actually had a Z790 Apex and it was not stable at 6600. WHEA in OCCT at XMP settings then gave up.

 

I had tried a Z7909 Hero a few months ago and was told by guys at Micro Center that BIOS updates and MEI and XMP should have fixed issues. But no it was actually much worse. 7200 XMP would not even POST.  Downclocking it to 6400 would POST but Windows was so unstable HWInfo64 barely stayed open and crashed.

 

Downclocking to 6000 it finally was Windows desktop stable, but I gave up and thought that was beyond unacceptable (did not even run any stress tests) and returned the board and RAM and thought not again with Asus.

 

And when you had 6400 stable on Z690 Apex what CPU and what BIOS.

 

I almost wonder if newer Asus BIOS versions going into Raptor Lake have made DDR5 stability worse?

 

Is Raptor Lake supposed to have a better DDR5 IMC than Alder Lake???

 

I had thought so but nothing but trouble certainly with Asus boards. Only tried one non-Asus DDR5 board which was MSI Z690 Unify X and one beta BIOS version (forget which one) had XMP 6600 2 X 16GB stable or so it appeared.

[RONOTHAN##]

30 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

And you had that stability with 6400 on Z690 Apex??

Yeah, it's rock solid stable, never had a crash. I sold it and my crappy kit of M die with said overclock to a friend who has been dailying it ever since. Pretty sure it's running 6400 CL36-42-42-28, not limited by the board but because that's the best that memory kit can do with 1.4V and no fan (again, this kit was terrible by M die standards). 

 

31 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

And when you had 6400 stable on Z690 Apex what CPU and what BIOS.

The full stability pass I described was with a 13600K, though my 13700K seemed to behave basically identically to that chip with memory support, meaning if I was on M die, 6400 was fully stable, 6600 was doable but would take effort I didn't want to put in, and 7000 might theoretically be possible if I tuned the ODTs but it wasn't worth the effort, while with A die 6600 was easy, 6800 was doable, 7000 was a bit more effort but still doable, and 7200 is probably possible with enough effort but didn't confirm. If I removed the stick in the A channel, it went to 7000 and 8000 was easy for those kits respectively. 

 

For the BIOS, I'm pretty sure it was either 2204 or 2304, this was a few months back so I forget which and my only saved "screen shot" is a photo I took of the screen with my phone, so I can't quite make out the version number (the BIOS date is 11/30/2022, so whatever that lines up to). 

 

42 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Is Raptor Lake supposed to have a better DDR5 IMC than Alder Lake???

Yes, significantly. it's a roughly 400-800MT/s gap between max stable frequency between the two. Both are annoying to deal with, though I'd rather work with Raptor Lake any day of the week. 

 

45 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Only tried one non-Asus DDR5 board which was MSI Z690 Unify X and one beta BIOS version (forget which one) had XMP 6600 2 X 16GB stable or so it appeared.

Sounds about right. Most of the pre-A9 BIOS revisions for the Unify-X were actually terrible. The A7 and A8 BIOSes I couldn't get to POST 6000MT/s reliably, meanwhile I had it fully stable at 7600. The A9 BIOS made it actually good, and the AB3 BIOS puts it more competitive with the Z790 Tachyon if you've got a good sample. 

[Wolverine2349]

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Yeah, it's rock solid stable, never had a crash. I sold it and my crappy kit of M die with said overclock to a friend who has been dailying it ever since. Pretty sure it's running 6400 CL36-42-42-28, not limited by the board but because that's the best that memory kit can do with 1.4V and no fan (again, this kit was terrible by M die standards). 

 

The full stability pass I described was with a 13600K, though my 13700K seemed to behave basically identically to that chip with memory support, meaning if I was on M die, 6400 was fully stable, 6600 was doable but would take effort I didn't want to put in, and 7000 might theoretically be possible if I tuned the ODTs but it wasn't worth the effort, while with A die 6600 was easy, 6800 was doable, 7000 was a bit more effort but still doable, and 7200 is probably possible with enough effort but didn't confirm. If I removed the stick in the A channel, it went to 7000 and 8000 was easy for those kits respectively. 

 

For the BIOS, I'm pretty sure it was either 2204 or 2304, this was a few months back so I forget which and my only saved "screen shot" is a photo I took of the screen with my phone, so I can't quite make out the version number (the BIOS date is 11/30/2022, so whatever that lines up to). 

 

Yes, significantly. it's a roughly 400-800MT/s gap between max stable frequency between the two. Both are annoying to deal with, though I'd rather work with Raptor Lake any day of the week. 

 

Sounds about right. Most of the pre-A9 BIOS revisions for the Unify-X were actually terrible. The A7 and A8 BIOSes I couldn't get to POST 6000MT/s reliably, meanwhile I had it fully stable at 7600. The A9 BIOS made it actually good, and the AB3 BIOS puts it more competitive with the Z790 Tachyon if you've got a good sample. 

 

 

In speaking how good is the Z790 Tachyon with RAM XMP and overclocking and stability? Is it far better than the 4 DIMM boards?

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

In speaking how good is the Z790 Tachyon with RAM XMP and overclocking and stability? Is it far better than the 4 DIMM boards?

It's really strong, not as good as the Z790 Dark or Apex but it's also not as expensive as those. It wouldn't necessarily be my first option, but it's still really strong and better than any 4 DIMM board. 

[Wolverine2349]

11 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It's really strong, not as good as the Z790 Dark or Apex but it's also not as expensive as those. It wouldn't necessarily be my first option, but it's still really strong and better than any 4 DIMM board. 

 

How is it compared to eVGA Z690 Dark or MSI Z690 Unify X?

[RONOTHAN##]

6 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

 

How is it compared to eVGA Z690 Dark or MSI Z690 Unify X?

It should be better than both. Not a ton, I would have a very hard time justifying an extra $200 over the dark, but it is technically a little better. 

 

Just because of its weird button layout though, it is a board I'd want in my collection. 

[Wolverine2349]

8 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It should be better than both. Not a ton, I would have a very hard time justifying an extra $200 over the dark, but it is technically a little better. 

 

Just because of its weird button layout though, it is a board I'd want in my collection. 

 

 

SO better than both mostly as it is Z790 or other reasons too.

 

Though you mention you do not think Z790 Tachyon is quite as good as Z790 Apex or Z790 Dark? Just in terms of pure DDR5 RAM overclocking or also in terms of overall board reliability and BIOS usage?

[RONOTHAN##]

57 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Though you mention you do not think Z790 Tachyon is quite as good as Z790 Apex or Z790 Dark? Just in terms of pure DDR5 RAM overclocking or also in terms of overall board reliability and BIOS usage?

Just RAM overclocking. For reliability it should be better than the Apex since there's actually quality control and about as good as the dark, while the bios just comes down to personal preference. Realistically, you can get used to any bios setup if you use it for more than a week, so I wouldn't consider it that bad. I'd prefer it over an Apex since the layout is similar, and at least the Tachyon won't be overly animated and slow to navigate. 

[Wolverine2349]

6 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Just RAM overclocking. For reliability it should be better than the Apex since there's actually quality control and about as good as the dark, while the bios just comes down to personal preference. Realistically, you can get used to any bios setup if you use it for more than a week, so I wouldn't consider it that bad. I'd prefer it over an Apex since the layout is similar, and at least the Tachyon won't be overly animated and slow to navigate. 

 

 

You say there is actually quality control with Gigabyte but not Asus. Why is Asus not doing quality control anymore? Why have they had such a good reputation but refuse to do that now?

[RONOTHAN##]

4 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Why is Asus not doing quality control anymore?

I don't know. The Z790 Apex and Z690 Apex especially were famous for having terrible quality control, especially early on in their life span. Early Z690 Apex boards had terrible signal integrity on the A channel, to the point that they were binning motherboards to be sent out to you tubers and other XOC guys. If you just went to Newegg and bought one, odds are it wouldn't POST above 6600 if both sticks were populated. This was eventually fixed and it was fairly reliablely good, but it still wasn't perfect. With the Z790 Apex, they had something like a 20% DOA rate early on and to this day it's 50/50 whether you get one that's bent like a banana. It is the best board out there if you get one that works and know how to use it, but it's not guaranteed you do. 

 

Gigabyte still doesn't have a great reputation, but at least there aren't threads dedicated to how bad the quality control is. 

[Wolverine2349]

Well after finding out that Noctua NH-D15S and Dark Rock Pro 4 are not compatible in the traditional sense with the eVGA Dark boards, they were out as well.

So I went with the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Tachyon for $599 at NewEgg.

Also went with AX5U7200C3416G-DCLARBK which is Hynix A Die RAM kit per QVL List for this board on Gigabyte website which this RAM is on. Went with it as it is 40mm in height as opposed to 44mm Trident X5 RGB and shorter is better for dual tower air coolers.