Z790 Strix vs Maximus Dark Hero?

[Andreas Lilja]

Which should I get for an i9 14th Gen? Dark Hero overpriced? What features does the Strix not have? 

 

Thanks. 

[rippy4500]

Get the Maximus Apex Encore, its better than either of them.

[RONOTHAN##]

10 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Dark Hero overpriced?

Yes. It's worse than the Apex Encore that's $50 cheaper than it. 

 

11 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

What features does the Strix not have? 

Which Strix? There's a dozen of them. 

 

 

What do you actually need the system to do and what features do you need? Most ROG boards are hard to recommend for most people, especially since generally you can get most of the features out of a ~$200-250 Z690 Force/Carbon when compared to the $500+ Z790-E Strix and Hero boards. 

[Andreas Lilja]

24 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Yes. It's worse than the Apex Encore that's $50 cheaper than it. 

 

Which Strix? There's a dozen of them. 

 

 

What do you actually need the system to do and what features do you need? Most ROG boards are hard to recommend for most people, especially since generally you can get most of the features out of a ~$200-250 Z690 Force/Carbon when compared to the $500+ Z790-E Strix and Hero boards. 

1440p gaming. I do have a bunch of conventional SSDs. 

 

Didn't know there were so many models, I was aware about Dark Hero, Strix, and the Tuft. 

 

Gonna be paired with i9 14th Gen and 32gb of 7200 DDR5. 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

4 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

1440p gaming

Then 14th gen isn't likely the best option. The 7800X3D is the better gaming CPU by a fair bit in most games, while also being cheaper (both in part cost and platform costs) and actually having an upgrade path. 

 

6 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Didn't know there were so many models, I was aware about Dark Hero, Strix, and the Tuft. 

There's the Z790-H, Z790-F, Z790-E, Z790-A, Z790-A II, Z790-E II, Z790-F II, Z690-F, Z690-E, Z690-A, Z690-G, and all the B- series versions as well. "Strix" is just their catch-all term for all the ROG boards without the ROG OC features, and there's quite a lot of difference between each of them. There's multiple "TUF" boards as well, and "Maximus" boards as they're each different series of motherboards. 

[Andreas Lilja]

43 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Then 14th gen isn't likely the best option. The 7800X3D is the better gaming CPU by a fair bit in most games, while also being cheaper (both in part cost and platform costs) and actually having an upgrade path. 

 

There's the Z790-H, Z790-F, Z790-E, Z790-A, Z790-A II, Z790-E II, Z790-F II, Z690-F, Z690-E, Z690-A, Z690-G, and all the B- series versions as well. "Strix" is just their catch-all term for all the ROG boards without the ROG OC features, and there's quite a lot of difference between each of them. There's multiple "TUF" boards as well, and "Maximus" boards as they're each different series of motherboards. 

Not closed to AMD. Anything better than 7800XD?

 

Gotta order a socket replacement for my x62 Kraken for AMD, hopefully they still stock them.

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, Andreas Lilja said:

Not closed to AMD. Anything better than 7800XD?

For gaming? No. 

 

Technically the 7950X3D exists, which is a 7800X3D with a 7700X bolted onto it, so you get extra multicore performance with the same gaming performance. The problem is that chip has some very weird scheduling behavior, and there are some games where it will just fall on its face for whatever reason (Starfield is the first example that comes to mind), so unless you absolutely need the multicore performance for video editing on the side it's best to avoid it. 

[Andreas Lilja]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

For gaming? No. 

 

Technically the 7950X3D exists, which is a 7800X3D with a 7700X bolted onto it, so you get extra multicore performance with the same gaming performance. The problem is that chip has some very weird scheduling behavior, and there are some games where it will just fall on its face for whatever reason (Starfield is the first example that comes to mind), so unless you absolutely need the multicore performance for video editing on the side it's best to avoid it. 

Aight, convinced. Thanks. 

 

Now for the mobo and ram? 

 

Note that I'm using SATA SSDs. 

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, Andreas Lilja said:

Aight, convinced. Thanks. 

 

Now for the mobo and ram? 

How much you looking to spend on the motherboard? There's plenty of good board out there for pretty cheap, so it just depends what features you want and how much you're willing to spend. 

 

As for the RAM, get a 6000 CL30/32 kit. Faster kits do work on AMD, but because of how the memory controller is setup unless you're doing manual RAM tuning, they're slower than 6000 CL30/32 until you get to DDR5 7600+, and at that point there's stability problems. 

[Andreas Lilja]

7 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

How much you looking to spend on the motherboard? There's plenty of good board out there for pretty cheap, so it just depends what features you want and how much you're willing to spend. 

 

As for the RAM, get a 6000 CL30/32 kit. Faster kits do work on AMD, but because of how the memory controller is setup unless you're doing manual RAM tuning, they're slower than 6000 CL30/32 until you get to DDR5 7600+, and at that point there's stability problems. 

Just run games and cool well. 

 

Intuitive software maybe? Looks not important. 

 

Considering the CPU is roughly $500 that would be my upper limit...

 

Here's some ram I found, had good experiences in the past with G. Skill. 

 

https://www.amazon.ca/G-Skill-Trident-288-Pin-CL30-38-38-96-F5-6000J3038F16GX2-TZ5NR/dp/B0BF8FVLSL/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3JGBNEOEECRTU&keywords=G+skill+6000+ddr5&qid=1703719716&sprefix=g+skill+6000+ddr5%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-1

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Just run games and cool well. 

I mean for this, you can get the B650M-HDV/M.2 or B650M Pro RS. They're both about as barebones a board as you can find, but they'll do everything you want it to well enough. 

 

If you do want to spend more, a couple other options that exist for sensible prices in Canada (I'm assuming you're Canadian because the Amazon.ca link for the RAM) are the X670E PG Lightning, B650 Tomahawk, and B650E Taichi Lite. Each of those has its own pros and cons to it depending on what you need (the PG Lightning is the cheapest Gen 5 board out there, the Tomahawk is the cheapest way to get 6 SATA ports given you said before you had a bunch of SATA SSDs, and the Taichi is the cheapest way to get a POST code for debugging as well as overclocking support for the 7800X3D, though the OC support is not very useful), so I'd get whichever of the five you think makes the most sense for you. 

 

As for the whole "intuitive software" request, I'm probably not the best person to ask about that as I've learned most of the major board vendor's software at this point, so I find them about equally usable. Their BIOSes all have a mild learning curve, though with the X3D you won't really be messing with the BIOS that much so it shouldn't really matter, and their Windows specific software for RGB is all about equally unusable so using an alternative like OpenRGB is a good idea. 

 

9 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Here's some ram I found, had good experiences in the past with G. Skill. 

 

https://www.amazon.ca/G-Skill-Trident-288-Pin-CL30-38-38-96-F5-6000J3038F16GX2-TZ5NR/dp/B0BF8FVLSL/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3JGBNEOEECRTU&keywords=G+skill+6000+ddr5&qid=1703719716&sprefix=g+skill+6000+ddr5%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-1

That's a fine kit, but the price is extremely expensive. Don't think that you need to go G.Skill for the memory kit, their kits are fine and everything, though other manufacturers also have great kits and most of them have better designed heat spreaders as well (not that it makes much of a difference for most people, but still). 

 

https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311&item_id=246174

 

This kit, for instance, should be a little better (not enough to care, but theoretically slightly faster) for the quite a bit cheaper.

[Andreas Lilja]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I mean for this, you can get the B650M-HDV/M.2 or B650M Pro RS. They're both about as barebones a board as you can find, but they'll do everything you want it to well enough. 

 

If you do want to spend more, a couple other options that exist for sensible prices in Canada (I'm assuming you're Canadian because the Amazon.ca link for the RAM) are the X670E PG Lightning, B650 Tomahawk, and B650E Taichi Lite. Each of those has its own pros and cons to it depending on what you need (the PG Lightning is the cheapest Gen 5 board out there, the Tomahawk is the cheapest way to get 6 SATA ports given you said before you had a bunch of SATA SSDs, and the Taichi is the cheapest way to get a POST code for debugging as well as overclocking support for the 7800X3D, though the OC support is not very useful), so I'd get whichever of the five you think makes the most sense for you. 

 

As for the whole "intuitive software" request, I'm probably not the best person to ask about that as I've learned most of the major board vendor's software at this point, so I find them about equally usable. Their BIOSes all have a mild learning curve, though with the X3D you won't really be messing with the BIOS that much so it shouldn't really matter, and their Windows specific software for RGB is all about equally unusable so using an alternative like OpenRGB is a good idea. 

 

That's a fine kit, but the price is extremely expensive. Don't think that you need to go G.Skill for the memory kit, their kits are fine and everything, though other manufacturers also have great kits and most of them have better designed heat spreaders as well (not that it makes much of a difference for most people, but still). 

 

https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_311&item_id=246174

 

This kit, for instance, should be a little better (not enough to care, but theoretically slightly faster) for the quite a bit cheaper.

Should I look at PCI 5 if I ever want to upgrade my GPU? Or just upgrade mobo at that time. 

[Andreas Lilja]

https://www.newegg.ca/asus-rog-strix-b650e-e-gaming-wifi/p/N82E16813119593?Item=N82E16813119593

 

This one seems nice. 

[RONOTHAN##]

13 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Should I look at PCI 5 if I ever want to upgrade my GPU? Or just upgrade mobo at that time. 

I have my doubts about whether PCIe Gen 5 will actually be useful within the lifespan of AM5, so I probably wouldn't worry about it. By the time it'll actually be necessary, you'll want to upgrade your CPU anyway. 4090s barely are hindered by Gen 3, so there's going to need to be quite a large jump in GPUs for it to start to matter. 

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, Andreas Lilja said:

https://www.newegg.ca/asus-rog-strix-b650e-e-gaming-wifi/p/N82E16813119593?Item=N82E16813119593

 

This one seems nice. 

That's a fine board, though the B650E Taichi Lite is a bit more featured for $75 less.