End of Year PC Build

Unless I'm reading the specs wrong again all three only support 4800 natively? According to their own website that you linked. Can't seem to find them on the hardware store website at all I was going to oderfrom (that would be mindfactory.de in Germany, they usually are cheapest), they don't all seem to be sold. Weird.

I can't believe how unusual a demand it is to get 5600 JEDEC support, lol. I also didn't realize that those speeds are relatively new considering those RAM kits are fairly cheap now at around a hundred euros. I keep seeing all these 6000/6400 benchmarks and assumed 5600 was on the slow side which makes sense for non OC, ah man.

So I'll probably have to go with an MSI which is fine. I like MSI. I have an MSI gaming laptop from 2012 or something that I barely use anymore aside from music listening but it still works fine. Had two MSI GPUs. Didn't have them for long but no issues and quiet.

In any case, you guys don't have to sacrifice your precious time any longer trying to find a board for me. Now that I know what I have to look for I can do my own targeted research. Thank you for that! In fact I've gone through ALL the affordable boards that computer store offers and what I came up with is what I linked. So yeah, not much to pick from. Still kinda hoping for a sale on a more expensive board. Two M.2 ports will do (although 4 would be nice, I guess) and 4 SATA though. Don't need fancy stuff like thunderbolt.

You've all been very helpful, especially for the cooler. I'm gonna go with the Thermalright. That's just a great price!

There seems to be a bit of a confusion here. The 13700K has a stock speed of 5600 for DDR5. Anything over that is essentially overclocking.

The board doesn't care about memory speed, it will do it's best to accomplish what you ask it to do. It's when you OC, that things can go wrong, and any of the components involved in the process can fail; namely CPU, board and memory.

BIOS is where all the magic happens, and when you build a new system, the first thing you do when you boot, is check your BIOS settings. Your settings should match what the stock CPU and recommended memory settings are.

To keep things simple, from now on, when I talk about OC, I mean memory overclocking. CPU OC is another matter.

So, the Z790 chipset supports speeds beyond 7000, but by default the speed is probably at 4800 MHz. If you use memory sticks that are @5600, you have to change the memory frequency to 5600 in BIOS. It's not OC or XMP, if you don't change the timings or voltage.

When I talk about a board, that is good for overclocking, I usually mean a MoBo that has been tested at higher than specs speeds. Whether a board is a good OC board, is usually related to memory controller, chipset cooler and on-board power management.

I suggest you read Intel's OC guide here: How to Overclock RAM

Lets put it this way the CPU can natively handled 5600 and go higher with no problem but will need OC of the RAM to do it. 
However overclocking the CPU you could probably have RAM with theoretical speeds in excess of 1.0 Ghz! -impossible! -LOL.

5600 is the DDR5 RAM speed limit set forth by JEDEC -anything higher than that will be considered OC by them.
XMP is in a way OC but only if you go for higher speeds but also tighter timings past 5600.

However apparently by some motherboard manufactures -even 5600 may be considered an overclock.  
That all said there is no guarantee that RAM of a rated speed will even hit that speed.  

It is usually also pretty much certain that two RAM chips versus four will get you better RAM speed and timings in default. 

RAM doesn't have maximum speed, only maximum stable speed. That said..

DDR5 specification states speeds from 4800 MHz to 8400 MHz, which means those are the limits of the technology.
Then it's a lame ass board and suggest you stay away from it. When DDR5 was launched, it's speed was 4800 MHz, so it's probably an older board. New boards can go over 7000 MHz.

You don't have to use XMP unless you want to. Back to basics:

1. You buy a board which says it's memory bandwith can go 7000+
2. You have memory sticks that are rated 5600
3. When you first boot, go to BIOS and check the settings. Set the memory bandwith to 5600 MHz. If that's all you do, all good, ready to rock.

You only use XMP, if you want to tweak timings and voltage. It's not seen as OC, because the bandwith stays the same. I don't recommend it until you are an advanced builder and know what you are doing. For the record, I've been using XMP timings for the last 18 monts or so without issues, but I've been doing that sort of stuff for a long time.
Good. Don't make a decision until you've gathered enough information.

Example:ASRock Z790 PRO RS. Natively only supports 4800 but can OC to 7200. So for my 5600 it means I go into BIOS, set 5600 and be done with it and I don't have to use XMP to push it further? And because it's just the standard speed of the RAM (and within CPU specifications) it's not considered OC? So I do NOT have to buy a board with native 5600 support if I don't want to use XMP? I still don't really get it, it seems...

OK, crap. So then I did get this right after all, I need a 5600 native board. You all had me confused there for a bit. Which basically leaves me with MSI for cheap boards, like MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI DDR5 ATX. Gigabyte doesn't have a single cheap one with 5600 native, I believe. Nor does ASRock.
I really like the ASRock and it's the only cheap one without customer feedback stating issues. Which doesn't really say anything. You can get unlucky with any board. So I shouldn't take this as a bad omen...

Unless you suggest not worrying about the warranty and lie about it in case something breaks like everyone else does? Sly bastards, all advertising the OC capabilities of their boards and only mentioning the warranty goes poof somewhere in the fine print. Making boards for OC and then punishing you for actually using it. Imo that's false advertising and borderline a scam and should be illegal but whatever.

So I have to decide if I want to take the risk with a board that doesn't support 5600 natively or not. Prices are similar. I'm just biased towards ASRock because my old one is still going strong and because I like the look of it. I haven't really compared the features closely but I assume they're about the same.

What I have decided is that I won't move my OS to a M.2 SSD from SATA because it seems hardly worth it since I rarely move large files around.
Undecided yet about updating to Win 11 or making a clean install. I know clean is better. I need to check how much modding stuff I would need to back up...
Since my game installs are on a different drive I don't have to reinstall them? The file paths will stay and the games will run normally after the windows update right? Also on a clean install? I read I just have to verify the game files and add back whatever the windows update shot. And then I have to copy over my backed up documents for Fallout and Skyrim.

Also did some research on PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 and the difference in game loading speeds is maybe like 2 seconds? So I'll save money and go with a 2TB 3.0 one, probably Samsung, added to the old SATAs with all my modded games on. Maybe another HDD because I'm running out of space there too.

So what would you guys do about the board?

Oh, one more thing: Is it worth it to return the Corsair Vengeance 5600 CL36 for G.Skill 5600 CL28 for about 10 bucks more? I have no idea if I'd get more frames/better gaming performance at all. I know that generally faster/better latency RAM does not warrant the price tag but is that true already for 10€ extra? I can't find benchmarks for this specific scenario.

A 5600 CL28 kit is gonna require XMP or manual "overclock" to reach those timings anyway. You need to raise the voltage a bit for the stability.

I mean if you really cared about squeezing a couple more FPS from fast memory, you'd be better off spending a bit more and getting a 6000 CL30 kit instead. Haha.

Yes and no. 5600 shouldn't be a big deal for any board. But strictly speaking you are OC:ing the memory bandwith.
This.
And I say forget about it, for now.
Do this instead.
Good.
I'd say yes, you are.

XMP is fine, if you
1. run benchmark without it
2. enter XMP settings/ use profile
3. run the benchmark again to see if it made a difference.
These are confusing times. Many old truths have gone out the window.

OK, then how about this setup:
13700K (412€, bought)
ASRock Z790 PRO RS ATX Intel DDR5 (218€)
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 (47€)
Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5600 CL36 (109€, bought)
2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 2280 (109€)

Maybe another HDD on top, not sure yet.

Question: I could get G.Skill 6000 CL36 RAM for the same price. Would that make more sense now that anything above 4800 is OC anyway? 6000 CL32 and CL30 are 10 bucks more. What latency requires fiddling with voltage other than 28 we discussed already?
EDIT: I watched a benchmark video again and the difference between 5600 and 6000 are basically nonexistent. Or would you still recommend it just because it's the same price for technically faster RAM?


I'm keeping my PSU (630W) until I buy a new GPU. Once I do I'd say 850W is enough?
Do you think Nvidia will release a 16GB 4070? If not I'm seriously considerinf keeping the 1080Ti another generation.

Should I wait a bit longer with buying the rest of the parts? Do you think the prices will keep falling some more? Or might they actually go up again? Everything is already so much cheaper than six months ago. I don't really need the new set-up until Starfield in September. There's no other AAA title that I'm waiting for and until I have an RTX card I'm still putting off playing Cyberpunk. I'm just super impatient and jumped on the 13700K deal on Amazon, saving 30€.

(Sorry again for the endless questions and stupid ideas about the board..)

My advice here is RESEARCH -especially if your building a system but still buying components. If you have done that then find deals -NOT deals sites offer you but deals you can actually see offering you a performance or reliability advantage. HOWEVER the last thing I would do is use pcpartpicker and build it there -in my opinion PPP isn't a very reliable website -unless its changed in the last few years. However it can be a good testing bed to try builds out but never take PPP as gospel that it will work.



The tech market will always be volatile despite Nvidia's claim about Moore's Law being dead. New stuff will always be more expensive than old tech. At least till you hit the 3-4 year switch zone where old tech becomes antique tech and gets hard to find and you will either shell out a lot to keep what you have running or can't find replacements and have to upgrade either would be expensive. For instance the 2070 Super is right at a $999 and its already 2 generations behind -in comparison to the 4070 ti that is around $800+ and the 3070 ti is about $550. ALL OF THAT tech would be considered current. While your 1080 ti -while still a beast of a card would be considered an antique by now but with a price tag of: $ 750-850.