General / Off-Topic Asus Rog Strix Motherboards and associated hardware.

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi All
I'm thinking seriously about upgrading a second computer.
I have a computer case (Cooler Master HAF X) but most other hardware, motherboard, power supply, Ram, Graphics Card, and perhaps hard drive /s I've yet to purchase.
The motherboards I'm looking at are either an Asus Rog Strix Z790 -H Gaming WiFi Lga 1700 DDR 5 ATX or an Asus Rog Strix B760 -F Gaming Wi fi Lga 1700 DDR 5 ATX.
I'm not sure what Cpu to use but it will probably be an i5 or i7 13000 series?
The price difference between the two motherboards is roughly £30, the Z790 being the more expensive.
I have an air cooler for the Cpu. (A DeepCool Argb 5 heatpipe 2 x120mm Fans)

I doubt if I'll be doing any major over clocking, (not sure on this), so bearing this in mind, what are your thoughts or suggestions.
Any recommendations, suggestions or general chat about these or any other related components most welcome.
I know there are a few folks here that have expert knowledge with computer hardware and set ups so...

Oh, just a thought I'll be installing Win 11 btw. as the OS.

(Update)
Just purchased the new power supply. It's a Seasonic Focus GX-1000 (watt) fully modular Atx 3.0 / PCIe 5 Compliant 80 Plus Gold. (Hybrid Fan Control).


Jack

 

[Morbad]

Overclocking anything past the i5s on air cooling is thoroughly impractical, so the Z790 isn't likely to offer much advantage, unless you need a lot of I/O (e.g. extra M.2 slots) hanging off the chipset. "Major" overclocking the last several generations of i7s pretty much mandates custom water, or better, cooling, if not other modifications. Intel's relative (to AMD) performance per watt has been slipping for several years and the gap won't narrow again until the 15th gen (Arrow Lake) stuff that is at least a year off.

You might be able to do some modest OCing of an i5-14600K(F) or 13600K on that cooler (AK500?), but even that is pretty borderline. Anything slower is locked so doesn't benefit from a Z790 anyway.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi Morbad

Thanks for the reply

The Cooler is a DeepCool Gammaxx series AG500 BK. but instead of just the single 120mm fan I'll be putting another 120mm DeepCool ARGB fan on the rear of the Cooler.
I'll also be fitting a Thermalright contact frame instead of the usual intel motherboard cpu locking mechanism. I used one of these on my other computers motherboard (Rog Strix Z690 -A Gaming Wifi) and I think it might have made quite a difference to overall temperatures from the i5 CPU. You had made a reference to this (with a link to the Gamers Nexus article I believe?) contact frame in one of your previous posts on this forum (I think it was in the PC section). So thank you for that piece of information.

The Cooler I used on that motherboard was a Silentium Fortis 5, with 6 heatpipes with it's single 140mm fan. The Cpu on that board is an i5 12600 S Lga 1700. The highest temperature I've seen for the cpu (Playing Odyssey) is averaging in the region of 36c to 40c, measured with MSI Afterburner, (I presume this gives a rough estimate?).
The Cooler itself was a ****** to fit on the MB. , suffice to say there was very little clearance between the top VRM heatsink covers (just a millimeter or so). I could only fit it the 'conventional' way. The fan overlapped the ram slots, which was fine, unfortunately I'd already bought the ram sticks which were quite high. That meant I couldn't fit the fan at the front of the cooler. I couldn't fit the fan to the rear of the cooler unless I removed the rubber anti vibration pads supplied, which I did, and the fan just squeezed in with about half a millimeter to spare between the fan and the rear VRM cover. So basically the fan pulls air through the cooler instead of the recommended fan fitting where it pushes air through.
Anyway, it works, there's no vibration and it's reasonably quiet in operation. In retrospect I should have generally given a bit more thought and 'investigation' into what air cooler would fit the Asus Rog strix motherboards.

Just recently I found out that some Air Cooler manufacturers list what coolers should fit various motherboards, not just the cpu type itself but also adequate clearance as regards the VRM covers etc.
'Be Quiet' Coolers seem to give good advice here on their home site, you select from a list of motherboards and it lists which of their coolers you can use for that specific motherboard. I couldn't find much information on other Air cooler manufacturers sites with similar information in this regard. There's some information on various gamers and computer hardware forums, but it's not always straightforward.

As regards the two motherboards I've listed in my initial post, yep, I am leaning towards the B760, that seems to be more inline with what I'd be using it for. I might use an M2 slot but I doubt I would use more than that. ....I think.

Also thanks for the information about the overclocking limits of the i5 Cpu. etc.

Jack

 

[Morbad]

The i5-12600 is a 65w/117w (PL1/PL2) part while the Fortis 5 is a larger and more capable cooler than the AG 500. Also, Odyssey, CPU limited as it can be, is rarely a particularly heavy CPU load. I'm sure the AG 500 will work on a stock 125/181w (PL1/2) i5 without issue, but power consumption when OCing can increase dramatically.

Most high-end Intel boards assume some form of liquid cooling on the CPU, which is one of the reasons they tend to have very bulky VRM cooling (high CPU current draw plus low air flow in the vicinity of the socket) that can limit air cooler compatibility. Most coolers should list dimensions somewhere, which can be used to gauge compatability, even if the official support list is lacking.

The Strix B760-F supports three PCI-E 4.0 4x M.2 slots without stealing lanes from anything else (though, perforce, anything attached to the chipset shares it's connection to the CPU). So, the only concern here is the lack of ability to use the unlocked CPU multipliers on K parts. However, the board is also serious overkill for an air cooled i5.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi All

... Intel's relative (to AMD) performance per watt has been slipping for several years and the gap won't narrow again until the 15th gen (Arrow Lake) stuff that is at least a year off.

.....

Yup, I've been 'researching' various info on current and future computer hardware over the last week or so...my eyes are starting to bleed!
Having a re-think! , I might opt for an AMD build instead of an Intel LGA 1700.. , AM5 seems to be (or going to be) well supported for the next 3 or 4 years.
The last time I built an AMD based computer was at least 10 (if not more) years ago, using an Asus Rog Crosshair 3 motherboard.
Probably will stick with an Asus board though.

Jack

 

[Morbad]

AMD5 has at least one new architecture release left in it. Zen 5/Ryzen 8000 parts, along with AMD's 700 series chipsets will likely show up around Q2 of next year. Zen 5 is rumored to be a fair jump over Zen 4 and the 700 series chipsets should have USB4. I'm on the fence myself as to whether it's worth waiting, but I have other fairly recent systems, so I can easily afford to wait.

As for ASUS, I'm really not keen on their AM5 lineup. Their higher-end boards are fine, but I think high-end boards in general are wasted on AM5 (the CPUs cannot pull enough current to justify the ridiculously overbuilt power delivery that has to exist on a high-end board to be competitive with other boards in the segment). Their more budget oriented boards are among the worst for the money and I don't think I'd recommend them over ASRock, MSI, or Gigabyte.