14700KF build advice

[krooton]

I am helping a friend spec out a new pc, and just wanted to sense-check my suggestions in case I am over-speccing.

Firstly, he is dead set on the 14700KF, no ifs, buts, or AM5s.
He already has a 4070ti and HDDs, so it is just the rest.
He will not be overclocking or any tinkering as he isn't that way inclined.

My spec:

14700KF - £400
Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £270
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE - £47
Corsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 - £200
Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 80 Plus Gold 1200W - £160
Fractal Design Meshify C - £95

Total of £1,172

Any miss-steps, better alternatives, or places to save some dollah?

 

[Tetras]

Corsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 - £200

EXPO is meant for AMD AM5 so I'd get an XMP kit unless it is a bargain (which from the price, I don't think it is).

Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 80 Plus Gold 1200W - £160

I believe the A3 is inferior in build quality to the GF3 and 1200 is overkill for a 4070 Ti PC (850 would be fine).

Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £270

The Aorus Elite X is 14th gen compatible out of the box, this one is not, but it does have flashback so if he's fine with that then it doesn't matter.

 

[JollyJamma]

What Tetras said

 

[krooton]

Thanks!

 

[JollyJamma]

Thanks!

If your friend isn’t comfortable with doing a BIOS update via Flashback, I’m sure you can speak to OC Sales about doing one for you before they send it.

It’s not hard to do but it can be a bit fiddly in my experience as the motherboard has to pick up both the flash drive and file and commit to an update and the type of flash drive can make a difference.

 

[Tetras]

Here's an alternative if you really wanted to save:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x (unchanged) Intel Core i7-14700KF (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-00801) = £398.99
• 1 x MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-37M-MS) = £159.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK64GX5M2B5200C40 (SKU: MY-4DC-CS) = £170.00
• 1 x MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 UK PSU 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-00Y-MS) = £139.99
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £89.99

Total: £970.94 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

I usually wouldn't suggest B760 with a K, but you said he never plans to overclock and I assume this is only a gaming PC?

The RAM is a bit slow, but there's plenty of alternatives about.

The 216 has longer graphics clearance, which might be a problem with the Meshify C in the future (a 4070 Ti is unlikely to be an issue, though I think the Gamerock wouldn't fit).

Edit: just noticed there's no flashback on this board!

 

[krooton]

If your friend isn’t comfortable with doing a BIOS update via Flashback, I’m sure you can speak to OC Sales about doing one for you before they send it.

It’s not hard to do but it can be a bit fiddly in my experience as the motherboard has to pick up both the flash drive and file and commit to an update and the type of flash drive can make a difference.

I'm doing the build for him, and have updated my own B450 board to accept my 5700x, so should be fine, seems the X variant isn't really available much in the UK currently.

Any other sub-£300 DDR5 boards that are decent?

 

[krooton]

Here's an alternative if you really wanted to save:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x (unchanged) Intel Core i7-14700KF (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-00801) = £398.99
• 1 x MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-37M-MS) = £159.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK64GX5M2B5200C40 (SKU: MY-4DC-CS) = £170.00
• 1 x MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 UK PSU 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-00Y-MS) = £139.99
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £89.99

Total: £970.94 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

I usually wouldn't suggest B760 with a K, but you said he never plans to overclock and I assume this is only a gaming PC?

The RAM is a bit slow, but there's plenty of alternatives about.

The 216 has longer graphics clearance, which might be a problem with the Meshify C in the future (a 4070 Ti is unlikely to be an issue, though I think the Gamerock wouldn't fit).

Edit: just noticed there's no flashback on this board!

Thanks, gaming and coding, so he does a lot of compiling (hence the 64GB as he says he maxes out his current 32GB at times).

I'll let him know about the card clearance, and if a more compact case is more important for him (I have worked for the Meshify C before and loved it).

 

[JollyJamma]

Thanks, gaming and coding, so he does a lot of compiling (hence the 64GB as he says he maxes out his current 32GB at times).

I'll let him know about the card clearance, and if a more compact case is more important for him (I have worked for the Meshify C before and loved it).

Just a heads up, the 14700KF is going to be tough to cool so make sure you get a very good mount when installing the cooler (not too hard though but good) and don’t be surprised if you see fairly high temps.

You aren’t going to be running 60 degrees all core load - closer to 90 and maybe even higher.

 

[krooton]

Just a heads up, the 14700KF is going to be tough to cool so make sure you get a very good mount when installing the cooler (not too hard though but good) and don’t be surprised if you see fairly high temps.

You aren’t going to be running 60 degrees all core load - closer to 90 and maybe even higher.

Hmmm, the Peerless seems to perform close enough to the Dark Rock Pro (which is my preferred cooler), should we be looking at an AIO water cooler instead?

 

[Rroff]

Probably not particularly useful advice here but when I was researching it one thing I found stood out is that often mid-range Z790 boards are lacklustre for the price so in some ways a false economy, while the top end Z790 boards are often generous in what you get for the price (unless you are talking the £1000+ ones like the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme X...) and potentially the higher end B760 boards can offer more, depending on what is important to you (as mentioned above for things like overclocking with a 14th gen they aren't a good option), than a lower or some mid-spec Z790. Doesn't help much if you are on a strict budget or aren't going to use the features of a more expensive Z790 board though.

Quite a lot of the boards don't have a fully supporting BIOS out the box - so if you have one without the embedded graphics, as often the CPU PCIe lanes aren't supported without the right microcode update so you'll only get a display through the motherboard displayport with a CPU with embedded graphics, you'll likely need blind flashback functionality to put the latest BIOS on to get full compatibility. Or an older CPU to put in there temporarily to update.

The Dark Rock Pro 4 is adequate for the 14600 and 14700 but will struggle with the 14900 - will be the same story for many air-coolers - I went with one for aesthetics and because it is quiet under gaming workloads - without turning the case fans up or upgrading the stock cooler fans the 14700K(F) hits 100C and throttles back losing about 0.5-1% performance under extreme multi-threaded stress tests - in all but the most heavy weight real world uses though you'll see more like 60-70C.

 

[krooton]

Probably not particularly useful advice here but when I was researching it one thing I found stood out is that often mid-range Z790 boards are lacklustre for the price so in some ways a false economy, while the top end Z790 boards are often generous in what you get for the price (unless you are talking the £1000+ ones like the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme X...) and potentially the higher end B760 boards can offer more, depending on what is important to you (as mentioned above for things like overclocking with a 14th gen they aren't a good option), than a lower or some mid-spec Z790. Doesn't help much if you are on a strict budget or aren't going to use the features of a more expensive Z790 board though.

Quite a lot of the boards don't have a fully supporting BIOS out the box - so if you have one without the embedded graphics, as often the CPU PCIe lanes aren't supported without the right microcode update so you'll only get a display through the motherboard displayport with a CPU with embedded graphics, you'll likely need blind flashback functionality to put the latest BIOS on to get full compatibility. Or an older CPU to put in there temporarily to update.

The Dark Rock Pro 4 is adequate for the 14600 and 14700 but will struggle with the 14900 - will be the same story for many air-coolers - I went with one for aesthetics and because it is quiet under gaming workloads - without turning the case fans up or upgrading the stock cooler fans the 14700K(F) hits 100C and throttles back losing about 0.5-1% performance under extreme multi-threaded stress tests - in all but the most heavy weight real world uses though you'll see more like 60-70C.

Actually I did have the Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WIFI on my shortlist as well, same price as the Aorus

 

[mickyflinn]

Hmmm, the Peerless seems to perform close enough to the Dark Rock Pro (which is my preferred cooler), should we be looking at an AIO water cooler instead?

The 14700k can draw 280w fully stressed so if it was me I would be buying a 360mm aio .

Spend the extra £20 for the k version CPU as the igpu can be so useful for minimal cost.

 

[los]

Hmmm, the Peerless seems to perform close enough to the Dark Rock Pro (which is my preferred cooler), should we be looking at an AIO water cooler instead?

Depends what you prefer, as you're not overclocking a decent air cooler or AIO won't really make much difference. I'd go for what you prefer the look of tbh. The main advantage of air is that you don't have to worry about leaks or pump failure.

 

[los]

Oh and like Mickyflinn said, I'd go for the k over the kf for £20 the igpu can be handy if you have to fault find

 

[krooton]

Yeah, I think going with the Lancool 216 (great case for the price!) with a AC 360 AIO (only £20 more than the Dark Rock Pro when you factor in not needing additional case fans for exhausts, might be the best option.

Intel Core i7-14700K (Raptor Lake-S) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail	£419.99​
Arctic Liquid Freezer II High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 360mm	£120.00​
Asus ROG Strix B760-F Gaming WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard	£239.99​
Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz	£169.99​
Seasonic Focus GX-1000 1000W 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply	£160.00​
Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black	£89.99​
	£1,199.96​