What RAM/MOBO/PSU for 14600k?

[Razor-BladE]

Hi,

I have just bought a 14600k for a decent price for my brother's build, so looking to pick up the rest of the components.
I just need help with the RAM, motherboard, PSU and CPU cooler as I will use his old GPU for the time being, and I know which NVMEs/case, etc to get.

I did have a thread ages before but I didn't end up looking to buy at that time and now not looking for a full build so probably better with a new thread. But thank you if you replied to me before, and sorry for not responding!

MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIF DDR5 ATX at £150 seems to be the cheapest decent DDR5 ATX board I can see. Is there anything better around that price?
I see there is the MSI MAG Tomahawk for £185, or a Asus ROG STRIX at about £200-210. Are they worth the extra? I won't be overclocking or anything.

RAM - My brother has started to dabble with animation and rendering so thinking about going with 64GB (2x32GB) RAM to give a little headroom, and should he need to in future can add another 64GB easily.
How much do speeds matter for Intel? I can get some Corsair Vengence XMP 5600MHz CL40 for £175, or 6400MHz CL32 for £225. If there's only a little difference, he'll probably just go for the 5600MHz set.
Or if there's something better for the same price, please let me know!

PSU - I'm not sure who are good nowadays? I've always gone with Corsair as they are reasonably priced and they get good reviews, and I've never had a problem with them.
My brother may buy a 3060/4060 in the future so not sure how powerful a PSU he'll need? Are Cooler Master PSUs any good?

CPU Cooler - I know these chips are pretty power hungry, but how high a performance cooler do I need? I've always gone with air cooling as I get worried if an AIO cooler leaks?

Thanks all.

 

[Tetras]

MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIF DDR5 ATX at £150 seems to be the cheapest decent DDR5 ATX board I can see. Is there anything better around that price?
I see there is the MSI MAG Tomahawk for £185, or a Asus ROG STRIX at about £200-210. Are they worth the extra? I won't be overclocking or anything.

The major disadvantage of that board is only 2 m.2 slots, while the Tomahawk has 3. It also has mostly USB 2.0 ports, whereas the Tomahawk has a few more USB 3. The Strix boards usually have decent audio and plenty of USB ports, though you didn't say what model it was.

Are they worth the extra?

What features does your brother need or is likely to want in the future? Personally, I don't think I'd pay much more than £170-£180 for B760, since above that you might as well go Z790 and get 4x m.2 slots 'n such. Make sure the board has flashback, if it doesn't state BIOS support "out of the box" for 14th gen.

RAM - My brother has started to dabble with animation and rendering so thinking about going with 64GB (2x32GB) RAM to give a little headroom, and should he need to in future can add another 64GB easily.
How much do speeds matter for Intel? I can get some Corsair Vengence XMP 5600MHz CL40 for £175, or 6400MHz CL32 for £225. If there's only a little difference, he'll probably just go for the 5600MHz set.
Or if there's something better for the same price, please let me know!

This article might help:

CPU Rendering tends to care primarily for cores, core frequency, and instructions per clock cycle; in other words, it really only cares about the CPU. We see, then, that memory frequency has no significant effect on rendering performance: the largest difference is for AMD platforms in V-Ray, a mere 3% total performance difference, which is even then hardly beyond run-to-run variance. The Blender benchmark shows even less performance gain with memory, while the Cinebench R23 benchmarks are all within the margin of error.

Impact of DDR5 Speed on Content Creation Performance (2023 update)

DDR5 memory has kits rated for up to 8400 Mbps, while desktop CPUs only officially support up to 5600 Mbps. How much does running at official specifications actually impact performance in common content creation applications?

www.pugetsystems.com

I'd also keep in mind that if he plans to stack the board with RAM, the speed is pretty much irrelevant, since you almost certainly (unless there's some kind of miraculous bios update or improvement in the silicon) won't get 128GB-256GB working at high speeds.

My brother may buy a 3060/4060 in the future so not sure how powerful a PSU he'll need?

14600K and a 3060 or 4060, I'd get at least 550, but since the price difference is usually pretty small between a decent 550 and 750 (or even 850) it doesn't make sense to limit your upgrade options. I'd look at the Seasonic GX-750 or Corsair RMx 750 for £110.

Are Cooler Master PSUs any good?

Most PSUs are made by a few OEMs, so we need the model number/name to know.

CPU Cooler - I know these chips are pretty power hungry, but how high a performance cooler do I need? I've always gone with air cooling as I get worried if an AIO cooler leaks?

Peerless assassin (or equivalent) is fine for the 14600K.

 

[JollyJamma]

RAM - My brother has started to dabble with animation and rendering so thinking about going with 64GB (2x32GB) RAM to give a little headroom, and should he need to in future can add another 64GB easily.

No, you can’t just add another 2 DDR5 DIMM modules of RAM easily.

It’s a long story but using 4 DDR5 DIMM modules isn’t very stable and the speed will drop to stabilise the system.

Stick to 2 larger DIMMs (2 by 48gig for example) if you want to upgrade in the future.

 

[Razor-BladE]

The major disadvantage of that board is only 2 m.2 slots, while the Tomahawk has 3. It also has mostly USB 2.0 ports, whereas the Tomahawk has a few more USB 3. The Strix boards usually have decent audio and plenty of USB ports, though you didn't say what model it was.


What features does your brother need or is likely to want in the future? Personally, I don't think I'd pay much more than £170-£180 for B760, since above that you might as well go Z790 and get 4x m.2 slots 'n such. Make sure the board has flashback, if it doesn't state BIOS support "out of the box" for 14th gen.


This article might help:

Impact of DDR5 Speed on Content Creation Performance (2023 update)

DDR5 memory has kits rated for up to 8400 Mbps, while desktop CPUs only officially support up to 5600 Mbps. How much does running at official specifications actually impact performance in common content creation applications?

www.pugetsystems.com

I'd also keep in mind that if he plans to stack the board with RAM, the speed is pretty much irrelevant, since you almost certainly (unless there's some kind of miraculous bios update or improvement in the silicon) won't get 128GB-256GB working at high speeds.


14600K and a 3060 or 4060, I'd get at least 550, but since the price difference is usually pretty small between a decent 550 and 750 (or even 850) it doesn't make sense to limit your upgrade options. I'd look at the Seasonic GX-750 or Corsair RMx 750 for £110.


Most PSUs are made by a few OEMs, so we need the model number/name to know.


Peerless assassin (or equivalent) is fine for the 14600K.

Thanks for this information!

Ah I didn't even look at Z790 as I thought they were expensive, but yes looks like I can get boards for £180-190. Those extra M.2 slots alone makes it more worth it over the B760 boards I think, plus if they're generally better quality. Audio chip doesn't matter as he's running out to an audio interface anyway.

Any one better out of MSI Z790 PRO-P WIFI for £184, Gigabyte UD AX for £190, or MSI GAMING PLUS WIFI for £194?

I've gone for Corsair RM750x as I've pretty much only had Corsair PSUs and never had a problem (I've jinxed it now )

Peerless assassin looks good, looks like the Alpenfohn Brocken 4 for less than half the price! I did see there's also a Phantom Spirit, which looks identical other than having an extra heatpipe, so for the same price I will go for that?

No, you can’t just add another 2 DDR5 DIMM modules of RAM easily.

It’s a long story but using 4 DDR5 DIMM modules isn’t very stable and the speed will drop to stabilise the system.

Stick to 2 larger DIMMs (2 by 48gig for example) if you want to upgrade in the future.

Ah ok, thanks for letting me know. We'll still go with 64GB for the time being as the price difference for the extra isn't worth it now, and hopefully he won't need to upgrade too soon!

---------------------


So the final build is looking like this:

Intel i5 14600k
Thermalright PA/PS120 SE
Z790 board
Corsair Vengence 64GB 5600MHz CL40 XMP
Corsair RM750x
Corsair 4000D Case
WD 850x 1TB
WD 770 2TB
And his old GPU for the moment, can't remember what it is.

Coming in at about £1000 is pretty good
I don't think I'll have any issues with CPU cooler clearance for either RAM or case?

 

[mickyflinn]

Thanks for this information!

Ah I didn't even look at Z790 as I thought they were expensive, but yes looks like I can get boards for £180-190. Those extra M.2 slots alone makes it more worth it over the B760 boards I think, plus if they're generally better quality. Audio chip doesn't matter as he's running out to an audio interface anyway.

Any one better out of MSI Z790 PRO-P WIFI for £184, Gigabyte UD AX for £190, or MSI GAMING PLUS WIFI for £194?

I've gone for Corsair RM750x as I've pretty much only had Corsair PSUs and never had a problem (I've jinxed it now )

Peerless assassin looks good, looks like the Alpenfohn Brocken 4 for less than half the price! I did see there's also a Phantom Spirit, which looks identical other than having an extra heatpipe, so for the same price I will go for that?


Ah ok, thanks for letting me know. We'll still go with 64GB for the time being as the price difference for the extra isn't worth it now, and hopefully he won't need to upgrade too soon!

---------------------


So the final build is looking like this:

Intel i5 14600k
Thermalright PA/PS120 SE
Z790 board
Corsair Vengence 64GB 5600MHz CL40 XMP
Corsair RM750x
Corsair 4000D Case
WD 850x 1TB
WD 770 2TB
And his old GPU for the moment, can't remember what it is.

Coming in at about £1000 is pretty good
I don't think I'll have any issues with CPU cooler clearance for either RAM or case?

No clearance issues I see.


Personally would get 32gb of 6000mhz c30 something like the

ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 but will only give a few FPS more.​

The MSI pro gaming has 4 x m2 heatsinks where the pro p only has one.

 

[Razor-BladE]

No clearance issues I see.


Personally would get 32gb of 6000mhz c30 something like the

ADATA XPG Lancer Blade 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 but will only give a few FPS more.​

The MSI pro gaming has 4 x m2 heatsinks where the pro p only has one.

Thanks. Already bought the Corsair RAM which arrived today, along with case and PSU. Getting the CPU tomorrow.

Just need to buy NVMEs, motherboard and cooler now.

Pro Gaming looks to be more expensive but you make a good point about the heatsinks. The Gaming Plus has heatsinks for all of them so I will opt for that one. It's not even my build but getting excited for it