AsRock MB ASROCK | Z790M PG Lightning/D4 Motherboard

Why are the mATX boards so expensive? ATX Z790 boards are 50% less in some cases. Either way, this has the essentials for the platform: 4 DIMMs, 2 x16 PCIe slots and decent connectivity.

I have not had any problems with ASRock in the past, I can't say that with other boards. With this board, it's less than 24 hours old and I can't speak to the future but, I'm using m.2 gen 4 off the i7 and Cenebench rates it 1100+. I do videos so rendering and editing requires both a good system for editing and for rendering. What I look for is sufficient USB. Also, I like the m.2 on board support for wifi 6 and better. My ISP is a rural telephone cooperative and 6 isn't available. I paired it with an Intel based chip; and despite the ASRock documentation saying WiFi only, as of today 8.22.24 - it does Bluetooth as well. I have initially gotten good results/performance there too. I do like the Z760m version 8 hole size. And this is the /D4 version (DDR4). In the last decade or so, I have not observed more, faster memory to be the biggest boost. I find being I/O bound is. I find M.2 Gen 4 7200 a real value add. This Z790 allows the video card to remain in 16 but mode PCIe 4.0 and keep the M.2 at speed. It also allows a second M.2 to run off the Z790 chipset. I feel, jmho, it gives high end performance without being sold at high end price point. A B board is substantially less but you might trade off fewer USBs on the back plane (the built in I/O space) if you are using integrated video. It's maybe a better choice if you are on a budget and want a solid box of computation. But video rendering takes some CUDA cores. I'm not running a 40 series, and it renders a, something like 12 track (multiple channel project) with some of those layers turned off pretty well. Last night I tested a 32+ minute project render completed in 6+ minutes in FHD/30. It has 6 PWMs for case fans and water pumps (always verify amperage). Obviously you can go with defaults or custom contour). 4 RGB/ARGB 1 & 3 if I remember. Two USB Cs and a host of 2.0 and 3.0 USB. There are 2 old school 2.0 9 pin headers you can use for ARG vendor controllers or what I did, add 2 2x2 (a 4 USB 2.0 (white not blue) add-on rear of case) adapter. If you want more, it supports Thunderbolt and if you prefer, the PCIe2 slot "Hyper M.2 can accept anything from WiFi cards to multiport I/O cards. No, it will not do PCIe 5.0, NVMe 5.0 x4 and 5 total NVMe drives like the Tachi light (I spelled it wrong and no I am not looking it up); but, it's not an eATX. It's not even an ATX board. I paired it with an i7 12700K. In my 7+ year old Corsair case w/2 140mm high speed Thermaltake front fans and one old low speed/noise 120mm original - fixed speed rear fan w/a small cooler -- it does throttle a bit in Cenebrnch 24. That is to be expected - and it's not board related. There's a new BIOS update August 24. Some may not agree with going /D4 variant and sticking with the gen 4s, but I had 32 GB of new memory I didn't want to waste. I save that money for a 14th gen i9 when prices drop (IF I tame the heat off this I7). I believe you have to select products for your build's purpose. For gaming, you don't need as much CPU and system - most work is in the GPU building virtual worlds and landscapes. For video BBC work, you need some of both. If this ASRock lasts like the others have, I'll be well chuffed far into the future.

Excellent MB!! Just make sure you have the latest drivers especially the MEI("driver"and "firmware" ones) and INF files. The Asrock website ones are horribly out of date.

I have overclocked i3 12100f (by BCLK) up to 4500MHz... for now 'just' 200MHz more than CPU limit because weak cooling and limited DDR4 memory. So, this kind of overclocking is still unlocked on this mobo. I will update soon this info.

i7 9700からi5 13600KFへ換装するため買い替え。 140～150w程度に電力制限しての運用を想定しており、かつ安く抑えたかったのもありこちらを購入（アプデ等々面倒だったから790がほしかった）。 ちょうど買ったとき6000円オフだったから値段はギリ満足。 あとは…うーん、普通のマザボ！ｗ デザインも、特に良くも悪くもないし光るわけでもないし、その他不足してもないしで無難に使えます。