Question I have 3 motherboards to choose from which is best for me?

[LXphilosopher]

Hello and good day to everyone.

I'm building a new gaming PC after nearly 10 years. I am going for an i7 13700k, with liquid cooling (Arctic liquid freezer II 240 already purchased). I have looked at many reviews and the deals currently available and I have narrowed down my choices to the ASUS Z790 rog Strix-F, ASRock Z790 taichi lite, and the MSI mpg Z790 carbon (they are all priced in the 350 to 380 price range).

I'm not too fussed about looks. I intend to go for a nvida 4070 card (undecided on the variant, so recommendations are welcome).

In regards to memory I've bought the WD BLACK SN850X 2TB M.2 2280. And the ram I'm looking at is the G.Skill trident Z5 rgb 2x16gb.

I want a motherboard that makes overclooking safe and simple. I'm not intending to overclock to the limit, stability and reliability are more important.

 

[Lafong]

Do all 3 have identical features?

That's highly unlikely.

What "must have" or "like to have" features does each one lack?

NVMe ports? System fan connections? USB ports? Monitor ports? Audio codec? NIC supplier?

The "best" one is probably the one that does not give you headaches or fail outright over the next few years.....not very likely you can predict that.

 

[LXphilosopher]

I having trouble weighing it up. I like the taichi and the Strix, but they both have features the others don't have. By rights the Asus strix has the higher spec, but the taichi is just ridiculously good for its class I can't make up my mind! Given the 6 pounds price difference I'm struggling to make a decision.

 

[LolaGT]

As long as they are refresh boards since and for 14th gen you probably can't go wrong. Most if not all have been refined nicely since the first round of Z790 boards.
Like any solid state electronics, if any of them make it past a year, they will probably live forever with a clean power supply.