Question Opinion on these Z790 motherboards?

[vacip]

I'm shopping for a MOBO for an i7 13700k.


I have narrowed it down, if I missed something, please let me know.

• I want it to live long, so a maker with good track record: Asus, Gigabyte, Asrock, MSI.
• Asus and Gigabyte include aggressive bloatware in the form of Ring -1 (below Kernel) level installers, practically a rootkit - they are out
• Intel LAN chipsets have a seemingly hardware level issue:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/i...a-workaround-for-now#xenforo-comments-3799150
So I need a board with non-intel LAN driver.

• I need optical audio out (SPDIF)
• I want DDR5 and PCIE 5.0.

This leaves me with 5 possible choices (local price in brackets):

Asrock LiveMixer (299 USD)
Asrock Steel Legend Wifi (322 USD)
Asrock Taichi (or Taichi Carrara) (570 USD)
MSI Z790-S01 - I love the simplicity, but it doesn't seem to be buyable anywhere. I guess OEM only board?
MSI MEG Godlike (1400 USD) - LMAO at that price, no thanks.

Which one would you get?
LiveMixer looks really good with the plethora of connectivity, except for sub-par VRM cooling. Any experience wit this+i7 13700k?

Also, did I miss something?

Thank you!

 

[adrifoxbg]

probably Asrok Taichi
MSI MEG Godlike is a good but very expensive product
Personally, I use Asus ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO