16 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

Thanks all for the advice! I think it's pretty clear to me: I'll go with the Fatality one as it's currently on sale at Newegg. it's even cheaper than the Extreme4 :)

I'm actually glad this came up, I'd been wondering about it too. Intel describes on the i5-8600k product page that you should use 2666, yet I see many people go over that. What exactly is the benefit of faster RAM? Is it really going to make a noticeable difference?

 

No, it's not that you SHOULD use 2666. That's just the JADEC frequency. The memory standard. The RAM you will buy (unless you buy 2666) will default to that initially, but when you set XMP it will overclock to the degree the manufacturer of the RAM deems it's capable of. 

 

Coffee Lake can handle quite fast RAM. I have 3200 MHz, but 3400 MHz is an option too. It will go much higher than that, but would probably require tweaking in the BIOS in regard to timings to get stable. 

Thanks for the advice on the RAM! yet another thing cleared up. I might opt for the 3200MHz then, as it seems like it's worth the fairly marginal extra cash investment. In the meantime I ordered the Fatality Taichi K6, so thanks for all the testimonials regarding the ASRock boards! Getting ever closer to actually building this thing :)