There is a wide range of boards in this range starting at around $150 Z390-P going upto over $300 for the Maximus Hero.  If I am not planning to OC and not using SLI/crossfire is there any need to get more than the basic model?

What CPU the Z390 has be superseded by the Z490. the 390 has no upgrade path going forward. 

Thanks for the advice!  Most likely the Intel Core i9 9900K

Edited August 11, 20205 yr by NG_Aviator

Wouldn't you need an LGA1200 cpu (10th gen/ 11th gen) for a Z490 board?  I think the 9900K can only work on Z390 LGA1151 socket.  I don't see that Z490 brings anything for flight sim so not sure I see the value proposition.  I get maybe the "future-proof" concept but that's kind of theoretical.  I guess maybe you get higher memory speed on a Z490.

 

scott s.

.

 

Stephen, it really is down to what you need on your Motherboard.

- Do you need Wi-Fi included ?

- Do you need Bluetooth ?

- Do you need support for 4266-4800 MHz RAM (which suppose overclocking) ?

- How many USB ports of each type do you need at the back ?

- Do you want the ROG SupremeFX audio instead of the Realtek audio ?

 

For myself, I did not need any of this but wanted at least 2 USB 2.0 ports in the back, so I went for the Asus Prime Z390-A with a i7 9700K and 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM (9900K was too expensive at the time for me). I overclock my CPU slightly to 4.9 GHz but would have chosen this motherboard even without overclocking in mind. I am satisfied with the board.

If your are looking for a 9th generation intel CPU, then you need a Z390 motherboard. 

Best regards,

Next month Intel announce the next product line which  is suspected to include PCIE 4 support on the LGA 1200 chipset, this may just req a bios update.

Great advice Normand, I will carefully check the specs and see what I really need.  On board wifi would be handy, I don't need half of the other things

Here are my final specs, I decided to go for Z490 in the end with 10700k

 

i7 10700K, S 1200, Comet Lake, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3.8GHz

ASUS TUF GAMING Z490-PLUS (Wi-Fi), Intel Z490, S 1200, DDR4, SATA3, Dual M.2, CrossFire, ax WiFi/GbE, USB 3.2 Gen2, ATX

32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, PC4-28800 (3600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 18-22-22-42, 1.35V

500GB WD Blue 3D, 2.5" SSD, SATA III - 6Gb/s, 3D NAND, Read 560MB/s, Write 530MB/s, 95k/84k IOPS, Retail

Noctua NH-D15 Dual Radiator Quiet CPU Cooler with two NH-A15 Fans

 

I was very confused about the different types of RAM available.  I hope I chose correctly DDR4 3600 CAS 18?

Edited October 21, 20205 yr by NG_Aviator
Typo

This looks like a good build Stephen. Your choice of RAM is good, 3600 CL18 gives you a latency of 10 ns (2000*18/3600 = 10 ns), which is good. One can always get faster RAM (latency of 8 or 9 ns) but I never found it worth the extra money.

My current RAM is a bit slower than yours (Corsair DDR-4 Vengeance LPX 3200 CL16) but being CL16, it also gives me a 10 ns latency (2000*16/3200 = 10 ns). That's what I look for when buying RAM.

Don't forget to go in your BIOS and activate XMP profile so that your RAM runs at 3600 and not at the BIOS's default of 2666 or 2933.