I usually build a new flight sim computer every four to five years. My last build was about five years ago, so I am researching components to build, considering my age, probably my last computer. I have budgeted $2500 for the system, not counting the nonexistent graphics card. I have a RTX 2070S that I will use until someone who has less money than Jeff Bezos can afford to buy a 3000 series GPU.

I am leaning toward the i9 10900KF CPU. However, all of the motherboard choices are rather confusing. I know that I should get a Z490 chipset. I have looked at the Asus ROG Maximus or a Strix because I have used Asus in the past and have had good luck with them.  However, I would consider other brands. The prices of motherboards run from two to three hundreds to over a thousand, all with the Z490 chipset. So, why the large price variance? What should I look for in a motherboard?

I do know that I want an M2 slot, and for the mother board to have some sort of intelligent overclocking. My current system is overclocked to 5 Ghz and that seems like a sweet spot for the flight sims. I am also looking for as many usb ports as possible. I am using a cockpit with six different controllers plus a HP Reverb G2 VR headset.

I plan on using water cooling and a 850 to 1000 Watt power supply.

Thanks,

John

16 minutes ago, jmig said:

However, all of the motherboard choices are rather confusing.

One factor to pay attention to is I/O ports.  Likely some changes in I/O technology since  your last build and then this system needs to look off into the future. Even if a port type such as Thunderbolt and others are not yet in wide use you may want to study up on them and factor in any you feel are important for your current and evolving system.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/port-and-adapter-guide

I'm in the same boat as you looking to build "this year" and not sure if I wait for the nextgen intels in a few months or not, plus I definitely need a GPU, so I might as well wait.  One thing that I was looking at was whether MB support for PCIe4 vs just PCIe3 is important.  From all the benchmarks I read, it seems to only increase a few percent and only with nVidia RTX 30xx series, BUT that may change as newer motherboards implement better support and drivers evolve. On paper, it should make a huge difference since 4 is twice the bandwidth of 3.  I *think* all Z490 chipset boards support PCIe4, but you might want to add that to your list of "nice to haves".

11 hours ago, Gridley said:

I'm in the same boat as you looking to build "this year" and not sure if I wait for the nextgen intels in a few months or not, plus I definitely need a GPU, so I might as well wait.  One thing that I was looking at was whether MB support for PCIe4 vs just PCIe3 is important.  From all the benchmarks I read, it seems to only increase a few percent and only with nVidia RTX 30xx series, BUT that may change as newer motherboards implement better support and drivers evolve. On paper, it should make a huge difference since 4 is twice the bandwidth of 3.  I *think* all Z490 chipset boards support PCIe4, but you might want to add that to your list of "nice to haves".

PCIe 4.0 on Z490 chipsets is confusing. I am not sure whether motherboards with this chipset support PCIe 4.0, but at least the 10th generation Intel CPU's do not so you'll need a 11th generation cpu (e.g. 11900k) to be able to use it, and then a Z590 chipset is more logical.