"At first you expect the headspreader on these to be too small, but they are very effective.
Teamgroup actually used quality thermal pads that are well placed plus good coverage on the PMIC.
I don't know what type of die these chips are, but they clock great!
I'm able to do 7000 m/Ts at 1.4vdimm bumped up from XMP(6400 34-44-44-88 at 1.35v).
I won't go into my other voltage settings, but please keep in mind that you may need to
do a bit of tuning across several different voltages depending on your CPU's memory controller and motherboard.
I've also tested 8000 m/Ts single rank sticks from Gskill, and I find
6400 dual rank to be very close in performance despite the speed difference.
Less than 1% difference in one game. I'd rather have more capacity than 8000m/Ts at the moment.
If 64gb or dual rank is important to you, then look no further. I find these the best 32gb modules as of March 2023."
Gigabyte motherboards lack 7.1 surround analog audio outputs.
Asus' Z790-P and nominally premium ROG Strix also both lack 7.1 analog outputs.
Asus recently own-goaled by AM5 motherboard overheating issues,
so MSI.
Don't need Wi-Fi, but may use BlueTooth
Z790-P has more back USB ports, but slower max DDR5 clock
Z790-P also has many more Internet reviews.
Alternative motherboards:
ASUS PRIME Z790-A WIFI: "AI cooling", Thunderbolt USB,
Gen 5 PCI graphics slot, but no Gen 5 NVMe.
MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi: good VRM and onboard cooling, no RGB, lacks Gen 5 NVMe
In theory a 2-slot DDR5 motherboard should clock faster,
but only Asus ROG Maximus offers 2 DDR5 slots in ATX.
Only $1100 Asus ROG Maximus, $490 EVGA Classified, $600 GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS TACHYON, $330MSI Z790 GAMING WIFI D5, $310 MAXSUN iCraft Z790 WiFi and NZXT
Z790 ATX motherboards offer both 7.1 analog audio and bottom 2 PCIe slots clearing air-cooled RTX 4090...
MSI Z790 GAMING WIFI motherboard IO shield has HDMI, but not displayport.
Somewhat out of date, but good comparison of Z690 vs Z790 and various vendors
An air-cooled RTX 4090 installed in PCIe slot near CPU leaves only bottom 2-3 possible ATX card slots uncovered.
Press DEL key during Power-On Self Test (POST) for BIOSTomahawk User Guide pg 54.
Initial boot took awhile, presumably feeling up fans, DDR5, CPU and other hardware.
Motherboard debug LEDs iterated, but too quickly for me to decode.
Changed boot priority: USB key, hard disk, CD/DVD, USB HD,...
EZ Storage reports only SATA... Advanced SETTINGS shows M2_1 WD_BLACK SN850
Clicking CPU under GAME BOOST started fans ramping up...unclicked!
3.5GHz CPU freq Reportedly, all BIOS settings will be saved in (F9)
and restored from (F8) so-called Overclocking Profiles.
Hardware Monitor in Advanced appears the same as in EZ.
booted MemTest86 from a USB key
4/4 with 0 errors; CPU cooler not warm; motherboard extrusion presumably over system chip much warmer than others (e.g.VRM).
That warmer extrusion will be under GPU, fins on it would be good, but could not be tall...
Rebooted to BIOS, set XMP, restarted MemTest86
...then rebooted BIOS to give hard drive priority for Windows 10 install
first boot should skip uninitialized M.2 NVMe and boot Windows 10 installation media USB key,
subsequently booting from M.2 initialized by Windows 10 install; eventually updating to Win 11
Press F11 during Power-On Self Test (POST) for Boot menu.
copy e.g. E7D91IMS.H50 to a USB flash key
M-FLASH declined to see 7D91vH7 on 4GB FAT32 USB key:
Volume in drive G is MSI BIOS
Volume Serial Number is 11AE-0CE9
Directory of G:\
07/10/2023 05:32 PM 33,554,432 E7D91IMS.H70
1 File(s) 33,554,432 bytes
0 Dir(s) 3,999,678,464 bytes free
... but updated with that same E7D91IMS.H70 on another USB key formatted for AOMEI BackUpper...
MSI Z690 flash BIOS updates are fussy about USB thumb drives!
Reset BIOS options to default: clear CMOS(page 22)
before M-FLASH or if/when PC fails to boot after M-FLASH.
A prompt to remove USB key after BIOS update would be nice, before rebooting...
I yanked out the USB key, to avoid booting AOMEI BackUpper.
replaced Dragon Center, supports e.g. MSI motherboards and Ai1000P.
Roughly MSI's alternative to Dell's prebuilt support software.
Nearly all MSI Center content on MSI's YouTube channel is laptop-specific. kilObit videoMSI Center fan control - Mike's unboxing
GPU Fan Tool - MSI HOW-TO MSI CPU Game Boost - video cooler tuning vs smart fan curve
Tuned DDR5-6000 may be nearly as fast as untuned DDR5-7200
DDR5-6000 CL30 tuned timings in the video from Hardware Unboxed are suspect; many are identical to those shown for tuned DDR5-7200; Hynex A die: Buildzoid DDR5-7200 CL34 overclock of 6000 CL36 with i5-13600K 53.6ns latency Hynex A die faster than M die; these are M die; E-cores turned off for stress testing
CPU IMC : DRAM Clock [1/2:1 (Gear 2)] memory frequency 7200 G2 (72x100.00x1.00) (54 x 1.33 may be more stable in some hardware)
CPU SA Voltage 1.200 [Override Mode] CPU VDDq and VDD2 to 1.400;
DRAM Voltage and DRAM VDDQ Voltage to 1.450
essential: RING PLL SFR Voltage 1.020, SA PLL SFR Voltage 1.020, MC PLL SFR Voltage 0.990, probably CPU PLL SFR Voltage 1.020
Start tweaking Voltages when cruncher VST crashes really quickly (15 seconds). Memory timings: Command Rate [2N], tCL 34 tRCD 44 tRCDW 16 tRP 44 tRAS 28 (= Intel minimum) tRFC2 333
subtimings tRCFCPB 222 tREFI 50000 tRRD 4 tRRD_L 8 tFAW 16 tCWL 24 tCKE 4
turn around timings tRDRDSG 14 tRDRDDG 8 tWRWRSG 12 tWRWRDG 8 tRDWRSG 20 tRDWRDG 20 TWRRDSG 64 tWRRDDG 48
Advanced Timing tWRPRE 48 tRDPRE 8 tXP 4 tPRPDEN 2 tRDPDEN 4 tWRPDEN 4
Late command training [Disabled], Round Trip Latency [Enabled] Latency Timing Setting [Dynamic Mode] (13 Gen latency training is stable, 12th Gen not)
badused PRO Z790-A motherboard - ordered MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi DDR5 (23% off, only $10 more)
FWIW, unlike many PC components, MSI motherboard product boxes are not sealed; their antistatic bags have a short sticky tape strip "seal".
Z790 Tomahawk received 11 Aug
i5 13600K received 12 Aug
second Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVMe ordered 19 Aug, received 21 Aug
Buildzoid DDR5-7200 CL34 overclock of 6000 CL36 with i5-13600K 53.6ns latency
