A question about PC Motherboard replacement

[spotanjo3]

Hello everyone. I hope you all are doing well. I am doing well.

My computer has motehrboard is; B660. Keep in mind that... Here:

Processor Model Number: 12700F

Should I replace it with this;

ASUS ROG Z690

or

MSI DDR4 ProSeries

Both are at different price range. ASUS verison is expensive but what about MSI ? I was told that ASUS is better.

And

My PC has Cooling system is: AIR.. Should I replaceit with Liquid cooler or Water cooler? Mine is 12700f if you want to know.

https://www.amazon.com/Liquid-Cooler/s?k=Liquid+Cooler

The negative about Water Cooler:

You also won't need to worry about water potentially leaking into your system! I dont know.

 

[FAST6191]

I tend to only replace motherboards when it is a laptop and the failure is not going to happen again in 2 months (bunch of ones some years ago where the cause of failure meant others were prone to it) or it is a specialist machine that runs something important (usually a piece of hardware a business relies upon), that or the replacement is £30 and a hour or so of my time (less than a new OS install).

You have mentioned no upgrade path either like you might be sticking with the CPU for now but in a few months get a fancier one. Not sure there is much fancier outside of ridiculous stuff as well.

Everything else I would consider a new RAM-CPU-mobo combo.

Your current board
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B660-GAMING-X-DDR4-rev-10#kf

4 RAM slots
PCIe 4.0 for graphics.

Bunch of USB including all the modern ones. Bunch of m.2.

Have not properly checked but no great failures of it known.

That is a beyond decent motherboard.

The ASUS ROG thing has PCIe 5.0 but very little uses it right now, nothing really in the consumer aspect either.
It is also DDR5 which means new RAM will be needed as 4 which you have now is not compatible.

The other is DDR4 so no new RAM, and has much the same specifications as the existing one other than being able to run slightly faster RAM by the looks of things and more of it (192 gigabytes as opposed to 128 with max 32 gig sticks). Your current one can also support ECC memory in non ECC mode which most won't care about unless you are buying old servers in a few years (they will use ECC and tend to be quite cheap). I suppose it too is technically PCIE5.0 and the other slots run in 4x mode as opposed to 1x mode if you have expansion cards that would benefit from that (it is not really dual graphics card territory, even if it does technically support crossfire, so you would want something special that you know needs it).

re water cooling do note there are two types. That being managed and unmanaged (other terms meaning the same thing)

Managed ones you top the water up and manage things, unmanaged/closed you buy a cooler and it handles everything, when it fails or springs a leak you then have to replace the lot. Water of either form can be a lot quieter than air and done right can carry a lot more heat away. Great for sound issues and overclocking, not much good if you don't care about either of them. Can be quite expensive as well.

This then seems like spending money for the sake of spending money. Why not buy a fancier graphics card or something?

 

[Armadillo]

Bigger question is why do you want to replace it?

You have non-k cpu, so no overclocking, so that benefit of z series is gone. B series have had memory overclocking unlocked since 11th gen, so you can do that on a b series anyway. Biggest limiter on 12/13th gen is locked vccsa on the non-k chips, z series won't get you round that either.

All that leaves is the better connectivity of the z series.


If it's just a new board because you have a bad b660, then

MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ProSeries

It's one of the best price/performance z690, consistently performs well in reviews and has good vrms, so will run mostly anything without throttling. It's also not much more or often the same price as a decent b660, so may as well take it for the extra connectivity z690 provides over b660.

Asus board. Other than the Asus tax & rgb tax, it's madness to pair a non-k with that board.

 

[spotanjo3]

Okay.. My computer is brand new and year of 2022.

Processor Model: Intel 12th Generation Core i7
Processor Model Number: 12700F
System Memory (RAM): 16GB
Type of Memory (RAM): DDR4
System Memory RAM Speed: 3200 Memory (megahertz)
System Memory RAM Expandable to: 128 gigabytes
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
Storage Type: 1TB NVMe SSD
Advanced Graphics Rendering Technique(s): DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), Ray tracing
Video Memory: 8000 megabytes
Motherboard Model Number: B660

 

[spotanjo3]

Anybody ?

 

[erikas]

Anybody ?

You haven't answered the question. Why do you want to replace it? Are you missing some features?

 

[linuxares]

You haven't answered the question. Why do you want to replace it? Are you missing some features?

This, there is almost never a reason to change your MB if it works.

 

[erikas]

This, there is almost never a reason to change your MB if it works.

I can think of reasons, like you want more pci express lanes if you want to run a lot of usb3 devices or you want more m.2 slots for something like a RAID0 setup, but OP did not give an impression that this is the case.

 

[spotanjo3]

You haven't answered the question. Why do you want to replace it? Are you missing some features?

Okay, if you say so... Not really but I am thinking of increase RAM to 32GB of RAM, is that possible?

Mine is 16GB of RAM

What about DDR4 ? Can I increase it ?

By the way, I would like to upgrade the 3070ti to 4080 or 3080ti according to this:

https://www.cgdirector.com/nvidia-graphics-cards-order-performance/

 

[FAST6191]

Your current board supports 128 gigabytes of DDR4. Some of the later ones such as your cheaper options support larger chips (the 128 in your current is made up of 32 gigabyte sticks if you went that way) and faster speeds of it. You could find a DDR5 supporting board, such as the expensive option you mentioned but what benefits that might bring are minimal.

For graphics cards then most should work just fine. The trouble there is usually in what power supply you have (the 4080 apparently having a 320W TDP which could stress some things that work on lesser stuff, though the 3070ti is 290W so maybe)..

As others above said though it might help for you to explain what you think your problem is and why you are looking at replacement motherboards. It is not something more people do one day just randomly, has very little impact on performance and you are already running a very high end machine. If you have misread a guide to building a PC or something then people here seem like they want to help there and stop you from wasting money on something that either does not need to be replaced or will cost a lot and not do anything for your performance or future upgrade options.

 

[subcon959]

Okay, if you say so... Not really but I am thinking of increase RAM to 32GB of RAM, is that possible?

Mine is 16GB of RAM

What about DDR4 ? Can I increase it ?

By the way, I would like to upgrade the 3070ti to 4080 or 3080ti according to this:

https://www.cgdirector.com/nvidia-graphics-cards-order-performance/

Replace your current RAM with 2x16GB sticks. Done.

3070ti to 3080ti is not worth the money IMO. The 4080 will be a big upgrade though. As above, make sure your PSU is good enough for the extra power spikes.

 

[spotanjo3]

Replace your current RAM with 2x16GB sticks. Done.

3070ti to 3080ti is not worth the money IMO. The 4080 will be a big upgrade though. As above, make sure your PSU is good enough for the extra power spikes.

What kind of ram should I buy ? I dont know which one.

 

[subcon959]

What kind of ram should I buy ? I dont know which one.

Ususally the official website for the motherboard will have a compatibility list for RAM, but you should be safe with something like this.