Hello guys, I just upgraded my PC and bought an i7-14700k paired with the MSI PRO Z790 - S WiFi motherboard.
Not the best combination. 14700K is highly demanding on the CPU VRM of the motherboard, it's easily as power-hungry as a 13900K, sometimes even more, see
here.
See
here where i explain why this board is no good.
Here i explain more how the board makers always try to save money on the VRM components whenever possible.
This is the lowest-end board model of all the Z-series boards, and they have really gone too far with the costdown measures there (even for Z690 they didn't have such a low-end model yet). It's using discrete MOSFETS for the VRM, this is not the right solution anymore with the insanely high power draw of a 14700K/14900K. Under full load, this VRM cannot handle it properly (it has high switching losses, so at such high power draw the resulting heat in the VRM becomes too much and you can have VRM-induced thermal throttling). That's apart from your CPU cooling, which can of course also be a huge issue with this CPU model. But the VRM made up of such cheap components will also complain with this CPU.
Then the fact that they left out the absolutely crucial EZ Debug LEDs and Flash BIOS Button, and use the weird WiFi solution with the antenna bracket. If we then consider that the MSI PRO Z790-
P WIFI, which does all three things better already, costs maybe ~10 EUR/USD more, this PRO Z790-S model should have never even made it onto the market. The PRO Z790-S is like selling a car model without windscreen wipers, just to hit an even lower price point, it makes no sense to buy it. And on this board, you can't add the features later. The minimum for a 14th gen CPU is a board that has a Flash BIOS Button so you can update the BIOS without a hassle, and that's ideally using powerstages for the CPU VRM, so that would be the Z790-
P WIFI.
