What do you need the PC for? Why 2x16gb ram? Is it intentional that there is no graphics card?
At the moment it doesn't make much sense to invest so much money in an outdated mainboard, only to run an equally old and relatively expensive 4-core CPU on it. 6 or 8 cores are the current standard.
You can get the 8700 for 335. It's certainly a good deal better than the 7700k, and even more efficient.
Thermal compound is OK.
For an i7, you should rather go for the Dark Rock 4 (Pro).
I assume it won't be a gaming box because of the lack of a graphics card?
Is an SSD included with the hard drives? for Windows, etc...?
Hello
https://ark.intel.com/products...
If you look here under PCIe Lanes, it says that this CPU only has 16 lanes. This means that the CPU supports max 1 graka to x16 or 2 to x8. Unfortunately the lowest Intel specifies is 1 graka to x8 and 2 x4 SSDs, which means that this board or CPU does not support SLI (needs at least x8 on both graka) and additionally PCIe SSDs.
If you want to create such a load, I would rather recommend the 2011v3 boards with a 6800K.
Kind regards
You are not exactly comparing apples and oranges here, but you are symbolically comparing 1/3 of an apple with a whole apple that has also been polished to a high gloss.
Read the description! AsRock has packed everything possible onto the board, which is a high-end board that supports both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards!
The cheap MSI board, on the other hand, only supports AMD graphics cards and is otherwise stripped down to the bone...