That motherboard’s M.2 slot has its own heatsink, so you shouldn’t buy an M.2 SSD with a heatsink if you plan on installing it in that slot. Instead, get the model without one: https://www.newegg.com/western-digital-2tb-black-sn850x-nvme/p/N82E16820250247?item=N82E16820250247
I actually bought the exact same one you have listed and ended up having to pry the heatsink off. My fingers were very sore afterwards.
Oof, I didn't realize. Thanks for the heads-up!! That sounds painful, and probably pretty nerve racking!
Looks pretty solid! I'm a fan of the air cooler, I've built with both and after having the pump fail suddenly on my AIO I won't use anything other than air.
One thing to double check would be RAM clearance for your CPU cooler vs the height of your RAM. Idk if pcpartpicker checks that and it would suck to get into your build and have it not fit correctly.
The DIMMs were touted as being low profile for compatibility with a bunch of air coolers, I'll have to double check to make sure this pairing works though.
Why the Micro ATX motherboard?
I think your case will fit a full sized ATX motherboard.
In my experience, Micro is more expensive. You're paying for compactness. Plus a full size could give you more RAM and PCI slots, for future expansion.
I don't really see myself doing much upgrading, haven't changed anything in my current setup since I got it. The four DIMMs should be enough, and I can't think of any PCI devices that I would want to add in. That and looking at their other offerings yields a bunch of nausea inducing RGB and jumps way up in price. I'm not dead set on this mobo, I was looking at recommendations for manufacturers and it seemed the consensus was that ASRock was a decent pick. If there's a different option that makes more sense then I'll pivot. My current setup is a Gigabyte that has some pretty bad issues, I can't even get into the BIOS anymore.
From your mention of preferring to give AMD your money over Nvidia, I'm going to guess you've got pro-consumer principles so I don't recommend ASRock. Check this out for further details.
Very informative, thank you for sharing!
I feel like my proposed build is objectively worse. Looking for people to tell me I'm doing the right thing lol.