Honestly, I've been down this rabbit hole more times than I care to admit. Back in the day, you really had to sweat the VRM count because boards would literally pop under a heavy load, but now? Most mid-to-high end Z790s are built like tanks. I ran into that exact coil whine issue with a build last year using a Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master DDR5 and it drove me absolutely nuts. Sounds like a tiny electric cricket inside your head whenever the CPU loads up. I eventually swapped it for the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero WiFi and the difference isn't just the hardware, it's the BIOS maturity. In my experience, when you're pushing a 13700K and trying to find that perfect voltage curve, ASUS just has the most granular control. You aren't just paying for the name; you're paying for the engineers who write the microcode so your system doesnt crash every time you sneeze. Here is what actually matters for stability based on what I've seen over the years:

• PCB layers (8-layer is a must for high-speed DDR5 stability)
• BIOS update frequency (ASUS and MSI are usually the fastest)
• Physical Clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons on the rear IO I've tried many of these boards, and if you have the budget, the Hero is a solid choice, though the MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi is a serious sleeper hit that handles high voltages like a champ without the massive price premium. Just dont get caught up in the marketing... anything over 18 phases is basically overkill anyway.