Best gaming motherboards

Easy install, works like a dream with super fast speeds.

Samuel Willetts. Published: Jan 23, As the central component of your gaming PC, getting this choice right is very important. Do you plan to overlock? How many USB ports do you need?

Best gaming motherboards

The list in brief AMD 1. Best BE Motherboard 2. Best XE Motherboard 3. Best High-End Z Motherboard 2. Best Budget Z Motherboard. Nearly everything in your PC plugs into your motherboard, or plugs into to something that plugs into your motherboard. And the socket and chipset determine which processors you can install in your CPU socket. But if you're after an older AM4 board, you can check out our dedicated pages for the best X motherboards and best B motherboards for more specific tested recommendations and picks. Just note that stock of those boards is becoming harder to find, and we won't be updating those pages now that AM4 is mostly a legacy platform. Best BE. But it's also equipped much like a high-end board, with four PCIe 5. It also performed as expected in our testing and benchmarks. Best XE. And our benchmark testing showed there's nothing to worry about when it comes to performance or overclocking.

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Best Intel Z 2. Best Intel Z 3. Best Intel B 4. Best AMD X 5. Best AMD B 6. Best AMD X 7.

With these releases, come a slew of new motherboard choices. How good is the build quality and design? How good is the performance offered? Each motherboard brings with it a nuanced experience: from opening the box, to holding it in your hands, to updating drivers, and to finally using it for gaming. Other standout features include Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E, 2. The motherboard is also very well-built and feels substantial in the hands, with a weighty heft.

Best gaming motherboards

Your choice of motherboard should never be an afterthought. Sure, your graphics card and CPU are easier to get excited about, since they're the components that are most closely associated with all the in-game settings you'll get to dial up and just how fast you'll be running your games. But, your motherboard choice goes well beyond determining your CPU compatibility, and it has a lot more to do with the all the different capabilities your gaming PC will ultimately have. Most mainstream motherboards will let you go with your choice of graphics cards, but your choice of motherboard will figure out just what other expansion cards you can get. Especially as PCIe 4. Plus, the ability to get plenty of bandwidth through numerous PCIe lanes will come down to your motherboard and its chipset. It also plays into how much overclocking you can do, what RAM speeds you can enable, and how many different storage devices you can attach — just because a motherboard has eight SATA ports and two M. With these things in mind, it's worth considering your motherboard carefully before getting too excited about all the impressive abilities your PC will have based on just its CPU and GPU.

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The Sonic branding is everywhere. Nearly everything in your PC plugs into your motherboard, or plugs into to something that plugs into your motherboard. It offers a smart feature set and then there's the genuine bonus of Ryzen series support. Find out how we test. If not, you can always opt for one of the best PC speakers that feature a built-in DACand avoid the board's internal audio entirely. If you make up a checklist of what you want from a motherboard, the MSI Z Tomahawk should have most of what you need. Jump To: Quick List 1. Though again, there really are limited returns. Power delivery, IO, great blackout look with no rbg, gold leaf inlay. Part of the reason XE boards cost a lot is because of the high-quality signalling required for both PCIe 5. These add a bit of flexibility for non-gaming purposes. Best gaming laptops Best gaming keyboards Best gaming mouse Best gaming motherboards Best graphics cards Best gaming monitors. Who knows if a distant RTX or similar will benefit or not?

Best Intel Z 2.

Curated by. Best Budget Z Motherboard. It's well equipped, with three M. The primary slot's cooling is relatively small compared to some of the chunky M. Worth the buy. And it's a great performer, too, delivering system and gaming performance easily on par with the far more expensive boards we've also tested. Social Links Navigation. The ASRock board falls down a bit when it comes to audio, but few users would notice a difference. No issues so far. The major ding here is the use of a basic audio codec, which will still be fine for a lot of users. Best Midrange XE. Im a sucker for cool rgb lights. I wish for x they used better chipset heatsinks early on. Reasons to avoid - Lack of integrated RGBs may be a turnoff.