1151 Budget Motherboard

[amk47]

Hi, I am building a Skylake based system (i5 6500) and i am confused in chipset selection. I am not planning to OC or SLI as i just want to spend most of my budget on a gpu.
Will B150 be enough or should I go for H170 or Z170 (non-SLI Boards)? Motherboards are quite pricey here.
Not going to need M.2 or sata express either. USB 3.1 (Gen2) is required though.

Thanks

 

[Gingerbread]

There are several manufacturers which each make several kinds of z170 boards, you sure there isn't even one of them, since its better in the long run. But since you are getting a 6500 which you will not be overclocking, if you have to pay more than $20-30 to jump from B150 to Z170 then you should just stick with the B150, it will do the job but main problem is that B150s either go with DDR3 ram or slow DDR4 (slower compare to the standards which should be around 2400-2800mhz).

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Hi, I am building a Skylake based system (i5 6500) and i am confused in chipset selection. I am not planning to OC or SLI as i just want to spend most of my budget on a gpu.
Will B150 be enough or should I go for H170 or Z170 (non-SLI Boards)? Motherboards are quite pricey here.
Not going to need M.2 or sata express either. USB 3.1 (Gen2) is required though.

Thanks

If you link to a local site where you might buy from, we can suggest the best choice in your market.

 

[amk47]

If you link to a local site where you might buy from, we can suggest the best choice in your market.

There are multiple sites but following are the boards with the prices

Gigabyte B150M-D3H ($85)
Gigabyte G1.Sniper B7 Intel B150 ($110)
Gigabyte H170-HD3 (~$140)
Gigabyte H170 Gaming 3 ($140)
Gigabyte Z170-HD3 ($150)
MSI Z170A-PC Mate ($150)
ASUS Z170-K ($160)
Gigabyte Z170XP Sli ($180)
Gigabyte Z170XP Gaming 3 ($200)
ASUS Z170-A ($200)

ASROCK Motherboards are not available.
Stretching my budget a bit is not an issue but i dont want to pay for the features that im not gonna use.

 

[Gingerbread]

Well the 2 lowest budget MOBOs don't have your usb 3.1 requirement (the b150m and b7 sniper). So your other options are 2 H170s or 2 Z170s. Z170s provide better multigpu performance (in case you want to go sli) and you can overclock, while on the h170 you can't overclock, but since your CPU is locked it doesn't matter. What is however important is that H170 doesn't support faster than 2133mhz ram, while the z170 does support up to 3200 or something. In your case it's a $10 difference, you might never use those options but for $10 you might as well get it.

 

[amk47]

If I go for a B150 board, will 8 PCIe lanes be enough for a gtx 980??

 

[Gingerbread]

Even the worst mobo you have has a PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 so yeah it will be enough.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Any board will run a GTX 980 and will run your CPU well. so the difference is in the maximum memory speed, USB 3.1 availability, and any other features important to you.