[SOLVED] Advice on choosing a motherboard ?

[shadidd]

Hello , I have bought and I5 11600k for my pc. Now I am confused for choosing the motherboard
I was going to go for any of this 2

or "MSI B560M Bazooka"
or "MSI B560M Pro

but then I watched a Vid from "hardware unboxed" and they bashed the whole of b560 mobas available. Are the really bad motherboards. and what are the alternatives around the same budget as moni is tight.

on the otherhand i was offered a
ASUS PRIME Intel H570M-PLUS PCIe 4.0 mATX Motherboard
is that a better motherboard

 

[Aeacus]

I5 11600k

The K-suffix on your CPU means that you can overclock your CPU. But in order to do that, you'll need Z-series MoBo. H- and B-series MoBos doesn't offer CPU OC.

Here's Intel 500 series chipset comparison for you as well,
link: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=196612,196613,196645

Once you've decided on chipset, then look which MoBo to get within that chipset.

 

[avg9956]

Intel motherboard chipset naming scheme
Q, B prefixes = Business. Some B chipsets are assimilated into gaming motherboards.
H = Affordable mainstream board
Z = Performance Series
X = Supports high end desktop CPUs. Tends to be focused on overclocking but not really a hard and fast rule

For your CPU I would have personally gone for the Z series motherboard in order to capitalize on the K-suffix for overclocking.
Higher end components would usually must go with other higher end components so as not to gimp their performance.
Z series motherboard are ideal for CPU overclocking because they usually have good VRMs that are able to support such, while Q, B and H usually don't have as good VRMs as Z class motherboards do.

*There are some small exceptions however on the AMD side of things (if you have chosen an AMD cpu instead) where even a B class motherboard can do decent CPU overclocks

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTM0EeRikFg


This is because any AMD CPU is not overclocked-restricted unlike Intel CPUs. All AMD Ryzen CPUs are overclockable.

However if you were in a budget in the first place and sticking with Intel, I would have gone for a lower tiered Intel CPU.

For your i5 11600k CPU, I can confirm it is supported for all 3 motherboards that you've mentioned:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/MAG-B560M-BAZOOKA#support-main-block-qvl

B560M PRO

PRO series motherboards, tuned for better performance by Core boost, DDR4 Boost, M.2 Shield Frozr, USB 3.2 Gen 1, Lightning Gen4, 2.5G LAN, Frozr AI Cooling

www.msi.com

PRIME H570M-PLUS｜Motherboards｜ASUS Global

Prime H570M-PLUS Intel® H570 (LGA 1200) micro ATX motherboard features PCIe 4.0, Two M.2 slots, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C®, Thunderbolt™ 4 header support and Intel® 1 Gb Ethernet. Prime H570M-PLUS caters to daily users and all builders looking for well-rounded specs and a range of options for...

www.asus.com

When it comes to choosing motherboards:

What form factor of motherboard will fit your case? (This is very important. Buying an ATX or even an E-ATX motherboard to try to fit it to a small case is a big no no).
*Realized that you haven't mentioned what case you're using or you plan to use for your new PC build.

Note how many PCI-E lanes you'll get since that affects how many devices you can connect without affecting each PCI-E device's performance.

Consider the quality of the VRMs, especially if you're into overclocking. Usually you'll get reviews about this in tech websites and channels where they review the power regulation of the motherboard in depth.

How many SATA ports do you need?

How many M.2 slots do you need for NVMe SSDs?

Is the BIOS of the motherboard easy to use and understand? (You can youtube search "Motherboard Model + BIOS" to see what its BIOS looks like)
*This is an often overlooked aspect. but is essential in case you need to configure something with your PC in the future such as adjusting the speed of your fans or doing a simple change on the boot order. Try to get a grip of how to go around with the BIOS of the motherboard you want first first before you buy the motherboard.

For backup BIOS recovery, are you into single or dual bios chips?

Do you want built-in power, shutdown button and diagnosis LED indicators in your motherboard?

Do you want RGB in your motherboard?

It really boils down to your requirements and the quality of the motherboard. If it doesn't give you much headroom for future upgrades (i.e. you want to add an additional M.2 drive but you only can use 1 with your current motherboard), you might find yourself replacing motherboards in the near future. There can really be no definitive answer if this motherboard X is better than motherboard Y as it depends on the use case of the user and how many years is he planning to use it before his next upgrade.

 

[geofelt]

Here is a chart which tells the differences between B560 and Z590 motherboards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1200
The ability to overclock is the main one.

Your selections were for MATX motherboards.
Is your case a smaller one that only holds MATX?
If so, your choices are limited for Z590.
The asus z590 prime plus and asrock Z590M pro 4 are the only ones I can readily find.

Overclocking is not really a great think if you are a gamer.
It is better to let the turbo mechanism boost the speeds for one or two cores when conditions are right.
I think a Z590 motherboard with good VRM cooling is more likely to do that.

 

[Aeacus]

This is because any AMD CPU is not overclocked-restricted unlike Intel CPUs. All AMD Ryzen CPUs are overclockable.

Yes, they are. But you forgot to mention that many AMD CPUs doesn't have iGPU in them, where dedicated GPU is a must, when running a PC. Only those AMD CPUs, that have G-suffix, have iGPU in them. And they are APUs, not CPUs. E.g R7 5700G.

Intel, in the other hand, has almost all of their CPUs with iGPU. Only Intel CPUs that doesn't have iGPU in them, are with F-suffix. E.g i5-10400F.

X = Supports high end desktop CPUs. Tends to be focused on overclocking but not really a hard and fast rule

In 500-series, there is no X chipset. What there are, are Q and W. W is successor of earlier X chipsets. And Q has always been obscure enterprise oriented chipset.

W-series is for workstations/ enterprise use, rather than high-end desktop PCs. Intel Xeon CPUs.
For high-end desktop PC (gamer/streamer), Z-series MoBo is best.
H-series is same as Z-series with an exception that it doesn't offer CPU OC and may have fewer PCI-E lanes.
And B-series is for office/ small business use, but can be used in home desktop just fine. But no CPU OC with this one either.

Only Intel 500 series chipset that supports CPU OC is Z-series. While H- and B-series also support RAM OC, alongside Z-series.

Full lineup of Intel 500-series chipsets,
link: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...Ids=196646,196326,196439,196612,196613,196645

 

[avg9956]

In 500-series, there is no X chipset. What there are, are Q and W. W is successor of earlier X chipsets.

Noted. looks like Intel changed their naming scheme. Would've been convenient if they kept the old one instead. Will be confusing if they keep changing every now and then.

 

[punkncat]

The 11600K is a very power hungry and hot CPU. They are also very fast and powerful.
Not only should you consider a Z chipset, but also a motherboard with very hearty VRM for power delivery. Personally would suggest looking more top of the line than budget on this one.
If you cannot budget a GOOD motherboard I might suggest you return the 11600K and consider something like the 11400/11500 and they would be perfectly happy on a B or H chipset.

For that K, look at the good Gigabyte and MSI models, IMO, or better.