Confused there are so many motherboards

[Thor159]

I am confused there is so many motherboards for kabylake processors like Z270, Q270, H270, Q250, B250, Z170, Q170, H170, Q150, B150, H110

can anyone please tell me the difference between them and which to choose for i5 kabylake? Please

 

[manddy123]

For an exact info/answer check here:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z270-H270-Q270-Q250-B250---What-is-the-Difference-876/

For a shorter answer, it's the features they each have. Some have support to X-Fire/SLI, have more SATA ports, M.2, 3.0 USB ports and so on...
Kaby Lake mobos are Z/Q/H/B/2xx the Z/Q/H/B/1xx are for Skylake's CPU.


I'd recommend either a H270 or a B250 MOBO for you i5 if it's locked ( without the K at the end of the name ) or a Z270 if it's unlocked ( with the K ). That's because only Z270 can properly overclock a unlocked CPU, no other MOBO can do it efficiently.

 

[Muzzammil22]

Currently you can visit this Intel's following website of chipset comparison

https://ark.intel.com/compare/98086,98084,98090,98088,98089

rest other chipsets are for skylake.

It would have been much easier if you mentioned your requirements for motherboards like sli or crossfire support, no. of usb 3.0 ports, RAID configuration support etc.,
I would prefer z270 chipset because you can overclock it.

 

[Thor159]

Is there only 1 motherboard Z270 which is overclockable?

I want 4 HDD or SSD support, 4 3.0 usb port, and I don't know what is sli or crossfire support. I am a PC noob. Can you please make me understand these terms.

 

[manddy123]

Is there only 1 motherboard H270 which is overclockable?

CPU's are overclockable, not MOBO's.

MOBOs only gives the option to do that or no. In that scenario, only Z170 or Z270 MOBOs can overclock their unlocked CPU's properly. Any other B250,H270, etc... Can't.

And that "H270" is it's chipset, with that there are lot of MOBOS models that use the same chipset. They all have the same chipset but can vary on aspects like size, SATA ports, etc...

Basically, what you wanna do is choose a chipset to your CPU and then choose the model with the matching features you want to get.


SLI and CrossFire is the capability to run two GPU's simultaneously being either NVIDIA or AMD respectively. That in theory improves the gaming performance as there'll be two GPUs to process the game. In reality isn't that simple as the game has to be optimized to use that and many games aren't, so as a general rule 1 strong GPU is better than two weaker ones.

These are the mobos you wanna look for:
http://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#L=4&u=1&sort=d6&c=120,121,122,119

I believe all newer mobo's have more than 4 SATA ( It's the cable slot connection for it, "just like USB" ) ports, so as long as you pick a SATA HDD or SSD you can use more than 4 at the same time.

 

[Thor159]

Thank you for making me understand.

So, basically what I will have to do is to select a chipset which is z270 then I will have to find a motherboard from different vendors which fulfill all my requirements of different features right?

But still I cannot make out that what is the exact difference between Z, Q and H chipsets.

 

[manddy123]

Thank you for making me understand.

So, basically what I will have to do is to select a chipset which is z270 then I will have to find a motherboard from different vendors which fulfill all my requirements of different features right?

But still I cannot make out that what is the exact difference between Z, Q and H chipsets.

Not exactly like that, first of all: Is you CPU unlocked? Does it have the K on the end of it?
If it doesn't, there's no point in getting a Z270 because you won't be able to overclock the CPU because it's locked. You would be wasting money in getting a premium MOBO ( that supports overclock ) and wouldn't be using that feature.
Aside from that, yes. Pick a chipset that matches your needs and then pick a MOBO model that have everything you want from those vendors, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock, etc...

The difference is just that the letters represent different types of MOBO's chipsets. Check the first link i posted and compare their specs. There's nothing more to them that isn't shown there. It's just what they have/are capable of doing the makes they different from each other. ALL of them will work with your CPU tho.

 

[Thor159]

Thanks for clearing my doubts.

 

[Muzzammil22]

Is there only 1 motherboard Z270 which is overclockable?

I want 4 HDD or SSD support, 4 3.0 usb port, and I don't know what is sli or crossfire support. I am a PC noob. Can you please make me understand these terms.

The chipsets whose name contains letter Z and X are the only ones that supports processor overclocking, like Z87, Z97, X99, Z170 and Z270.
Here's a comparison link to all those above mentioned,

https://ark.intel.com/compare/75013,82012,81761,90591,98089

Kaby Lake and Skylake has both upto 10 usb 3.0 support (out of which 6 can be on back panel & 4 can be on front panel)

SLI or cross-fire support means when you use more than one graphics card then for maximum performance you bridge those two or more cards using these technology.
SLI is NVIDIA supported standard (more casually when you use NVIDIA chipset based grahic cards) and Crossfire is AMD supported (when AMD chipset based graphic cards)

Now what's left is to find a motherboard capable of supporting 4 HDDs or SSDs
you can use this website by using filters (on the left side) as per your requirement for each component.
https://in.pcpartpicker.com/list/

You can also check this out. (filtered by myself for motherboard)

https://in.pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/6JfmP6,p4nG3C,m6RFf7/

support for 4 HDDs or SSDs depends on number of SATA ports on motherboard, if there are 6 ports then you can easily use 4 HDDs or SSDs including DVD writer.