Good Skylake Motherboard?

[AceFry]

Hi guys, I am upgrading my PC to a skylake build using the i5 6400 and cannot decide on a motherboard.
I am stuck between the ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming B150 Gaming K4 and the MSI Gaming B150M BAZOOKA . I am leaning towards the Asrock Fatal1ty Gaming B150 but am not 100% sure.
I will be purchasing Kingston HyperX FURY (4Gx2) DDR4 2400 RAM and the i5 6400, it is a reasonably good build and I am just lost for which Mobo to get.
Note: Both motherboards support 2133mhz RAM speed and the RAM im purchasing is 2400mhz, is this going to be a problem or will the RAM downclock to fit the mobo?
Cheers.

 

[yevekhziel]

cmiiw as i read it too in some sites that it will downclock to fit the mobo

 

[joex444]

B150 is the chipset with the second fewest features, ahead of the H110. See, eg, http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2099-intel-chipset-comparison-z170-h170-h110 However that's not to say it's not a decent choice for your situaiton - we just need to know what that situation is.

If you aren't in need of anything more than what B150 offers, then go for it. Note the MSI is a MicroATX board while the ASRock is an ATX board. If you have an ATX case this is no problem, but it's a bit unusual to have that much "extra room" in your case. Of course if you have a MicroATX case then the ASRock won't work.

As far as RAM goes, the modules have something called XMP. They should run at 2400MHz without a problem, but I'm really not familiar with the business line of Intel's chipsets to know whether they disabled XMP for stability or cost reasons. I highly suggest going to the manufacturer's website for the motherboard(s) you're interested in, looking at their support page and (a) checking out what they have there to gauge how much they care about the product and (b) download a PDF of the manual and read it. See if the manual mentions anything about XMP. Most manuals walk you through the BIOS/UEFI options, it should at least mention XMP somewhere.

Ultimately if you're not using more than 4 SATA ports, there's no need for 6. If you can't find a use for more than 6 USB 3.0 ports then there's no need for 8 or 10. If you're not going to install an M.2 drive, there's no need for an M.2 port. If you're not going to install any cards except a GPU then you won't be using the 18 HSIO lanes offered by B150 so there's no point in having 22 or 26 (H170/Z170). B150 still gives you the 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU to drive the GPU, and if you have just that one card then that's all you really need. If you would ever want to run 5 SATA devices, use more PCIe cards, or plug in more than 6 USB 3.0 devices then B150 isn't for you.

 

[AceFry]

B150 is the chipset with the fewest features. See, eg, http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2099-intel-chipset-comparison-z170-h170-h110 However that's not to say it's not a decent choice for your situaiton - we just need to know what that situation is.

If you aren't in need of anything more than what B150 offers, then go for it. Note the MSI is a MicroATX board while the ASRock is an ATX board. If you have an ATX case this is no problem, but it's a bit unusual to have that much "extra room" in your case. Of course if you have a MicroATX case then the ASRock won't work.

As far as RAM goes, the modules have something called XMP. They should run at 2400MHz without a problem, but I'm really not familiar with the business line of Intel's chipsets to know whether they disabled XMP for stability or cost reasons. I highly suggest going to the manufacturer's website for the motherboard(s) you're interested in, looking at their support page and (a) checking out what they have there to gauge how much they care about the product and (b) download a PDF of the manual and read it. See if the manual mentions anything about XMP. Most manuals walk you through the BIOS/UEFI options, it should at least mention XMP somewhere.

Ultimately if you're not using more than 4 SATA ports, there's no need for 6. If you can't find a use for more than 6 USB 3.0 ports then there's no need for 8 or 10. If you're not going to install an M.2 drive, there's no need for an M.2 port. If you're not going to install any cards except a GPU then you won't be using the 8 HSIO lanes offered by B150 so there's no point in having 22 or 26 (H170/Z170). B150 still gives you the 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU to drive the GPU, and if you have just that one card then that's all you really need. If you would ever want to run 5 SATA devices, use more PCIe cards, or plug in more than 6 USB 3.0 devices then B150 isn't for you.

They both have XMP, do you know which is an all round better quality board? I have a regular ATX case and will probably add more cards and will make use of the 2 pcie slot. Are there any know problems with either?

 

[Ecky]

ASRock and MSI both make excellent boards. I doubt anyone could tell you if one is objectively better than the other.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Do not use DDR4-2400 memory. Neither motherboard supports XMP or memory over 2133 mhz, so don't even bother with it. Only Z170 supports memory over 2133mhz.

The ASRock is a larger better board that has 2 full PCIe slots so you can crossfire if you decide to. It also has better audio, heatsinked vrms (and 10 phase vs the MSI's 4 phase) which is better for pushing the processor to its limits, and ASRock has a special bios that will allow you to somewhat overclock even a locked processor (If you get the K4 Hyper version).

The ASRock is basically their top line B150 board, the MSI is one of their bottom B150 boards.