[SOLVED] What Best Cheap Board Today?

abrogard

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2009
102
0
18,690
It's been years since I last bought a board and built a machine. At least 5 I think. 4 or 5. I might have to do it again now.
I've always preferred AMD and Asus but I've had at least one good Asrock (and one bad) - I'm open to persuasion.
Money is always tight for me so I try to get max value for a dollar.
I'm not a mad gamer, don't need special performance.
I've always liked plenty of USB and SATA.
And I (used to) try to be on a socket platform with a future ahead of it.
Anyone got any suggestions what I should start looking at nowadays?
 
Solution
Ive always like the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max/Mortar Max boards. Very versatile and cover all the Ryzen CPU's from the 1000 series to the 5000 series, made simpler as they have BIOS flashback. They may not be the latest and greatest but think they have most of the bases covered and bang for buck, I dont think they can be beaten.
Ive always like the MSI B450 Tomahawk Max/Mortar Max boards. Very versatile and cover all the Ryzen CPU's from the 1000 series to the 5000 series, made simpler as they have BIOS flashback. They may not be the latest and greatest but think they have most of the bases covered and bang for buck, I dont think they can be beaten.
 
Solution

Bazzy 505

Respectable
Jul 17, 2021
344
124
1,940
It's been years since I last bought a board and built a machine. At least 5 I think. 4 or 5. I might have to do it again now.
I've always preferred AMD and Asus but I've had at least one good Asrock (and one bad) - I'm open to persuasion.
Money is always tight for me so I try to get max value for a dollar.
I'm not a mad gamer, don't need special performance.
I've always liked plenty of USB and SATA.
And I (used to) try to be on a socket platform with a future ahead of it.
Anyone got any suggestions what I should start looking at nowadays?

At the moment, both AMD and Intel are switching to new socket with upcomming platforms, so future proofing motherboard isn't a thing right now.
In regard to choice between AMD and Intel, i haven't had much prefference either way. I always go where best bang for the buck within the budget i'm working with.
I've done my share of patform crusades in my young years back in 80's , only to realize a decade later that it doesn't really matter ;)

Now to to the topic at hand. At the moment in the budget segment to mid-range builds Intel's offers greatest value for the money. In the segment of high performance desktop workstations AMD offeres best value and performance.

So on a tight budget, you'll get best performance on a dollar by going for
Intel i5-11400 combined with B560 based motherboard.
if you have a bit extra cash on hand it's well worth going up the stack to
Intel i5-11600K combined with B560 or Z590 motherboard.

As for manufacturers i'd say go for ASUS or GIGABYTE.
Both are quite evenly matched price and quality wise, although in the budget segment, Gigabyte tends to offer more for less.