Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel

How important is the motherboard?

In an earlier post we reviewed the best budget intel gaming motherboard. In this post we will post an in depth analysis of a range of motherboards specifically for Intel. Before diving headlong into the Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel let’s spare a few moments to get a useful glance at a few pre-purchase facts. This is the core foundational component of your rig that ensures the rest of your internals reach their maximum potential. It determines the power of the CPU and the size of your computer.

The reason for this post being titled Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel is that most games don’t demand high core/thread count for intense processing. And is more GPU centered than CPU centered. Since decent quality gaming is our primary concern and Intel is the optimum CPU for that, sticking to intel-oriented motherboards sounds right. Furthermore since most Intel i5 CPUs allow creditable gaming we will not review the extreme performance Intel motherboards.

Summarized Buying Guide for Intel Gaming Motherboards

These are elementary, yet vital facts to research when choosing your ideal motherboard to be in sync with the rest of your internals. Then on to the Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel.

• Match the relevant socket with your CPU– Intel i5 socket types include LGA 1151, LGA 1150. This is the first criteria to check when buying the motherboard.
• Size Standards– ATX, micro-ATX and mini-ATX. As you can imagine, smaller the motherboard means fewer options. Perhaps a lesser number of expansion slots and RAM slots resulting in smaller builds.

GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS PRO-Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel i9-10900K

The first on the list for Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel is the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Pro. It is not the absolute best high-end gaming motherboard for Intel as of 2020. But it certainly qualifies as a competitor in the top 10 for so many reasons.

Specifications

• Supports 10th Gen Intel^® Core™ Series Processors
• Dual Channel Unbuffered DDR4, 4 DIMMs
• Intel^® Optane™ Memory Ready
• Direct 12+1 Phases Digital VRM Solution with 55A DrMOS
• Fins-Array II Heatsink and Direct Touch Heatpipe II
• Onboard Intel^® WiFi 6 802.11ax 2T2R & BT5 with AORUS Antenna
• AMP-UP Audio with ALC1220-VB and WIMA for Rear 120dB SNR
• Intel^® 2.5GbE LAN with cFosSpeed
• Dual NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 with Thermal Guards
• RGB FUSION 2.0 with Multi-Zone Addressable LED Light Show Design, Support Addressable LED & RGB LED Strips
• Smart Fan 5 Features Multiple Temperature Sensors , Hybrid Fan Headers with FAN STOP

In an earlier post we reviewed the Gigabyte Z390 UD as the best budget gaming motherboard for Intel. Well the Z490 has kicked the performance up a notch. Supporting the Intel 10th gen CPUs, Faster M2 slots, 2.5 Gigabit ethernet. In order to squeeze out up until the last drop of performance, combining the Z490 with the best possible internals is necessary. That means Intel i9-10900K as the CPU, 16 GB of RAM DDR4 of course and an RTX 2000 series card.

Benchmark performance

In the Cinebench R15 single thread and the CPU-Z single core tests the i9-10900K performed incredibly with the Z490 motherboard. The high end motherboards like the Asus Rog MXII surpassed the Z490 but only by a few points. Even performed quite well in the web browsing tests surpassing the Asus Rog MXII EXT. However with software like the WPrime because it mainly functions on higher core and thread count. Therefore the processors like Threadripper 3990X outperforms the rest. This is just a necessary evil for a complete review of a motherboard. But our concern here is gaming on a budget.

Gaming performance

We are all aware that gaming performance is mostly dominated by the GPU. Nevertheless it can perfectly handle high end graphics cards like the RTX 2080. Far cry 5, Shadow of the tomb raider performs extremely well with the Z490. Although this is a collective outcome of a few internals and has pretty much nothing to do with the motherboard. Still overclocking depends on the motherboard, and the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus pro performs creditably in that area. Even with the 3D Mark Time spy which is a well recommended software to benchmark your PC internals.

Temperature

Most of us tend to replace the stock CPU fan with a fan of our choice for better cooling purposes. Those internals heat the most during extreme performance. Experts tested this motherboard with the best CPU, GPU combinations to determine optimum cooling conditions. During normal function modes the CPU area reached around 63 celsius. This is just a perfectly normal temperature which might rise a bit during intense gaming sessions.

The high end extreme motherboards like the Asus ROG MXII, AsRock Z490 Taichi maintained lower levels of heat of course.

Conclusion

Admittedly it is a bit expensive although not expensive. I suppose the Dual NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 and the 2.5GbE LAN makes up for it. When paired with a high end CPU like the i9-10900K and a GPU such as RTX 2000 series while having a RAM of 16 GB at normal conditions the power consumption is around 65W. Since there are 4 slots of DIMMs experts recommend a total of 4GB 3200MHz will be of optimum performance. The 6 SATA3 ports, M2 slots and the ethernet connections are the key aspects of the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus PRO AX motherboard. A little pricey yet delivers a good performance for a gamer building on a slightly higher budget.

MSI Z490-A PRO

Next on our list for Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel is the MSI Z490- A PRO. Also known as best performance to value rated motherboard. Here are the specs before the review.

• Intel® Z490 Chipset
• Celeron, Core i5, Core i3, Core i7, Core i9, Pentium Gold (supports 10th Generation Intel Core / Pentium Gold / Celeron)
• LGA 1200 socket
• Dual memory channel DDR4 with 4 slots for 128GB maximum memory
• 1x Realtek® RTL8125B 2.5G LAN
• 1(Gen 1, Type C), 4(Gen 1, Type A) front USB 3.2
• 1(Gen 2, Type C), 1(Gen 2, Type A), 2(Gen 1, Type A) rear USB 3.2
• ATX form factor
• 2 PCI-E 3.0 X16, 3 PCI-E X1, 6 SATAIII, 2 M.2 SLOT
• 6 HD audio connectors, Realtek ALC892
• DisplayPort, HDMI
• 4-pin ATX12V connector, 24-pin main power connector, 8-pin ATX12V connector

Overclocking is not a major concern for us budget gamers, nevertheless you never know when you might have to utilize it. There are many intel chipset motherboards out there that don’t support the overclockers. Which is why we picked this one. It costs only 160 bucks but delivers amazing performance.

Starting with the RAM, it allows 128GB DDR4 with a frequency close to 4800MHz in 4 slots. Most experts state that the outstanding feature of this motherboard apart from the overclocking allowance is the 12-phase power delivery.8+4 pin connectors deliver adequate power for multi-core CPUs even when overclocking. Including the extended heatsink design which allows smooth and efficient heat dissipation even during the most intense gaming sessions.

Of course we should highlight the two M.2 slots with a heatsink included in one to prevent SSD throttling. Plenty of connectivity with the USB gen 3.2 and USB 2.0 ports. The MSI Z490 only lacks the RGB, Wi-Fi connectivity and the Gigabit LAN. Also it would have been nice to have Type-C instead of A. Nevertheless it doesn’t change the fact that the MSI Z490-A PRO is a valuable budget gaming motherboard for most PC gamers.

MSI MPG Z390– Micro ATX

Final recommendation for Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel is the MSI MPG Z390, the Micro ATX board. Lets jump to the specifications.

• Intel® Z390 Chipset
• LGA 1151
• 11 Phases
• HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2
• Dual memory channel DDR4 with 4 DIMMs
• 1(Gen2, Type C), 4(Gen1, Type A)
• 1(Gen2, Type C), 1(Gen2, Type A), 4(Gen1, Type A) at the front
• Realtek® ALC1220P Codec Audio
• 2 PCI-E 3.0 X16,2 PCI-E 3.0 X1, 4 SATAIII
• 2 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 Slots
• Intel 9560 802.11ac 2×2 (1.73Gb/s) / BT 5
• Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi Antenna

I guess we can safely say this is one of the best Micro ATX gaming motherboards for budget builders. Supports SLI and crossfire, includes Wi-Fi and Gigabit ethernet unlike our previous recommendation. Among the I/O ports a PS/2 port is located rather unusually. The USB-Type C ports, M.2 high speed slots and the added RGB all enhances the value this motherboard has to offer.

The MSI Dragon Center software includes the overclocking interface, hardware monitor, eye rest, RGB control etc. The firmware can be used to test the limits of this motherboard. The MSI MPG Z390 used the Core i9-9900k to 4.90 GHz utilizing all cores. But frequencies beyond that are limited. And the board works best with 2 DDR4 sticks rather than 4 if you opt for overclocking.

Benchmark performance

The usual benchmark software was used to test the MSI MPG Z390. These include Cinebench R15, 3DMark 13, Adobe Photoshop CC, Blender, Handbrake CLI. And the performance in these software outranked motherboards of similar range like the Asus Maximus XI Gene. Even at 1080p gaming the MSI MPG managed to output higher FPS relative to its competitors with games like Ashes of the singularity.

However in timed application tests all proved to be equally performing. What must be mentioned is that if you really are into overclocking it is better to do so with an Intel i5 or i7 rather than i9.

Final thoughts

We introduced and reviewed three Best Gaming Motherboards for Intel in this post. Most of them are centered around budget PC builders, supports multi-GPU, SSD and good connectivity. It might not be the cheapest available but certainly packs good performance and won’t burn a massive hole in your pocket.