Gaming motherboard: keys to choose the best

In this article we are going to present the keys to be able to choose the best gaming motherboard according to your needs. If you are assembling or want to assemble a gaming PC by parts, one of the key hardware components will be the motherboard, the rest of the components will be connected to it, so it will be very important that you know how to choose the best one.

The truth is that the term " gaming " is currently in fashion. Also, it seems that, because something carries the nickname gaming, it will mean that it is better than the rest and it really is not. If we want a gaming PC, the least we can do is buy gaming components, this is partly true and partly not, not all gaming is good or suitable for our needs, but they almost always have impressive designs and are usually focused on gaming computers.

When buying a gaming base bale we will need to take into account quite a few points, not only the price, although as always each user should be based on their budget and then look for a motherboard that is really worth it.

Index of contents

1. Intel or AMD platform, how to choose the socket

A fundamental aspect on which we must always base our purchase is on the processor that we want to install in our new equipment, or where appropriate, in which we already have purchased. We all know that there are two manufacturers of processors on the market, Intel and AMD, and within them an immense infinity of models from different generations.

Each of these two manufacturers will need their own motherboard as we can imagine. An Intel brand processor will not be compatible with an AMD motherboard, and in this they have an important role, the chipset, which we will talk about later, and also the socket, which we will talk about right now.

The socket is no more than the connector where our processor is located. Intel will have certain sockets and AMD others, obviously they will be incompatible with each other. A gaming motherboard should have one of these four sockets, two for each manufacturer:

• LGA 1151: It will be the most common for Intel processors of the 14nm build process. We are currently in the 8th and 9th generation of these processors and socket 1151 supports virtually any of these processors, whether locked or unlocked. For him we find the Intel Core i3, i5, i7 and i9, Intel Pentium Gold and Intel Celeron. It will be the smart option to buy on a gaming computer. LGA 2066 - Also called socket R4, it's the socket that installs the company's most powerful desktop processors. They are intended for enthusiastic configurations with incredible performance, but beware, because they are very expensive and are not purely game-oriented, but rather heavy workloads. AM4: This will be a socket for the AMD Ryzen 3, 5 and 7, processors that have excellent gaming performance and will also be the smartest purchase for our gaming motherboard, if we choose AMD. TR4: This huge socket houses AMD's Threadripper processors, with brutal performances, but not as gaming-oriented as the previous ones, as well as being more expensive.

In short, the smartest purchase will be an LGA 1151 socket motherboard for Intel or one with AMD from AMD.

2. The chipset that we must choose

The chipset is a chip, or sets of chips that are responsible for managing all the peripherals and part of the connections of our motherboard, at least all those that do not go directly to the CPU, such as USB for example or PCIe x1 connections. The chipset communicates directly with the processor, and consequently it must be perfectly understood with it and be able to carry out its work as quickly as possible.

A true gaming motherboard must support overclocking techniques for the processor, and must have a chipset with a high connection capacity and high stress support. The capacity of a chipset is measured in lines or " Lanes " and it forms a set with those of the CPU. The more Lanes, the more information can travel on the motherboard, and this will be essential when installing peripherals and powerful hardware on it.

• Intel Z390 chipset: It is the upper-mid-range chipset from Intel and goes hand in hand with the LGA 1151 socket and the processors compatible with it. It is the one used by most users, because we have motherboards with many prices from 90 to 500 euros and more. The Z390 is a chipset that supports processor overclocking and has a total of 24 PCI Lanes in x1, x2 and x4 mode. Supports 14 USB 2.0 ports, or 10 USB 3.1 gen1 ports, or 6 3.1 Gen2 ports. Similarly, we have a maximum of 6 SATA 6 Gbps connections and it supports processor PCIe configurations in 1 × 16, 2 × 8 and 1 × 8 + 2 × 4. Intel X299 chipset: goes hand in hand with the LGA 2066 socket and Intel's most powerful processors. It also supports overclocking and has 24 PCIe Lanes, although they have greater capacity for PCIe configurations for the CPU and supports more SATA connections with 8 and the same amount of USB, with 14. AMD B450 chipset: If there is something good about AMD chipsets is that all of them allow overclocking, so this will be ideal for mounting a mid-low range gaming equipment on socket AM4. Supports 2 USB 3.1 Gen2 + 6 USB 3.1 Gen1 + 6 USB 2.0, along with 16 PCI Lanes and 4 SATA 6 Gbps + 2 NVMe lines. AMD x470 chipset: This chipset will be ideal for mid-high-end gaming motherboards with AM4 processors, as it supports PCIe in x16 and 2 × 8 configuration, in addition to 2 USB 3.1 Gen2 + 10 USB 3.1 Gen1 + 6 USB 2.0. In addition to 6 SATA 6 Gbps + 2 NVMe. Greater capacity of connections in general as we see. AMD X399 Chipset: It is intended for AMD Threadripper processors and obviously increases the performance of the previous ones with more PCI Lanes and more USB ports and storage.

In this section, we recommend a board with an Intel Z390 chipset and boards with an AMD or B450 X470 chipset for the low-end range.

3. Expansion slots

We leave behind critical elements such as the socket and the chipset to talk about the possibilities of expansion. On a gaming motherboard, this will be very important, since we are supposed to have a large number of high-performance peripherals, as well as powerful graphics cards.

RAM

The main thing will be the RAM, the current games request a high-powered hardware, and at least 16 GB of RAM or even 32 DDR4. Although if you are short on budget with 8 GB you will go just but you can still play decently with this amount.

With the chipsets previously seen we will have a RAM memory capacity of up to 64 GB DDR4, compatibility with Dual Channel technology and support with XMP profiles on Intel or AMP boards for AMD.

PCIe slots

Similarly, a gaming PC needs a dedicated graphics card, and it will work under a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (16 Lanes) interface. The chipsets presented perfectly support this type of card. If we plan to make configurations with two or three graphics cards in AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI, we will need two PCI-Express 3.0 slots that at least function in x8 / x8, although we would have to go to high-end boards with chipsets like the Z390 or the X470. To go to x16 / x16, you usually need a supplementary chip, as they are usually a PLX chipset that bridges the graphics card and our motherboard.

USB connections

We will need lots of USB connections on your back panel. Currently we should order at least one or two normal USB 3.1 Gen2 or one Type-C + one normal, in order to obtain capacity for very fast peripherals such as portable disks. In the same way we recommend at least 6 normal USB 3.0 or 2.0, since there are currently many peripherals that even need two USB for data and lighting.

In this regard, there are already numerous boards that implement Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, of course only on boards with an Intel chipset. Although it is not a necessary connection for gaming and is more focused on workstation.

M.2 and SATA III connections

Games take up a lot of storage space, good read and write rates for storage devices. It is essential that a gaming card has at least two M.2 PCIe x4 slots with NVMe 2280/22110 protocol instead of SATA. It is the most powerful storage option, much faster than SATA.

SATA connectivity will be ensured on all boards, but beware, because manufacturers, to compensate for the shortcomings of slower chipsets, make SATA connections share a bus with NVMe connections on many occasions. That is why it is worth reading the motherboard manual beforehand to know the limitations that we will have in this regard and where the manufacturer recommends installing each device.

If you are going to mount a single M.2 NVME, a Z390 motherboard will suffice, but if we already want two to mount a good RAID 0, it is recommended to use the enthusiastic AMD platform, due to the greater number of LANES that its processors support.

4. Durability, VRM and BIOS stability

On a motherboard that allows overclocking, as gaming motherboards tend to be, it will be important to have a UEFI BIOS with a simple and complete user interaction. But the most useful in this case, is the possibility that manufacturers give to implement two BIOS simultaneously. In one of them we will be able to carry out an overclocking configuration while the other will be kept as standard and unchanged due to something going wrong. In addition, they implement physical buttons so that at any time we change from one BIOS to another and restore our hardware to the initial state.

This will already depend on the manufacturer of the board in question. The main and most reliable manufacturers will be Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and ASRock. The components are always first class with power phases of enormous durability and that protect our CPU and PCB manufactured in several layers of material composed of fiber with epoxy resin or similar, and well insulated electricity and data pathways.

MSI is usually the manufacturer to have the most powerful VRMs with up to 14 power phases on their boards. VRM is basically the power supply for the processor and PCI-Express slots. For overclocking you always need a good VRM capable of constantly and sufficiently supplying power to the CPU. Asus for example has a series of gaming boards called TUF that adds an extra durability and quality in these units or its ROG motherboards that seem to us the best on the market, although they are also the most expensive. We recommend at least an 8-phase supply configuration with quality MOSFETs and condensers cooled by heating elements.

Another very fashionable item now is to reinforce the expansion slots with steel plates. This we will notice immediately and with the naked eye in the PCI-Express and DIMM slots of RAM memory when they present a silver color. It is not only for decoration, the slots are soldered to the board and with the use and heat of the graphics cards it is possible that some pin will come loose due to the temperature expansion. The steel reinforcement helps preserve the slot by already holding the graphics card's own weight, which sometimes exceeds 1000 grams.

Other boards even have a metal backplate in the rear that prevents deformation of the board over time and large heatsinks. Either way, the moral is that cheap is always expensive, so the best thing to do is invest a little more money in a good motherboard.

5. Internal connections, lighting, network and sound

In addition to the typical connections, a self-respecting gaming card will have the capacity to connect expansion ports such as the USB of the chassis and the sound connectors. But the headers for the fans, for the lighting and the temperature sensors will also be important:

• Fans: These headers are quickly seen by their inline four-pin configuration. They are able to control the speed of the installed fans, provided they are PWM. Pump: For liquid cooling, specific headers for fluid pumps also usually come. Temperature sensors: if the motherboard has management software, the least we can ask is that it be capable of monitoring temperatures such as those of the memories, the chipset or the M.2. RGB Headers: Normally it has a configuration in four pins in line with the absence of one in the middle. Some will be RGB Header, only to connect RGB LED strips without the possibility of configuration, and others will be addressable RGB headers, which will allow customizing animations of these strips or fans. Connectors for temperature control: many of these gaming boards allow us to connect a temperature monitoring system to them, which will be a good option for enthusiastic configurations.

Surely if we mount a gaming PC we will have the objective of playing competitive games in LAN or through the Internet. The least we should ask for is a RJ45 gigabit Ethernet connector, but if we have the opportunity, two of them will be the best option, for e-Sports and to increase the versatility of our PC. In this field, having built-in Wi-Fi is interesting, although the cards are somewhat basic and rarely reach speeds of 2 × 2 of 1.73 Gbps, the Intel CNVi chip will be key in this regard. The high-end ones have 10 GbE connectivity with Aquantia chips or Realtek top range.

Of course the sound card will be reason for special attention. In them Realtek systems will almost always be installed, on the quality boards we hope to see for example the Realtek ALC1220 with its variants that will allow us high definition quality and capacity for 7.1 systems and S / PDIF connections. In addition, it will be important to have a quality DAS (digital-to-analog converter) for our headphones or our Hi-Fi system.

Last and not least for many, a gaming board almost always have lighting. The more expensive, the more lighting, this is key to raising the FPS of the games… or not. In any case, if we want to mount a gaming PC full of lighting, we may want to opt for a model with lighting. The four main manufacturers have their own system, which are also usually compatible with peripherals from other manufacturers such as Razer or Corsair. Asus Aura Sync, MSI Mystic Light, Gigabyte RGB Fusion and ASRock Polychrome RGB will be their names.

Conclusion on the keys to keep in mind on a gaming motherboard

There are five sections, but we touch a lot of properties of the motherboards. We hope that with this basic information you will know a little more in depth the important characteristics of a motherboard when choosing it. There are a lot of them on the market, and it is difficult to know which ones are better, so we have taken the trouble to choose the best ones of today in our guide. We are always pending new releases to see if they deserve a place among the best or not.

See here our guide to the best motherboards on the market

All of them belong to the main manufacturers, and are especially valued by the community as the best in their field. Of course we give the entire range of current chipsets from both Intel and AMD.

We also recommend these guides and tutorials:

Also, visit our selection of PC settings to see the PC that suits your needs. They are very good bases to personalize your choices when mounting your own PC. The hardware forum will always be available for any problem, there is a large community ready to help.