Your motherboard and CPU are two of an important components of your PC, however untangling the mess of motherboard sockets, chipsets and which of them work with which CPUs will be an absolute nightmare when you’re building a PC for the primary time – particularly when there’s an entire new crop of them about to be launched over the following few months. It’s necessary you get the correct motherboard on your Intel or AMD CPU, too, as a result of in any other case it merely received’t work – and no person desires that.
To assist you to in your quest to seek out the very best motherboard on your Intel or AMD CPU, I’ve put collectively this useful information. Below, you’ll discover every thing it’s essential to learn about which motherboards are suitable with which CPUs, in addition to all of the totally different chipsets and sockets you’ll see when shopping for a brand new motherboard. So when you’re desirous about making the leap to one in every of Intel’s Coffee Lake processors or one of many new AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs however don’t know which motherboard you must get, learn on.
First, the socket…
Take a fast look at any CPU and also you’ll most likely see it’s received a heck of plenty of pins or tiny little contact factors on the underside. These are what slot into your motherboard’s CPU socket, so that you’ll want to purchase one that matches appropriately. If you try to stuff one into the mistaken sort of motherboard socket, all you’re going to finish up with is a load of bent pins and a really damaged processor.
There are two principal varieties of socket that we have to concern ourselves with for constructing a gaming PC: LGA 1151 for Intel-based methods and AM4 for AMD customers. You may additionally see TR4 sockets for AMD’s workstation-grade Threadripper processors or LGA 2066 socket boards for Intel’s high-performance X-series of processors, however until you’ve been squirrelling away a number of 1000’s of kilos / {dollars}, these will doubtless be past the remit of your typical PC construct.
An LGA 1151 motherboard sockets for an Intel processor.
LGA 1151 helps 4 totally different generations of Intel processor: sixth Gen Skylake chips, seventh Gen Kaby Lake chips, and eighth and ninth Gen Coffee Lake chips. If you’re trying to construct a brand new Intel system at this time, nonetheless, you must solely be eighth or ninth Gen Coffee Lake processors – and I’ll clarify why as soon as we get to the Chipset part under. With that in thoughts, right here’s an inventory of all of the Intel Coffee Lake processors you may at the moment purchase that help the LGA 1151 socket.
| Core i3 | Core i5 | Core i7 | Core i9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i3-9350Ok | Intel Core i5-9600Ok | Intel Core i7-9700Ok | Intel Core i9-9900Ok |
| Intel Core i3-9320 | Intel Core i5-9600 | Intel Core i7-9700 | Intel Core i9-9900 |
| Intel Core i3-9300 | Intel Core i5-9500 | Intel Core i7-8086Ok | |
| Intel Core i3-9100 | Intel Core i5-9400 | Intel Core i7-8700Ok | |
| Intel Core i3-8350Ok | Intel Core i5-8600Ok | Intel Core i7-8700 | |
| Intel Core i3-8300 | Intel Core i5-8600 | ||
| Intel Core i3-8100 | Intel Core i5-8500 | ||
| Intel Core i5-8400 |
AM4, however, is for AMD’s Ryzen processors. This consists of AMD’s first era of Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 chips, often known as the Ryzen 1000-series, in addition to their present 2nd Gen CPUs, referred to as Ryzen+ or the Ryzen 2000 collection, and their newly-announced third Gen CPUs, the Ryzen 3000 collection, the latter of which additionally consists of the primary Ryzen 9 CPU.
An AM4 motherboard socket for an AMD processor
It’s attainable we may even see a brand new socket seem for AMD’s inevitable fourth era of Ryzen chips, as AMD have solely confirmed help for his or her AM4 platform until 2020. However, it will likely be some time earlier than we see these new processors – in spite of everything, AMD have solely simply introduced their third Gen 3000 collection – so it’s not one thing you actually need to fret about. For now, these are all of the Ryzen chips you should buy at this time which might be suitable with the AM4 socket.
| Ryzen 3 | Ryzen 5 | Ryzen 7 | Ryzen 9 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 3 2200G | Ryzen 5 3600X | Ryzen 7 3800X | Ryzen 9 3900X |
| Ryzen 3 1300X | Ryzen 5 3600 | Ryzen 7 3700X | |
| Ryzen 3 1200 | Ryzen 5 2600X | Ryzen 7 2700X | |
| Ryzen 5 2600 | Ryzen 7 2700 | ||
| Ryzen 5 2400G | Ryzen 7 1800X | ||
| Ryzen 5 1600X | Ryzen 7 1700X | ||
| Ryzen 5 1600 | Ryzen 7 1700 | ||
| Ryzen 5 1500X | |||
| Ryzen 5 1400 |
Second, the chipset…
So we’ve narrowed it all the way down to the kind of motherboard socket you want. The subsequent factor is deciding which chipset to go for. This is the circuitry contained in the motherboard itself. Without entering into an excessive amount of technical element, a motherboard’s chipset basically determines what sort of options it has, together with the varieties of ports and show outputs it comes with. They’re additionally normally designed to work with a specific household of processors, and infrequently get launched alongside stated CPUs.
This is the place issues get difficult – at the very least when you’re taking place the Intel route. You see, regardless of their newest Coffee Lake processors utilizing the identical LGA 1151 socket connection as their earlier households of Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs, eighth and ninth Gen Coffee Lake processors will solely work with a specific kind of chipset – the 300-series chipset, to be exact.
This signifies that current Skylake and Kaby Lake house owners with a 100- or 200-series chipset on their LGA 1151 motherboard nonetheless have to purchase a brand new one in the event that they need to improve to Coffee Lake, although technically it nonetheless matches into their current board. It’s additionally value mentioning that plenty of 300-series chipsets should want a BIOS replace earlier than they’ll work with Intel’s new ninth Gen Coffee Lake CPUs. The Z390 chipset works with them straight out of the field, however you’ll have to test the field on different chipsets to be sure you don’t run into any hassle.
If you’ve chosen an AMD Ryzen processor, however, issues are quite a bit easier. Sort of. Regardless of what era Ryzen processor you’ve picked, they’re all just about suitable with each chipset supported by the AM4 socket. Some older AM4 motherboards should want a BIOS replace earlier than you can begin utilizing it together with your shiny new third Gen Ryzen, however when you’re in any doubt, search for a motherboard that claims it’s ‘Ryzen 3000 Ready’ on the field. To all intents and functions, although, it’s nonetheless a heck of quite a bit much less complicated than the state of affairs over at Camp Intel, and right here’s a useful chart explaining all of it.
How do I decide the correct chipset?
If you’re constructing an Intel Coffee Lake system, you at the moment have 5 principal LGA 1151 chipset choices on your potential motherboard. You’ll discover the most cost effective, entry-level chipsets on the high, and the high-end, fanatic ones on the backside. These are the letter and quantity mixtures you need to be searching for and a tough information to the kind of costs you may anticipate to go along with them (observe that each one of those have a 300 quantity of their mannequin identify, therefore the 300-series):
- H310 (priced between £49-£82 within the UK and $55 – $85 within the US)
- B360 (priced between £60-110 within the UK and $63 – $155 within the US)
- H370 (priced between £109-£147 within the UK and $85 – $154 within the US)
- Z370 (priced between £85-£159 within the UK and $100 – $190 within the US)
- Z390 (priced between £115-£265 within the UK and $115 – $290 within the US)
Sometimes motherboard producers make it simple and embrace stated chipsets within the identify of the motherboard (see under). Other instances, it’s much less apparent, so you could have to test the field or on-line specs to test it falls into a kind of 5 chispets.
Sometimes the motherboard’s identify may have the chipset already in it, but it surely’s value checking the opposite logos on the backside to double test you’re choosing the right one…
In phrases of choosing the right one for you, it’s necessary to consider what you need out of your PC when you’ve completed constructing it. If you’re constructing a robust Core i7 or Core i9 system, as an example, you’ll most likely desire a high-end Z370 or Z390 chipset motherboard to profit from it – particularly when these are the one two chipsets that truly help CPU, GPU and RAM overclocking.
For these constructing a extra modest Core i3 PC, however, it’s most likely finest to look towards the H310 or B360 finish of the spectrum – until, that’s, you’ve gotten an Intel Core i3-8350Ok or Core i3-9350Ok, which do help overclocking by advantage of that Ok on the top of their names, during which case you’ll most likely nonetheless desire a Z370 / Z390 board.
The H310, as an example, is fairly fundamental. It comes with simply 2 DIMM slots on your RAM, which limits the quantity you may put in it (all the remainder have 4), and solely helps a most of 10 USB 2.Zero ports and 4 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports. The B360, by comparability, helps 12 USB 2.Zero ports in addition to as much as six USB 3.1 Gen 1 and 4 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, whereas the remainder can deal with as much as 14 USB 2.Zero and even larger mixtures of USB 3.1 generations.
Some chipsets will even have built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi choices in case your PC isn’t going to be anyplace close to an obtainable Ethernet port (useful, when you’d slightly not clog up one in every of your PCIe slots with a community card), whereas others have RAID help for combining your storage units into one single, big drive. It all slightly is determined by what your wants are and whether or not you need to depart your self any wiggle-room sooner or later for additional tinkering.
If you’re constructing an AMD Ryzen system, however, you’ve primarily received a alternative of 5 (quickly to be six) chipsets, that are once more ordered under from lowest to highest when it comes to total value and options:
- A320 (priced between £45-£62 within the UK / $50 – $70 within the US)
- B350 (priced between £89-£105 within the UK / $55 – $175 within the US)
- B450 (priced between £64-£125 within the UK / $73-$280 within the US)
- X370 (priced between £115-£195 within the UK / $90 – $350 within the US)
- X470 (priced between £125-£250 within the UK / $125 – $290 within the US)
- X570 (pricing TBC)
There are a couple of intricacies value mentioning right here. The X570, for instance, is AMD’s new chipset designed for his or her third Gen Ryzen 3000 CPUs, and can launch alongside them on July 7. Both of them help the brand new, tremendous quick PCIe 4.Zero commonplace, too, which provides you oodles extra bandwidth to play with than common outdated PCIe 3.0 (which is what you’ll discover on all different present motherboards), so when you’re desirous about a Ryzen 3000 chip, you most likely must pair it with a X570 motherboard to get essentially the most out of it.
The X470 and B450 boards, however, are arguably the very best picks for AMD’s 2nd Gen Ryzen chips. For starters, each have built-in help for 2nd Gen Ryzen from the off (the others would require a BIOS replace until it states in any other case on the field), and they’ve been designed with these 2nd Gen processors in thoughts, too, permitting you to get extra out of them for gaming and day by day computing.
Some chipsets dictate the dimensions of the motherboard as nicely, so be sure you get the correct one on your case.
Much just like the Intel chipsets, the lower-end AMD chipsets don’t have fairly as many options as ones additional up the size. The A320 and B350, for instance, don’t help AMD Crossfire and Nvidia SLI which allow you to use two graphics playing cards without delay, so these contemplating a multi-GPU system ought to actually be X370 or X470 boards solely.
The A320 doesn’t help CPU overclocking, both, and solely comes with 4 SATA ports and one SATA Express connection on your storage units. B350, X370 and X470 chipsets, in the meantime, do help overclocking and include six SATA ports and two SATA Express. All of them, nonetheless, have some kind of RAID help for combining your SSDs into one massive mega drive.
Anything else I ought to know?
From there, it’s just about as much as you what sort of further options you go for. Some motherboards just like the Asus ROG Crosshair VII Hero (Wi-Fi) have extra overclocking instruments akin to an LED troubleshooting show, enhance buttons and additional controls for open-case builds proper there on the board, whereas others just like the Asus ROG Strix X470F-Gaming have pre-mounted I/O boards for a neater end around the again of your PC.
It most likely goes with out saying that you just also needs to decide a motherboard that truly matches inside your supposed case. There’s no level shopping for an ATX-sized motherboard if you’ve received a small form-factor or mini-tower case, neither is there a lot sense in shopping for a jumbo full tower case for a tiddly mini-ITX motherboard.
