Buying Guide: Best motherboard: 15 top choices
Best Intel motherboards
Now that AMD Bulldozer and Intel Sandy Bridge E CPUs are out, we have a short break before next year's big refresh cycle kicks in with Trinity and Ivy Bridge.
That gives us time to sit back, take stock and figure out which are the best motherboards money can buy right now.
Your choice of platform between Intel and AMD is a somewhat personal one. While Intel has it all sewn up in terms of raw performance and power usage, AMD's still competing well on price largely and motherboards for its new FX chips are much cheaper.
If you just want a low power, cheap PC, AMD's Fusion CPU/GPU hybrids offer better graphics performance than the equivalent Core i3 or Atom chips from Intel.
As CPUs get more energy efficient, though, the days of the giant PC tower are clearly numbered – the real choice is less about which manufacturer you want, and more about size.
Which is why, for this revision to our motherboard buyer's guide, we've included a new category: small form factor boards.
With high end chipsets like the Z68 squeezed into mini-ITX packages, there's almost nothing a big PC can do that a tiny one can't – and they also come in a lot cheaper. Just think about it, OK?
1. Asus Sabertooth X79 - £259
If you want the best of the best, you'll be after one of Intel's new six core Sandy Bridge E processors. These enormous processors require a 2011 pin motherboard socket with quad channel memory support to get the most out of them, which is exactly what the Sabertooth delivers. Right along with most of the overclocking features and multi-GPU support that appears in ASUS' big money Republic of Gamers boards, but for a lot less cash.
Read our Asus Sabertooth X79 review
2. Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 - £77
A PC built around X79 and Sandy Bridge E probably won't need upgrading until the sun goes supernova. But if you're happy to settle for something a little more realistically priced that will merely outlive civilisation as we know it, then grab a socket 1155 Core i5 or Core i7 chip and Gigabyte's astoundingly cheap Z68 board. It's got all the added extras of Z68, including Hydra multi-card graphics support and Intel's brilliant SSD caching technology, for around half the cost of its rivals.
Read our Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 review
3. MSI Z68A-GD65 - £142
Any other full sized Intel board is going to struggle against the Gigabyte above, because it really is very cheap. But MSI comes closest with this fully featured Z68 board that has tons of overclocking options with its automated Genie II system, as well as two more SATA 6Gbps sockets for ultra fast hard drives.
4. ASRock Z68 Pro Extreme 4 - £95
On the off chance you don't want to include a discrete graphics card in your next PC and yet aren't interested in a small form factor system, Asrock's Z68 Extreme 4 is the motherboard of choice thanks to a huge variety of video out ports for Sandy Bridge processors. Fortunately, that's not all it has to offer, mind, as it also boasts good passive cooling for all the onboard components and a fair amount of overclocking overhead too.
Read our ASRock Z68 Pro Extreme 4 review
5. Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-ISSD - £164
Unless you're planning to go for massive overclocks, there's little to be gained by spending more than £100 on an Intel motherboard at the moment. Little, that is, apart from the inclusion of a small SSD drive specifically designed to make use of Intel's SRT smart caching technology. The 20GB drive fits into the special mSATA adaptor below the CPU socket, and intelligent algorithms keep your most commonly accessed files there for fast access.
Read our Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-ISSD review
Best AMD motherboards
1. ASRock Fatli1ty 990FX Professional - £150
This AMD 990FX board is as fully featured as they come in terms of Crossfire X compatibility the ability to overclock and number of on board SATA 6Gbps ports (it has six). Apart from the fact it'll look good in a windowed case, though, there's also some added extras for gaming, like the dedicated USB port for mice, which can have its polling rate adjusted in a Windows app.
Read our ASRock Fatli1ty 990FX Professional review
2. ASUS M5A99X Evo - £98
If it's value you're after, then it's hard to argue with AMD's second tier 990X chipset which forms the core of the ASUS M5A99X Evo. You may lose out on a second full speed PCI Express port and a handful of SATA 6Gbps ports, but everything else about it is designed to eke out every bit of performance Bulldozer can offer. As far as overclocking and BIOS control goes, it's second to none.
Read our ASUS M5A99X Evo review
3. ASUS RoG Crosshair V Formula - £170
As much as we like ASUS' top of the line Republic of Gamer motherboards they're usually quite hard to recommend because they cost more than most PCs do. With the Crosshair V Formula, though, you get a full size motherboard, Bulldozer FX support and built in Creative X-Fi sound, all for a relatively reasonable price when pitched against its peers. It's almost endlessly tweakable even when it's not fully turned on: a Bluetooth link give you access to the BIOS from a mobile phone.
Read our ASUS RoG Crosshair V Formula review
4. Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 - £196
Want an AMD processor but multi-card NVIDIA graphics? You're in luck, because the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 has everything rival high end 990FX boards do, and four way SLI support as well. Throw in a massive eight SATA 6Gbps connectors and you could build a formidable system around this – if you don't mind paying a bit more, that is.
Read our Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 review
5. MSI 970A-G5 - £69
The real strength of AMD's current line up is the price. You can get a six core Bulldozer CPU for less the £140 at the moment, which means that with this motherboard you can build a lightning fast system for under £210. Currently retailing for under £70, the 970A-G5 from MSI could be the base of a low cost games machine, with support for two Radeon graphics cards in CrossFire mode and a decent amount of overclocking.
Best Small Form Factor motherboards
1. ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT - £94.03
Mini-ITX is the smallest form factor of motherboard currently available, but thanks to the sterling work of some motherboard designers, there are plenty of options if you want the fastest CPUs possible in your media centre. ASRock's Z68 is a cut above most of the competition, thanks to room for a full size graphics card and THX sound built in.
Read our ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT review
2. Zotac A75-ITX WiFi - £105
Pair this tiny motherboard with one of AMD's Llano processors, and you've got a decent shoe box system that can do anything from office work to gaming. The on board graphics of a Llano hybrid make it a far more rounded chip that Intel's Sandy Bridge: you'll sacrifice a little raw CPU power for a lot of gaming grunt.
Read our Zotac A75-ITX WiFireview
3. MSI A75MA-G55 - £81
The drawback of mini-ITX systems is trying to get enough cooling inside the case to make the cut down size worthwhile. MSI's Llano compatible motherboard uses the slightly larger microATX form factor, which will still fit inside a small case but gives you extra room for a quieter heatsink and better all round airflow. Plus, it's good value too.
4. Zotac IONITX-P-E - £147
Can't be bothered choosing a chip to go with your motherboard? How about this mini-ITX system in a box which has absolutely everything you need ready assembled? CPU power is provided by the unusual Intel Celeron SU2300, which is paired with NVIDIA ION graphics of the type more commonly seen in netbooks. It doesn't come close to the performance of a Sandy Bridge or Llano PC, but for the size and price it's an unusual and worthwhile design for a HD media centre or living room machine.
Read our Zotac IONITX-P-E review
5. Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi - £130
All you need is a bargain basement Intel Core i3 and some memory, and you've got everything required for a very capable media centre or office machine with WiFi built in. Zotac is aware of the problems that Intel's on board graphics have with games, though, so has included a single PCI Express slot for a discrete graphics board, which means this could be the basis for an unusually small games machine too.
Read our Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi review
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