Motherboard News & Reviews

Welcome to the Motherboard News & Reviews Database. This is a collection, primarily of reviews, dedicated to motherboards from across the globe. Looking for something specific? Use the search utility, tags, or just explore through using the drop-down menu. From there, you can select your preferred motherboard manufacturer to find a listing of motherboards by chipset that have reviews available. If it’s been reviewed recently, you’ll find it. All reviews that are not natively in English will have translated links provided where possible.

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ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming ITX/ax

November 24, 2020October 17, 2020 by Stephen

f we dive into the specifications for the Phantom Gaming, we start at the top with what ASRock is calling “Gaming Armor”. This includes Hi-Density power connections for the 24 and 8Pin and gold contacts for the VGA and DIMM slots. Additionally, the Phantom Gaming uses ASRocks Super Alloy power delivery with 90A Power Chokes and 90A Dr.MOS along with Premium memory chokes that reduce core power loss 70%. Nichicon 12K caps outline the board’s power design along with I/O Armor, an 8-layer PCB, and 2oz copper.

ASRock A520M ITX/ac

October 17, 2020 by Stephen

The ITX form factor has a dedicated following, and the ASRock A520M ITC/ac definitely seems to thinks so. With the ever increasing integration of functionality into the chipset, there really isn’t a need for multiple PCIe slots like there has been in years past. Does a typical gamer need more than one slot for a graphics card? If the board has WiFi, LAN, USB 3.0 and decent audio, most of the core bases are covered.

GIGABYTE A520 AORUS ELITE

October 16, 2020 by Stephen

The main things separating A520 boards from their more expensive B550 and X570 siblings are the use of cost-saving auxiliary controllers and circuitry, along with the use of lower quality power delivery systems. Many boards lack VRM heatsinks meaning they should not be used with the higher core count CPUs.

BIOSTAR Announces B250MHC (Intel B250)

October 16, 2020 by Stephen

October 16^th, 2020, Taipei, Taiwan – BIOSTAR, a leading brand of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announces the new B250MHC motherboard.

Designed based on Intel’s B250 single chip architecture, the new B250MHC motherboard from BIOSTAR is engineered to breathe fresh life to older 6^th and 7^th generation processors from Intel.

Highly suited for business-oriented systems, the B250MHC motherboard comes with the latest technology in the market with BIOSTAR’s promised product reliability and long-lasting performance. Capable of supporting up to 32GB of DDR4 memory across 2 DIMM slots, the B250MHC also carries features like PCIe 3.0 which provides increases channel improvement with enhanced signal and data integrity over 8GT/s bit rate as well as USB 3.2 Gen 1 which provides data transfer speeds up to 5Gbps for speedy data backup and restore over USB data transfer devices.

ASUS CROSSHAIR VIII IMPACT

October 16, 2020 by Stephen

In general, the Crosshair Impact series was created from the desire to “charge” the ultra-compact board to the maximum. Including advanced overclocking capabilities, and this already means at least a powerful VRM node, for which there is not enough space on the PCB.

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME

November 12, 2020October 15, 2020 by Stephen

The Maximus XII Extreme is coated mostly in black, with a prominent white strip that runs diagonally from the rear I/O panel to the chipset heatsink. This line stands out more after you power up the board; doing so activates a line of RGB LEDs that runs parallel to it. You’ll also spot another string of RGB LEDs tracing down the right side of the board.

GIGABYTE Z370N WIFI

October 13, 2020 by Stephen

Their new Z370 Mini-ITX motherboard offers dual M.2 slots, dual Gbit LAN, WIFI, and even special features such as HDMI 3.0. The motherboard also features a new color theme; full RGB LED support and even an M.2 heat sink. The motherboard is significantly different than what GIGABYTE has offered in the past, so let’s see if it can compete with larger ATX motherboards.

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME GUNDAM Pictured

October 13, 2020 by Stephen

Videocardz has a nice photo up of the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII EXTREME GUNDAM. This board comes with a pre-installed waterblock, so rest assured there will likely be few, and they will certainly be expensive. This board is based off of the Intel Z490 chipset.

ASUS Not Supporting Ryzen 5000 Series on X470?

October 19, 2020October 13, 2020 by Stephen

While AMD noted that the 5000 Series processors should be supported by the legacy X470 chipset, it would appear ASUS may not be on board. There are a few articles floating around where a customer reached out and was informed by ASUS that they would not be supporting the 5000 Series on X470, and of course, told the customer to purchase a new board. One can hope this customer last approach is corrected, but only time will tell.

MSI MPG B550I GAMING EDGE WIFI

October 12, 2020 by Stephen

The MSI MPG B550I Gaming Edge WiFi is a mini-ITX motherboard based on the AMD B550 chipset that can serve as the basis for a gaming or work system using the most recent processors and graphics cards, as well as solid state drives with PCIe 4.0 interface. Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? Even somehow too good. But fact is fact – and now we will be convinced of it!