Y
ou can spend an
almighty amount on
a motherboard but
for most of us
there’s little need to
spend big. So long as it supports
the CPU you want to run then
you’re good to go.
To that end, we’ve rounded up
a selection of mid-priced Intel
motherboards that support all the
latest 8000-series processors but
that all cost £150 or less.BUDGET INTEL
MOTHERBOARDS
Which mobo is worth your money?
Dictionary
Chipset: The circuit that
controls communication
between the CPU and the
other features of a mobo.
There used to be two main
chips, thus the term chipset,
but now there’s just one.H310/B360/H370/Z370:
Intel offers other chipsets
that are cheaper than H370.
However, they miss out on
core functionality, such as
having fewer PCIe lanes and
supporting fewer USB ports.UEFI/BIOS: The interface
for setting up your
motherboard. The best
make it easy to enable/
disable the features you
want. Bad ones can be slow
and unintuitive, making
overclocking a pain.Headers: The pins dotted
around the board used to
connect fans, your case’s
power button and USB ports.Q&A
H370 or Z370?
The H370 and Z370 are your
main choices for chipsets
that support Intel’s latest
processors. H370 is cheaper
but lacks overclocking and
fast memory support,
making it ideal to pair with a
cheaper processor such as
the Intel Core i5-8400.Do you need overclocking?
Overclocking gets you extra
performance, but for gaming
it only matters if your
graphics card isn’t alreadythe performance bottleneck.
Saving on your CPU and
mobo could save you money
for a better graphics card.Is it worth spending more?
The sort of thing you miss
out on with cheaper
motherboards are
higher-quality audio, USB
ports, power buttons and
post readouts, better
overclocking, and extras like
lighting and fancy heatsinks.What setup did you use?
Core i7-8700K, GTX 1080
and 16GB Corsair Vengeance
3000MHz DDR4. We tested
CPU with Cinebench and
gaming performance with
Mankind Divided and Rise of
the Tomb Raider at 1440p/
high detail settings.GROUP
TEST
By Ed Chester
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