While building a new PC one of the biggest challenges we face is that of choice. Every choice is accompanied by some advantages and trade-offs. The biggest one is choosing between Nvidia and AMD. The battle between Green and Red exists mainly in CPUs & GPUs. But the title of most difficult choice certainly goes to Motherboards. With dozens of brands making hundreds of boards, it doesn’t get any more confusing than this.
Here is our compact list of the Best Motherboards in 2020. Our picks are based on a variety of factors like
Price, Value & Compatibility for every segment.
1. Best All-Round AMD X570 Motherboard
Asrock X570 Taichi or Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra
The winner for the best X570 Motherboard in our eyes is the Asrock X570 Taichi. This board has performed well in all our tests and is packed with a load of features including a solid IO port setup. At a price point of $300, this RGB Motherboard is the top pick.
Asrock X570 Taichi packs a bag of features like eleven USB 3.2 ports, eight SATA ports, three M.2 slots (with well-covered heatsink), WiFi 6, and Bluetooth 5.0 support bundled. We’re not sure if it gets much better than this.
The second place will be bagged by Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra. Though a bit expensive, it offers slightly better IO and built.
2. Best All-Round AMD B450 Motherboard
MSI B450 Tomahawk
Our first recommendation while picking your motherboard would be to not cheap out. As much as some experts claim, cheaper motherboards bring a lot of trade-offs in terms of performance and usability. So, for an AMD B450 build, we will recommend the MSI B450 Tomahawk. The options for this segment are plenty like MSI B450 Gaming Plus, Asrock B450 Gaming K4, and MSI B450 Tomahawk.
But MSI B450 standouts here for an amazing value proposition. At a price point of $110, it is a good looking board with RGB lighting and reasonable VRM components. The Heat sinks are big, less gimmicky, and more functional. Operating at fairly lower temperatures, MSI B450 also results in lower power consumption and less throttling. This further enhances the value point of this board. You can select this best motherboard 2020 for daily usage.
3. Best All-Round Intel Z390 Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro
Higher up the price ladder, we have a few great options around the $200 price bracket. Our pick here is Gigabyte Z390 Aorus. This board comes in two variants, Elite and Pro. The only difference between both being that Pro variant is $10 expensive at $170 and comes with extra thermal guards, PCIe armor on both M.2 slots and a USB Type-C port. The difference is well worth it!
In our test, the Z390 Aorus Pro has exceptional performance beating even some of the boards from the $300 range. The future-proofing and upgradability here are solid too with support for i9-9900K.
If you aren’t willing to stretch your budget a lot, Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite might offer you a better value while still maintaining great overall performance. But if $10 is within your range, Pro is definitely the better choice.
4. Best All-Round AMD X470 Motherboard
Asus Prime X470-Pro
Did you set your eye on a Ryzen 5 2600X or Ryzen 7 2700X? You must be looking for a new board to accompany it. Here is an almost budget-friendly option that will do your CPU justice. Asus Prime X470-Pro is a $185 motherboard that looks pretty good for its price.
Featuring comprehensive controls for fans and water pumps, Prime X470-Pro has worked up its heatsinks really well. Two M.2 ports are covered by heatsinks to offer unthrottled speeds. 6+2 VRM design featuring 6 real phases combined with a doubler is another notable feature. Along with these you also get Crystal Sound 3 and Intel Gigabit networking.
So even though Asus Prime X470-Pro might be more expensive than Asus TUF X470-Plus ($160) or Asrock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4 ($170), the extra bucks bring in a lot of useful pack of goodies along.
5. Best All-Round Intel Z370 Motherboard
ASRock Z370 Extreme4
If you’re willing to spend a little more, there is no shortage of options. Asus Prime Z370-A is overpriced at $175. Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Ultra Gaming is priced evenly but is plagued by multiple reports of high VRM temperatures.
This is where ASRock steps in with its Z370 Extreme4. Not only is it the cheapest of the bunch but also features a sturdy and reliable VRM. ASRock UEFI is known to be easily navigable. Overclocking on it is a smooth and easy task even for the beginners. It is also among the few boards in this segment to support USB Type-C.
If you can’t get your hands on Z370 Extreme4 you can also check out MSI Z370 Gaming M5 which is a worthy contender and looks pretty good too. MSI offers twin M.2 slots with throttle prevention to make the SSDs run cooler and faster on its Z370 Gaming M5 motherboard. It also has a Killer network card which is known for its lower latency customizations and network traffic prioritization tool. It is the best motherboard in 2020 for any type of usage.
6. Best Value AMD B350 Motherboard
Asus Prime B350-Plus
This is one pick where we faced our biggest dilemma. A very close call between Asus Prime B350- Plus and Gigabyte's AB350-Gaming 3. While most online reviews lean towards Gigabyte AB350- Gaming 3, our pick is Asus Prime B350-Plus for some minor differences between the two.
Asus has a significantly better BIOS and smoother overclocking flow. There are some boards that are said to squeeze significantly more performance but at $100 no one beats this board.
Just like some of our previous mentions, Asus Prime B350-Plus is a leader at its price point. Coupled with excellent overclocking abilities and amazing value proposition, Asus is our pick for this segment.
So this was our list of the Best Motherboards in 2020. The main focus of this list was to segregate each
category and pick the best motherboard based on Price, compatibility, features, value, and performance.
