The best motherboards for gaming, even without the assistance of external fans, can capably control the temperature of the PC using passive cooling, heat guards and sinks that keep the best PCs safe, secure and crash-free. If a CPU is the brain of the PC, the motherboard is the skeleton - housing each and every component comfortably and securely without inducing any stress.
When building a great budget gaming PC, many overlook the importance of a motherboard, instead opting for a rip-roaring graphics card that their budget boards cannot handle, causing their PCs to fail entirely.
The best motherboards for gaming of 2023 at a glance:
• Best motherboard for gaming: ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus X Motherboard - View at Amazon
• Best high-performance motherboard for gaming: Gigabyte AORUS XTREME Motherboard - View at Amazon
• Best motherboard for gaming under £500: ASUS ROG STRIX X570-E GAMING Motherboard - View at Amazon
• Best motherboard for gaming under £200: Gigabyte Z690 GAMING X Motherboard - View at Amazon
Hope is not lost, however, as we too have been to the depths of despair whilst building a PC - battling BIOS issues, hardware incompatibility and even manufacturing issues.
Sifting through thousands of motherboards online, we've selected what are truly the very best motherboards for gaming, with only the best connectivity, a phenomenal amount of overheating protection, and more - so your PC build will be the best it possibly can be.
Best motherboard for gaming
Description
An incredibly solid motherboard for gaming, the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus is capable of handling the latest AMD CPUs without breaking a sweat, as well as enough RAM support to future-proof you for many years to come.
Packed with cooling fans and an awesome-looking active chipset heatsink, as well as some essential RGB lighting, the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus is a tough motherboard to match for the price. Despite not having the most USB ports, there are certainly plenty for an array of peripherals that'll keep your head in the game and your setup as brilliant as possible.
Pros
- Great sturdy design
- Plenty of RAM ports
- Good hardware support for gaming builds
Cons
- Not a huge amount of USB ports
Best high performance motherboard for gaming
Description
Far and beyond the most expensive motherboard on our roundup this year, the AORUS XTREME D4 E-ATX barrels onto our list with some serious might, supporting a huge range of AMD CPUs and with enough DDR4 slots to keep you satisfied for the foreseeable future.
The AORUS XTREME D4 E-ATX has a top memory clock speed of 3200 MHz, which is pretty massive. For gamers, this is totally essential, as it means that you can push your hardware to its true capabilities, giving you huge FPS boosts and smoother gameplay overall.
Gigabyte's armoured aesthetic shines through here, giving the motherboard a clean look that is utterly stunning, which pairs well with the copious amounts of RBG lights that the board is fitted with, and undoubtedly complements the aesthetic..
Instead of using a motherboard fan, the AORUS XTREME D4 uses passive cooling, so you save energy and excessive noise from your beefy setup, which surprisingly works amazingly well at keeping everything cool.
Pros
- Excellent build quality
- Wonderfully designed
- Phenomenal number of ports
Cons
- Lacking HDMI ports onboard
Best motherboard for gaming under £500
Description
Perhaps one of the mightiest motherboards for gaming on the market with excellent hardware support and a design that is particularly future-proof thanks to its sheer number of ports, the ASUS ROG STRIX X570-E gaming motherboard is an excellent choice for gamers this year.
With a seriously whopping number of PCIe slots for multiple graphics cards at once, support for up to 128GB of RAM, and enough heat sinks to prevent any and all overheating - the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E is an exceptional choice for truly high-end gaming PCs.
Though it may be a truly outstanding motherboard, the ASUS ROG Strix X570-E is without question overkill - there isn't really a need for casual gamers building a PC to have multiple PCI-E slots, nor the capacity for 128GB of RAM.
That being said, buying the Strix X570-E gives you a bewildering amount of future-proofing unlike any other motherboard on the market, so if you truly have the cash, don't hesitate to make the plunge.
Pros
- Incredible RAM support
- Excellent connectivity for graphics cards
- Well-designed with plenty of heat-sinking
Cons
- Limited video display ports
Best motherboard for gaming under £200
Description
Packed with four PCIE 4.0 sockets, 12th-generation Intel CPU support and some terrific CPU overclocking potential, the Gigabyte Z690 motherboard is a truly excellent choice for a gaming PC under £1,000. Visually, the Gigabyte Z690 isn't as exciting as other high-priced options, but at a fraction of the cost, you cannot deny the Z690's brilliance.
Gigabyte's overall motherboard build quality is particularly excellent for its price, and with a design loaded with thermal guards, you can rest assured that your components will remain safe during some intensive gaming.
Overall, Gigabyte's Z690 is a superb motherboard for gaming and is absolutely worth considering for your PC build.
Pros
- Good connectivity for multiple peripherals
- Well-designed and manufactured to last countless years
- Excellent value
Cons
- Not as visually appealing as other motherboards
Best AMD motherboard for gaming
Description
The perfect affordable motherboard for budget gamers, the ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F is perhaps one of the best-priced motherboards on the market and is ideal for squeezing the most out of a tight budget in a pinch.
Lacking the flash and sophistication of higher-end motherboard models, there aren't any steel heat guards, nor a myriad of PCI-E slots on the STRIX B550-F, but what the board lacks it certainly makes up for with price.
A fraction of the cost of its competition, there's no real need to spend an excessive amount of money on your gaming PC under £1,000 when you can just grab a great motherboard for gaming at less than £200. Save your pennies for those next-generation titles you've been dying to play and experience the true gaming potential of ASUS's ROG Strix B550-F.
Pros
- Fantastic value
- Wonderful USB support
- Phenomenal manufacturing
Cons
- Lacking a great amount of ports
Why is the form factor important?
Choosing between an ATX and a Micro-ATX is an important decision, first, make sure you've got enough room in your PC case for a regular ATX motherboard. If you've bought a regular case you can in fact put a micro-ATX in there, but it might look a little strange.
There are several reasons why we didn't choose any Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX motherboards for this list - first is future-proofing. Smaller motherboards for gaming simply don't have the same amount of PCI-E or RAM slots as your regular ATX motherboards, so if you want to upgrade in the future, you may need to get a new board, which is just another needless expense.
Secondly, you simply don't get the same abundance of case options as you would get with a regular ATX PC case, which can stifle your build completely. Smaller PC towers are great for a compact home, and they look great, but before you build one, consider your options for the future first.
What is form factor?
The form factor is essentially the size of the motherboard, most of the picks on this list are ATX as this is the standard size of motherboard that will fit a regular-size PC case. There's also Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX for smaller cases that are available.
What is DDR?
DDR, or Double Data Rate, is a classification of memory, we've been using Double Data Rate as opposed to Single Data Rate since the late 90s. Most of the motherboards on here will have a DDR4 memory classification, one of the later generations of DDR, but some of our pricier models have DDR5, offering the fastest data transfer between components on the motherboard available.
What is a PCIE slot?
PCIE, or peripheral component interconnect express, is a slot on the motherboard designed for high-speed data transfer between a component (typically your graphics card).
What is CPU Overclocking?
While it isn't an option for all motherboards, CPU overclocking is essentially performance boosting your CPU, allowing it to reach its maximum potential, thus giving you better gaming performance.
While this is a great way to get more out of your components, we'd recommend consulting an overclocking guide beforehand as you can quite easily destroy your CPU this way.
Which motherboards support the Ryzen 5000?
We've got a few solid motherboard choices on this list that are certain to support your Ryzen 5000 CPU, such as the ASUS TUF X570-Plus, the AORUS XTREME and the ROG STRIX X570, all of which are great, albeit expensive options for your build.
Will my motherboard come with cables?
Generally speaking, your motherboard will come with at least a few SATA cables, but that's about it. Your power cables and other miscellaneous wires will probably have to be bought separately, or they'll come with other components.
When is the best time to buy a motherboard?
We'd suggest getting a good deal around Black Friday, there's usually a ton of amazing deals on tech on Amazon and other tech sites around this time. But you've got to be quick - stock becomes very scarce around Christmas, which inevitably leads to price scalping.
Ryan Houghton is a tech writer and reviewer for What's The Best, specialising in PCs and gaming. He is a keen PC gamer and an avid reader.
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