5 Attachment(s)
Best Motherboards 2019: For Gaming, by Socket and Chipset
Graphics cards and CPUs often get more attention, but your motherboard is in many ways the most integral part of your PC build. Every part of your PC plugs into it, its form factor dictates the size of your computer, and its chipset and CPU socket dictate what kind of processor you can install.
If you’re not sure which chipset you’re after, or have more basic questions, you can visit our motherboard basics and motherboard buying guide features to help narrow down your buying options.
The first section of this page contains our recommendations for buying a motherboard with Intel's mainstream LGA-1151 socket. These include boards designed for Intel's 9th Generation "Coffee Lake Refresh," as well as older (though still viable) Z370 chipset boards designed for Intel’s 8th Generation Core “Coffee Lake” family, as well as the lower-cost H370 alternative.
Below our mainstream picks, you’ll find our recommendations for motherboards with Intel's high-end desktop (HEDT) LGA-2066 socket and X299 chipset supporting the X-Series and Extreme line of processors.
Best Intel Z390 Motherboards
The Z390 Designare beats its closest rival on features for the price, has similar overclocking limits to its closest rival but beats it in overclocked DRAM performance, and has at least enough extra value to justify its premium over cheaper boards. We have to consider whether the “workstation replacement” PC market will tolerate a board with mediocre CPU overclocking. But given that there’s so little to gain from overclocking the Core i9-9900K, we feel that more often than not the answer is yes.
Even if you never use its Thunderbolt 3 port, it’s hard to deny the supremacy of a board that does everything else better than the competition, while costing less. The Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac is even cheaper than the non-Wi-Fi version of MSI’s ATX MGP Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon, though that won’t matter to anyone who needs the extra DIMM and PCIe slots afforded by the larger form factor. But for those looking for a Mini ITX board to support Intel’s Core i9-9900K, the Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac is easily our first choice.
