Intel Mid-Range Gaming Build: Motherboard
While all of the components we are selecting here today are what we would go with, and priced from vendors we trust, it is always a good idea to shop around as deals on these, or other good options, pop up from other reliable vendors all the time. With that said, let’s dive right into the next order of business.
Motherboard
GIGABYTE Z490 GAMING X $189.99 (Currently $159.99)
60 FPS
- Very Good Performance
- Stable
- Great Overclocking Support
- Sleek Looks Appeal To Some
30 FPS
- Some Questions About VRMs
- The BIOS Is Not Fun To Navigate
- Sleek Looks Will Detract For Some
- It’s An Entry Level Z490 Board With Entry Level Features
Now that we have one half of our foundation for our build we need what is, essentially, its mate; a motherboard. For both our Core i7-10700K and Core i5-10600K, today we select a GIGABYTE product with the GIGABYTE Z490 GAMING X being a great choice. The Z490 chipset that the Z490 GAMING X features brings us one of the most up to date feature sets in a chipset found in Intel’s stack with the added bonus of supporting overclocking on our processor selections. It also replaces the previous Z390 GAMING X we had on our list.
Many of the previous pros and cons carry over from that selection. So, there are some questions about the power delivery on this board. So, if you go with a higher-end processor than we have picked, be ready to dedicate some cooling to those VRMs. That said, while Z490 products come in at a variety of price points, they are almost universally more expensive than the $159.99 that the GIGABYTE Z490 Gaming X comes in at today. You can’t find a much better match for a Core i7/i5 chip than this if you are looking for a return on your investment while maintaining the options like those found in the Z490 chipset in general, and this board in particular (so long as you remember it is an entry-level overclocking board).