B250 Motherboard Comparison

[Freezanator]

Here are the 3 B250 chipset mobos I'm comparing:
1. ASRock B250M-HDV (312 MYR/ 74 USD)

2. Gigabyte GA-B250M-D2V (358 MYR/ 85 USD)

3. MSI B250M PRO-VH (375 MYR/ 89 USD)

 

First of all, AFAIK, these 3 motherboards are around 95% similar to one another. As of now, I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte board due to its sleek, black colour scheme. However it is also the only one of the 2 which doesn't have an M.2 slot, which is quite a shame. Out of the 3, the ASRock motherboard has a total of 3 fan headers, including the CPU one, while the rest have only 2. The ASRock motherboard also has a 4-pin CPU power connector while the other 2 have 8-pin ones (Which is better?).  Even though the ASRock motherboard has a few more bells and whistles here and there as well as being the cheapest of the 3, I'm still quite hesitant as I'm not confident in the quality of ASRock's motherboards. Is it still worth getting the Gigabyte one? Should I spend more and get the MSI motherboard which has a metal reinforcement around the PCIe x16 slot? Should I go for the ASRock motherboard which is the cheapest of the bunch and has a few extras thrown in? Which of the 3 should I get? Thanks!

[just_dave]

Ryzen 3? Why you would get already dead platform?

[Freezanator]

1 minute ago, dave_k said:

Ryzen 3? Why you would get already dead platform?

Hmm... I'll try looking it up on my local online store.

[genexis_x]

Forget Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake and Ryzen 3/5 are better choices

[Freezanator]

@dave_k @ZM Fong Ok, the cheapest Ryzen 3 1200 I found on my local online store costs 479 MYR (114 USD) and an accompanying AM4 motherboard costs around 350 MYR (83 USD). The thing is , my original plan was to get a Pentium G4560 which was significantly cheaper (319 MYR/ 76 USD) and a similarly priced B250 motherboard. The problem now is my budget isn't sufficient to squeeze in a more expensive Ryzen 3 1200 even though it has a better price to performance ratio compared to the Pentium G4560. So, I'm still sticking to the Pentium and one of the 3 motherboards I listed above. Which one should I get?

[mariushm]

Go with Ryzen 3 and a motherboard based on B350 chipset (this will allow you to overclock the processor). You will find cheaper motherboards with A320 chipset but those won't allow you to overclock processors.

Note that Ryzen 3 has no integrated graphics so you'd have to use some dedicated video card to get the system working.

 

As for those B250 boards ... you shouldn't invest money on a platform for which there won't be processors made anymore, you won't be able to upgrade in the future to something better without replacing the motherboard and potentially memory as well.

Otherwise...

* you don't really need 3 fan headers, whatever you install on such a motherboard won't produce that much heat as to require so many fans.

* you don't need a 8 pin cpu connector on those motherboards, because whatever processor you install it won't use enough power to require a 8 pin connector. The motherboards use one instead of the 4 pin one just to look cool or to seem more high end, or maybe because manufacturer bought a huge amount of 8 pin connectors and maybe didn't want to stock 4 pin connectors as well. So connector type won't make any difference in functionality.

* you don't really need m.2 connector on these boards, processors are kinda slow anyway, boards are towards the cheaper end... it would be just as fast to have a SATA SSD or a m.2 drive, you wouldn't really feel much difference in real world and m.2 drives are just more expensive  - so don't consider the asrock's m.2 such a huge deal.

 

If you'd force me to choose I'd go with either the Asrock one or the Gigabyte one ... the MSI one seems like it just has too few usb connectors in the back for my tastes..

 

[just_dave]

1 minute ago, Freezanator said:

@dave_k @ZM Fong Ok, the cheapest Ryzen 3 1200 I found on my local online store costs 479 MYR (114 USD) and an accompanying AM4 motherboard costs around 350 MYR (83 USD). The thing is , my original plan was to get a Pentium G4560 which was significantly cheaper (319 MYR/ 76 USD) and a similarly priced B250 motherboard. The problem now is my budget isn't sufficient to squeeze in a more expensive Ryzen 3 1200 even though it has a better price to performance ratio compared to the Pentium G4560. So, I'm still sticking to the Pentium and one of the 3 motherboards I listed above. Which one should I get?

Probably the MSI

[just_dave]

meh

[mariushm]

@dave_k  you might want to edit your comment, it's a bit off topic. repost in the other thread if you really wanted to do it.

[Jurrunio]

Asrock board, because it's the cheapest.

 

1. 4pin CPU power connector delivers less power than what a 8pin can do. Doesnt affect the CPU by all means since you cant overclock any of them with this board anyway. Make sure your PSU comes with a 4 pin or splittable 8pin CPU power connector.

 

2. M.2 Slot is BS. In normal use, NVMe SSDs and SATA SSDs perform the same. Their difference only shows in extreme cases where you throw huge files around.

 

3. No. of fan headers dont matter much. G4560 system cant put out much heat anyway... If you just run out of fan headers you can still use splitters.

16 minutes ago, mariushm said:

If you'd force me to choose I'd go with either the Asrock one or the Gigabyte one ... the MSI one seems like it just has too few usb connectors in the back for my tastes..

 

 

They all have the same maximum number of USB ports and USB types. MSI one has 2 USB 2.0 below the PS/2 port.

[Columbo]

56 minutes ago, Freezanator said:

Here are the 3 B250 chipset mobos I'm comparing:
1. ASRock B250M-HDV (312 MYR/ 74 USD)

2. Gigabyte GA-B250M-D2V (358 MYR/ 85 USD)

3. MSI B250M PRO-VH (375 MYR/ 89 USD)

 

First of all, AFAIK, these 3 motherboards are around 95% similar to one another. As of now, I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte board due to its sleek, black colour scheme. However it is also the only one of the 2 which doesn't have an M.2 slot, which is quite a shame. Out of the 3, the ASRock motherboard has a total of 3 fan headers, including the CPU one, while the rest have only 2. The ASRock motherboard also has a 4-pin CPU power connector while the other 2 have 8-pin ones (Which is better?).  Even though the ASRock motherboard has a few more bells and whistles here and there as well as being the cheapest of the 3, I'm still quite hesitant as I'm not confident in the quality of ASRock's motherboards. Is it still worth getting the Gigabyte one? Should I spend more and get the MSI motherboard which has a metal reinforcement around the PCIe x16 slot? Should I go for the ASRock motherboard which is the cheapest of the bunch and has a few extras thrown in? Which of the 3 should I get? Thanks!

I have a couple of builds. One is a 4560 and the other is a 4620. I use this Asrock motherboard. It works very well and has two M.2 slots. Because the 4560 and motherboards are very inexpensive, buying a 4560 is not a bad way to go. With that said I am working on the plans for a 1200 or 1300x build on a B350 motherboard as I write this. Here the link to the Asrock motherboard. The OP would only be setting himself back $150 for CPU and motherboard with DDR4 ram that can be used on future builds. People forget the 4560 is only $55-65 CPU. 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157734&cm_re=b250_motherboard-_-13-157-734-_-Product

[genexis_x]

B250 board (every Kaby Lake board) is limited to 4 cores, get R3 1200 + B350, worth the money, more future proof