Here are our best motherboards for 2021. Your motherboard is the most important part of your system, so you should pick up a good one. Read on to find which ones made our best motherboards list.
Getting the best motherboard out there is just as important as having the best processor or best graphics card you can afford. When you’re building a PC or upgrading your aging one, don’t get too hung up on the sexier components. Remember that a motherboard is your computer’s backbone, and you should spend just as much time and effort securing one that will keep your components running at their peak. If you don’t, those internals you’ve just spent a lot of money on might crash constantly, fail altogether, or worse, end up in a blazing inferno. On the other hand, if you get the ideal motherboard for your setup, you’ll have a PC running at full efficiency, not to mention that you can probably overclock it much better. That’s how important a motherboard is. Stop risking the life of your PC and consider one of the best motherboards below, especially if you’re resuscitating an older computer or putting together a new one to stand up to the best PCs. If you’re unfamiliar with the best motherboards out there, use this list as a primer for your next build. Motherboards are available in a broad range of different form factors, the most common of which are ATX and Micro ATX. However, there are plenty of less common form factors including mini ITX and E-ATX. Don’t worry though, most of the best PC cases will support more than one form factor. Moreover, in our rundown of the best motherboards, we detailed the socket type that each mobo adheres to. The socket, for those not in the know, is the part on the motherboard that the CPU locks into. Typically, newer Intel processors use either LGA 1151 or 2066 while the latest AMD Ryzen architecture is designed for the AM4 chipset. It might not be cheap, but the Rog Maximus XIII Hero is worth its price tag. Its list of features, which includes Wi-Fi 6, PCIe 4.0, tons of ports (including two thunderbolt), and four M.2 SSD sockets, will satisfy just about anyone looking for a premium Z590 board to build a PC around. It’s not only a great performing board, but it’s easy to overclock as well. And, like any good ASUS motherboard, it comes with plenty of RGB lighting. High-end motherboards may cost a fortune, but if you’ve got something like the MSI MEG Z490 Godlike under the hood, you’re pretty much guaranteed top-notch performance, especially if you’ve got Intel components. As long as you’re willing to pay the price. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that this is the best z490 board out there right now, with an excellent thermal solution, staggering overclocking performance, easy installation and diagnostic solutions for do-it-yourself-ers, and a solid build.
