Fourth-generation Intel processors proved themselves to be the best among all the gaming processors when they were released. For an intel 4th generation processor you need an LGA 1150 socket motherboard. Fortunately, there are a lot of good motherboards present in every budget for your processor. Although it’s not the time for going with an LGA 1150 motherboard except if you just want it for your 4th gen intel processor.
Even if you have a good processor like Core i5 4690k you can either use a $50 motherboard or a $200 motherboard. It all depends on your choice. I am going to list down the best motherboards that provide the best features at their price range and are best for overclocking as well.
But before going further you need to know that not all LGA 1150 motherboards are good for gaming. Suppose if you buy a B85M motherboard for your core i5 4690k, then I am sorry to say, you can not overclock your processor as this motherboard is not meant for overclocking. Always strive to get an overclockable motherboard if you have an unlocked processor.
In case you are using an i3 then the case is different. But the best choices are motherboards with H and Z chipset motherboards like H81 or Z97 etc. as they provide you with different capabilities for overclocking and better features. Chipsets like B and Q should be avoided because they are not meant for gaming.
MSI LGA 1150 H81M-P33
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The cheapest gaming motherboard is from MSI and it is a very basic motherboard for basic work. It only costs 50 dollars but provides room for overclocking. It’s best for budget gaming computers that cost $300–$400. If you own a Pentium g3258, then this is the best choice as it will allow you to overclock your CPU with a custom cooler with stability but your overclocking will have a limit as it is not totally unlocked.
It has 2 Dimm slots that support up to 16 GB of ddr3 memory clocked up to 1600Mhz. Now, 1600Mhz memory is fast enough to play all the games without any bottleneck and if you use a single 8 GB memory you will be able to upgrade it to 16 Gb in the future.
Even if you want to spend money on a good processor like a core i5 4690k, you can still overclock it with this motherboard and it will not hinder the potential of any i5s or i7s. Therefore the main advantage of this motherboard is that even if you want to build a high-end rig with this, you will be able to do that and if you are using a cheap intel Pentium or i3 processor with this motherboard you will always be able to upgrade to the better processor without changing your motherboard.
MSI ATX 2400 LGA 1150 Z97 PC MATE
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At 100 dollar price tag, you can either get a motherboard with a B85M chipset or a highly overclockable motherboard with a Z97 chipset. Now, this is one of the cheapest Z97 chipset motherboards and is fully unlocked and best suited for mid-end as well as high-end rigs.
If you want to overclock your CPU you will be able to overclock it up to 4.7Ghz stably if you own an i5 4690k, i7 4790k, or Pentium g3258 with a custom cooler. This motherboard also allows you to add multi AMD graphics cards and can support two-way CrossfireX which is also a good feature especially if you use two graphics cards like RX 470 or RX 480.
Also See:- Best graphics cards
All other ports like SATA 3 and USB 3.0 are available more than you can get with the H81M p33 motherboard. So it also allows you to upgrade your system for more storage with faster technology. This motherboard is best suited for builds above 500 dollars.
MSI ATX 2600 LGA 1150 Z97 GAMING 5
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This motherboard is the most selling at this price range. I have seen people loving this motherboard unlike any other. It has a neat black and red look and has a heat sink for cooling. The design is very simple and easy to manage. It has 4 Dimm slots that support up to 32 GB of highly overclocked memory.
You will also get tons of USB, PCI, and SATA 3 ports, as well as the KILLER E2200 GAME networking feature which enables you to play online games, lag-free. The best feature of this motherboard is that along with CrossifireX it also supports two-way Nvidia SLI which means you can SLI two GTXx 1070s or even 1080s easily and it will handle them with no problem.
There are a lot of SATA 3.0 ports as well as an M.2 slot for NVME SSD which is insanely fast. The SATA ports are made 90 degrees to the motherboard PCB in order to make the connectivity through cables easy. Make sure you use a big ATX case to take advantage of this feature.
There are some good options for cooling as well. You can easily do water cooling or install a lot of custom fans to the case powering through the motherboard. Not only this, the motherboard also has ON board Power, reset, and overclocking buttons which use OC genie technology to overclock the processor to the required frequency.
Gigabyte ATX LGA 1150 GA-Z97X-UD3H
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This is a pretty much fast motherboard that supports up to 10Gb/s of speed transfer through SATA ports. It is ultra-durable and has 2x copper in PCB. The capacitors are also quality made and combining all these factors, this motherboard is much more reliable than the other ones.
It has a Z97 chipset which is totally unlocked for overclocking processors and supports memories overclocking up to 3100Mhz. The 4 Dimm slots support a maximum of 32 GB of ram and therefore you have already a lot of space to upgrade your system.
Other features like USB and SATA ports are available and unlike the previous motherboard, it also supports two-way Nvidia SLI and Three way AMD CrossfireX which allows you to make your system 4k ready if you use three decent AMD or two high-end Nvidia graphics cards.
ASUS TUF SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1 LGA 1150 Z97
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This is an awesome high-end motherboard that is highly overclockable and has the latest USB 3.1 technology for even faster transfers. This motherboard also supports up to 32 GB of highly overclockable memories and has two heat sinks. One is on the right side of the PCI slots and one above them which is removable.
A good feature of this motherboard is that it supports Quad SLI and Quad CrossfireX which means you can use 2 dual graphics cards from either Nvidia or AMD and get the power of four graphics cards with two dual graphics cards. But this feature is outdated today and you won’t find any dual GPU for SLI/CrossfireX.
