Motherboards comes in many shapes and forms today – and for a new PC builder this can get pretty confusing. You’ll have to pick your CPU of choice (AMD vs Intel), then next comes the chipset – for Team Red, you have X870E, B850, and B840 for the latest generation; while Team Blue offers Z890 on the high-end, with B860 and H810 serving mid-range and budget segments respectively.
With the high-end motherboards these days flaunting premium features like huge VRM heatsinks, onboard displays and all components decked out to properly future-proof your system, is it worth the money to go all the way up, or would mid-range motherboards today suffice? Today, we’ll use the MSI MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI motherboard that we recently reviewed, representing as the contemporary mid-ranger to see if this is truly the case.
Mid-range Is Better Than Ever
For context, here’s what the model name for this motherboard means. MSI splits its gaming DIY components into three major lineups: MEG (MSI Extreme Gaming), MPG (MSI Performance Gaming), and MAG (MSI Arsenal Gaming). In this exact order the products range from offering unique features and latest innovations, to mainstream ones that offers best value for the performance.
As for ‘B860’, this is the mid-range motherboard chipset offered by Intel today as part of the new Core Ultra 200 series desktop processors, offering decent I/O and connectivity capabilities like 2.5GbE LAN and Thunderbolt 4 ports as standard; finally, the ‘M’ denotes it as a micro-ATX motherboard that is large enough to usually fit up to 3 M.2 SSDs, along with two PCIe slots; it’s also small enough to work with most cases, even some SFF (small form factor) case types.
VRMs
One of the biggest difference between mid-range and high-end motherboards comes down to VRMs (voltage regulator modules) – a group of components focused on providing stable and efficient power to the CPU when the chip demands it. High-end ones are armed to the teeth with capabilities to supply power beyond stock specifications, while mid-range ones usually have just enough to work with most chips at stock power limits.
As for the B860M MORTAR WIFI, this motherboard features a 12+1+1+1 stage VRM that is capable of supplying all 250 watts required by even the flagship Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor to operate at full capacity. That’s pretty good for a relatively cheap mid-range motherboard these days!
Of course, a common downside to this is they usually run hotter than the high-end counterparts, as the cooling components like heatsinks are usually smaller in comparison. Provided that your case as adequate airflow, that shouldn’t be a problem for motherboards like this one to cope with even under the most demanding conditions.
Connectivity
Another big difference between premium and mainstream lies on connectivity: think USB ports, Thunderbolt ports, high-speed Ethernet and Wi-Fi, things along those lines. High-end motherboards are usually equipped with 10-gigabit LAN port, and in recent times some models are seen equipping two LAN ports as well. Adding on top of that, it’s not uncommon to see several Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 for AMD motherboards) ports equipped to work with high-speed peripherals, like external SSDs or displays.
Meanwhile, mid-range motherboards like the MAG B860M MORTAR WIFI get upgrades of their own – most models of this segment are now commonly equipped with 2.5GbE LAN, but for this motherboard, it’s “Ultra Connect” suite meant that it is packed with Thunderbolt 4 ports, 5GbE LAN, and 320MHz Wi-Fi 7, all very capable options to future-proof when ISPs, router and peripheral makers eventually catch up to the new standard.
Expansion
As mentioned in our review of this motherboard, the B860M MORTAR WIFI makes good balance of expandability and footprint. You have a total of three M.2 SSD slots, along with two PCIe slots – one for the GPU, while the other can be assigned for add-in cards like video capture cards or even Thunderbolt 5 add-in cards, in this case. If that’s not enough, SATA ports are available to connect to even more storage devices.
While high-end motherboards can offer up to five (in some cases, six) SSDs slots onboard, it’s worth considering if you truly need all the slots these models can offer. Most motherboards these days feature at least two slots, and three is definitely sufficient for the vast majority of users.
So, Is Mid-Range Motherboards Better?
The answer is, of course, it depends. If you’re just a regular gamer that only needs your PC for gaming and some occasional work (and don’t mind the lack of RGB and other gimmicks), mid-range motherboards like the B860M MORTAR WIFI is perfectly serviceable and offers decent amounts of upgradability for the price (at this time, the local pricing is unconfirmed but we’re told by MSI Malaysia that it’ll be around RM1,200 when it launches).
For half the price of high-end motherboards and one-third the price for flagships, there’s plenty of value to be had – particularly with the features offered by MSI’s new B860 motherboard which we consider is above the standard of mid-range motherboards today, especially considering the trickled-down features added in this generation to simplify the PC building process.
Of course, that isn’t to say that high-end motherboards should be avoided. If the new PC setup you envision will be tapping into all the features such models can offer – think NAS and streaming setups – then investing on a high-end motherboard with better I/O and networking capabilities, along with more user-friendly features to minimize downtime during maintenance, will be a great choice as well. Ultimately, it’s up to what you want your PC to be, so with that in mind, be sure to pick the right one for your next battle station!
