Best Budget Intel B660 Boards, VRM Thermal Test

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Part 2 is now available, covering 18 boards in total: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hnbEYamZf5WfiLs

[@Asquadron1]

what doesnt mean direct and standart air flow ? direct its u put additional fan on vrm radiotor or what ?

[@aravindraja8034]

what does direct airflow mean pls explain

[@dothackjhe]

I'm not sure of the general meaning of the term myself. But per the speaker himself, '... direct airflow configuration, which includes an additional 120mm fan covering the VRM.'

[@aravindraja8034]

@@dothackjhe any idea how t mount a 120mm fan for vrm

[@dothackjhe]

@@aravindraja8034 That will probably depend on the layout of your build. I think, you will just have to improvise on it, mainly.

[@martigrey5872]

Great to see someone still doing big comparisons. Thank you, Steve.

[@nananananai]

steve is just great!

[@miweneia]

i have to say though, this is some incredible effort! 9 boards ran across 12 tests each lasting an hour + the pc rebuild time, you truly are the best benchmarking channel out there

[@technetium_tech]

Woo! Steve at it again with the mega comparison! These comparisons are truly appreciated.

[@Chris-hw4mq]

the work load to make all those benchmarks must have taken weeks

[@NamTran-xc2ip]

I hope he test them with I5 12400f.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@@NamTran-xc2ip any and all boards are going to work with the 12400F, it uses about 70w.

[@JzfDavid]

Got the MSI PRO B660M-A, paired with a 12600K just yesterday. And I'm so glad to see this video. 🤩 Thank you so much Steve for all your hardwork! Cheers!

[@mat-mat101]

Thank God you made a right choice!

[@JzfDavid]

10 cores was more than enough for my needs. The 12700 would've been overkill for me even in the long run.

[@GabrielKLKN]

Am i missing something but why 12600k with a b660 and not z690?

[@mineatomtr]

@@GabrielKLKN why not, you still can do base clock overclocking which most people won’t do anyway

[@nigel2187]

@@GabrielKLKN z690 is overkill anyway

[@Spark010]

Very impressive results from the Maxsun and Soyo boards! Kinda put some of the established brands to shame. I would be tempted to try these if it wasn't for the potential support/warranty limitations.

[@HelloOnepiece]

They have been solid brands (in terms of products) for quite some time now, good to know they are starting to get some recognition (you wont buy them anyway, they are not really sold anywhere west)

[@kosmosyche]

@@HelloOnepiece Except, Aliexpress is a thing. I mean they do deliver to the west, east, south or north.

[@Oz-gv5fz]

Kinda order one, the legacy cpu cooler suport is what i need

[@crispianchealuks2024]

as a legacy pc builder, my customers(relatives) refuse to upgrade and I have to source fm2+ motherboards from China, maxsun and soyo fm2+ motherboards work seamlessly

[@tuiso]

as u said, "potential support/warranty limitations". I imagine this is the exact reason why they can sell for lower. Setting up global distribution, support and warranty should cost a lot too.

[@RabbyBabu]

These comparison videos are always extremely appreciated, they're very informative. Thanks Steve!!

[@kamiladamski5715]

I have to say - I think I'm more excited about motherboards tests than cpu tests. It's true especially for these budget solutions. I mean cpu/gpu tests are ubiquitous, but good, confirmed boards comparisons are a rarity, but it can affect cpu performance in a substantial way.

[@General_Li_Shin]

I would have avoided giving the Asrock Board such a clean B-roll, probably a mugshot style thing with a massive red Cross on it for Asrock to get the message 🤣🤣

[@thelegendaryklobb2879]

With a fart sound effect

[@madcrowmaxwell]

He's not Gamers Nexus...

[@Gti_Jason]

I would have filmed it in a dumpster and on fire so you don't accidentally use it somewhere down the line. The only board even worth considering is the MSI Pro A in this roundup, hopefully round 2 fares better

[@rmmbitfountain3922]

Is gigabyte 660 ds3h good choice for i5 12400 or should I go for msi mag b660?

[@ShubhamPednekarYt]

@@rmmbitfountain3922 msi b660 m a

[@johntotten4872]

Thank you for the hard work Steve. This is exactly what I was waiting for. It is amazing the amount of variance in performance between boards priced so closely.

[@galzoli]

Impressive review, good job! I'm just in the process of ordering parts for my new PC....and thanks to your review I changed my motherboard order to MSI Pro B660M-A (from Gigabyte B660M DS3H).

[@CarthagoMike]

Thank you for the testing! I really love seeing these kinds of comparisons of the more affordable boards.

[@ShadVonHass]

Though I don't personally need this exact content, this kind of motherboard mega comparison can be hugely useful and I'm glad this content is being made! I did build out a Alder Lake ITX build recently for a friend, hoping the ASRock Z690 ITX board is at least a bit better than their B660 offering....

[@sonicboy678]

You're probably asking too much from ASRock...

[@Bareego]

Just make sure to get some airflow on that VRM and don't ride the CPU too hard.

[@thangluongquang2826]

I don't know why even though I have decided and purchased all the components for my PC already, I just can't stop watching these videos

[@sonicboy678]

You find this content fascinating. On a personal level, I'm more interested in laptops, but I'd be lying if I claimed to have no interest in this content.

[@pr1tzy_]

can't thank you enough for making these comparison videos. I was in the process of upgrading my current build and was desperate for someone to let me know which motherboard is the best considering the limited options and budget I had. This and all other b660 videos gave me a perfect guide to choose my motherboard which is the msi pro b660m-a ddr4. Hopefully it dosen't disappoint me.

[@aliaksndrlive]

I'm waiting for this for Ages, thanks Steve...!!!

[@jayveedelacruz755]

This is a very underated review in terms of the information it provides, kudos to you guys!

[@scottjungle5840]

Wow, outstanding testing. So helpful and interesting results. I'm disappointed to see top brands come in below budget brands... I know you tested them rigorously and most users won't put them through these paces on a regular basis, nice job MSI!

[@eggcopter]

Hi Steve, if you read this, I think have the temperature bar red is fitting, intuitive and provides more visual contrast for comparing CB score to temperatures, thanks for the good work!

[@stevesloan6775]

Man you do the best reviews... even way back in your channels life, you two were awesome. It seems like 15 years back you started your channel. 🇦🇺🤜🏼🤛🏼🍀🍀🍀😎🤓 Sheeet I subscribed 7 years ago! Great work!

[@ErwinTeunissen]

Great review! Awesome work. You helped me allot with this. But I think if you would use air cpu cooler, specially with double fan support, the vrm temps will be much lower then water cooled. Would be nice if you just try it with a couple boards if this indeed helps.

[@mat-mat101]

Kudos for the MSI for focusing on VRM quality.

[@drewmendoza2041]

I believe B560M Pro VDH is in their B560 round up.

[@tygattyche2545]

It's because the "MSI Pro B660M-A" is MSI's only for less than 150,- AUS/US(?)-$.

[@mat-mat101]

Ah never mind. He reviewed the VDH WIFI as well. Sorry for the confusion! ^_^

[@GewelReal]

MSI likes its VRMs

[@bananya6020]

i think this is just the right amount of focus. for people who have the budget to buy b660, it means we'll usually run i7's at most and an i9 if it's cheap later. as a result, designing a board to just BARELY run the i9 without throttling is ideal since the rest of the limited budget can be spent on features.

[@Cryptic_Chai]

Man, thanks a lot! No one does this kinda comparison! It's Very helpful.

[@rodhester2166]

SOYO MOBO, I use to buy soyo in the early 2000's to build my kids computers, Microcenter carried them.. but they dont anymore. Now the only soyo thing i have is a monitor. thanks for all the tons of time put into this video..

[@revnto7k]

Not surprisingly MSI seems to have learned their lesson. (VRM performance issues from about 2 years ago) I have been VERY happy with my latest MSI boards and I hope the trend continues. Great quality boards from them lately.

[@mrle0719]

thank you very much for explaining how each board behaves regarding power. amazing review

[@ge9199]

Please discuss the best value B760M DDR4 & DDR5 series motherboards in terms of temperature control on the VRM.

[@jayrajgor18]

Steve just want to say really really appreciate your hardwork on this video as you took a month of testing! Resp+ 🙌 honest comparison

[@sebastianfigueroa8655]

Man, this is the video I needed. Thank you very much, love this channel ♥️

[@Nite-Lite-Gamers]

Great Video, Your testing does help consumers pick the components they need for there case scenaros which is most appreciated. i.e a bad product will be avoided and a good product will be bought, Simple.

[@franchellevanheerden]

Dude , I love you so much , thanks for all the effort , my next MB will be the MSI mentioned :)

[@da1otta]

Thank you so much for this video! As a budget gamer, I really needed an in-depth insight like this one. Cheers!

[@omercelebi2012]

Very very informative comparisons. Thanks for saving my budget!

[@AlphaSnowLion]

Damn this is an insane difference between these boards! I wouldn't have thought this would ever happen lol, I've always had this in my mind that "any board can run anything stock with no problems" but turns out it's a wild difference with boards even in the same price range. The MSI Pro looks like a great candidate for an upcoming build, I just wish it had +1 M.2 slot like many other 12th gen boards do. I highly appreciate motherboard comparisons like this, I'm really looking forward to the next!

[@guldukat1354]

brands don't really like to sample or focus marketing on low end boards especially since they know that some of there products there are either bad or underwhelm and are mostly just there to have a presence in that market segment and/or are mostly sold to SI. Good on Steave to give budget buyers an insight on what they can expect at the low end.

[@ovistech]

Very good job. I would say that Alder Lake & B660 combo raises the due diligence level for the average user when building a new system with these parts. But thanks to you and your work here, we are now aware of the possible issues. Thumbs-up!

[@nitishsharma6734]

I was waiting for this video for long to upgrade to alder lake. However, I just purchased the MSI B660M-A Wifi as I needed Wifi and the VRMs looked like they could handle a 12700. This video only made me happy for my decision. Thanks

[@xmj6830]

I cannot wait for the testing of the Asus TUF GAMING B660M-Plus Wifi D4. It seems promising!

[@aasimahmad3371]

was waiting for this video from hardware unboxed, thank you.

[@JosephGonzalez-tj7rv]

Excellent coverage and information, what a load of data and time you put this mate, thanks really appreciate all this , keep them coming

[@anasvar3319]

This guy is a benchmarking beast, huge respect 👍.

[@rigidhammer7376]

money plus time

[@jaredmulconry]

My workplace is upgrading my work system and are using the Asus Prime B660M-A D4-CSM, which seems to be the same as the -A D4 in this video, minus one of the VRM heatsinks. It'll be running a 12700F, which seems like will work fine with the VRM solution. I'm nearly certain they will be using the stock cooler with that CPU, so we'll see how that goes. Thank goodness for you making this video, and allowing me to rest easy that my employer hasn't selected a trash mobo for my new machine.

[@mat-mat101]

Well, ASRock have missed the mark yet again... But hey, it is great to see Chinese-branded motherboards in your VRM review! ^_^

[@grozaphy]

isnt asrock a spinoff of asus back then?

[@WayStedYou]

@@grozaphy Yes.

[@sssanl6096]

wait for b660 steel legend.

[@mat-mat101]

Luckily, based from how its VRM look like, I am sure it will perform better, as well as its mATX sibling.

[@sssanl6096]

@@mat-mat101 and hopefully bclk oc :)

[@darktriad8773]

These motherboard tests are awesome, no one else is doing anything like it. MSI Pro is only £20 more than the Gigabyte boards, well worth it!

[@ze-ph9774]

The Maxsun and Soyo results are really good. Nice.

[@eyalteler5349]

Great work, Steve. The variation between boards make for interesting content.

[@leoariasyt]

Daaamm! After a loooong period of time SOYO is Back!

[@trinisurfer]

Thanks for the hard work guys. Always appreciate the in depth testing

[@ArcusCo]

I am with Asrock PRO RS pretty happy with that price

[@P0tato_PC]

helped me a lot . have no words to appreciate

[@zainahmed9923]

Thank you! Been waiting for this video.

[@riba2233]

Thank you so much for doing this exhausting benchmarks! You are a true legend

[@karama300video]

Aside from the MSI, all other mobos look very underwhelming. The cost of the chipset + PCIe4 must be high.

[@nayan.punekar]

You're ignoring the maxsun and soyo boards as they are the best performers in both performance and temperature but yeah they are Chinese products so it doesn't surprise me that you're ignoring them

[@vh9network]

Looks like your typical budget motherboard to me. You want he bells and whistles you go for the Z690

[@rdmz135]

@@nayan.punekar they are second to the MSI B660m-a. Still very good boards.

[@bananya6020]

agree, b560 had much better boards eg b560m pro vdh

[@nayan.punekar]

@@rdmz135 Yeah but they were pretty close when you look at the graphs as there were multiple instances where the Chinese motherboards outperformed the msi boards and the msi boards are more likely to be sold at a much higher price while it's common for Chinese boards are generally cheaper but like I said the msi board is more preferable as it's a more trustworthy company and would provide bios support for a long time and have a warranty which I would not expect from the Chinese boards.

[@tubagusismail89]

Wow... Good result for Maxsun and Soyo. Maybe next time HU need to review mini itx B660/H670 from asrock. Btw thanks for amazing video review 👍

[@GamerBoy705_yt]

15:42 What the heck? 122° C? I wonder what the hell Asrock did to the Pro lineup. The B560 Pro4 was one of the best budget LGA1200 motherboards just a few months ago (really good price, decent VRMs and feature set) but they went backwards now

[@HuntaKiller91]

Thx for this I love maxsun for $95,but gigabyte's rear I/o is plentiful for the $120 asking price..i think 125w 12600/12700k is still decent for that board

[@knk8429]

I highly recommand checking out the maxsun terminater B660M, it has same vram performance but much better peripheral support and slots on the board for what i think the identical price.

[@vitiok78]

Thank you very much! That's exactly the info I was looking for!

[@JulioVercetti]

Great Video! Was a great help for me and my decisionmaking. Thank you for your effort !! :)

[@unitdant1fascist345]

First of all I really aprecciate the work you guys putting in to these reviews. My question is how switching to an air cooler would affect the VRM temperatures. Since this is the setup i imagine most people will go for. Also testing these boards with an i5 12400 would have been very interesting.

[@johntotten4872]

He mentioned in the video almost all of these would work fine paired with a 12400. I would think using an air cooler would lower the temps slightly but also how many people use such a solid air flow case as what was used in the video

[@unitdant1fascist345]

@@johntotten4872 Well yeah since the 12400 draws roughly 2/3 of the power than the 12700 does (with no power limit). Not so sure about the air cooler. The air which flows over the VRMs is definetly hotter than compared to the setup used in the video.

[@magottyk]

Air coolers don't all have downdraft for the vrm's, given the high power draw during turbo, most people would pair these with a budget tower cooler which would have minimal air directed at vrm's.

[@Iatemykitty]

The smoke reference explains what kind of motherboard Assrock has manufactured 😤

[@CSagan710]

I was looking for a decent and affordable B660 or H670 board. Suffice to say I gave up and just got a 5600x + B550 combo and couldn't be happier. The crazy part is it would have cost me more to go with the cheapest B660 and a 12100f.

[@damara2268]

Yes alder lake platform makes no sense anymore after Ryzens got the big discounts a week ago.

[@HardyDimension]

Really appreciate you for the testing, it does helps a lot 🙏🙏❤😊

[@carlod803]

MSI has been on a roll with quality budget boards since their B450 releases and good to know that its also trickled down with current Intel boards.

[@naamadossantossilva4736]

You forgot the X570 debacle.

[@niks660097]

@@naamadossantossilva4736 yeah MSI has always been hit or miss..

[@pietrmuffei8874]

@@naamadossantossilva4736 please elaborate

[@naamadossantossilva4736]

@@pietrmuffei8874 The first batch of X570 mobos MSI made were a dumpster fire. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4u6hoKimdirjrM

[@Cinetyk]

Coming in very late to this video, since I'm now trying to help a friend with a potential new PC build. This is the wild wild west in terms of power limits and potential throttling and temperature and performance. Gotta appreciate the effort in testing and showing all this. With the recent debacle about 14th gen stability and Intel introducing new "baseline" and "default" profiles for the BIOS, this doesn't give me any confidence at all. Cheers for the work :)

[@JayzBeerz]

I bought the MSI B660M-A Wifi board thanks for the review Steve.

[@chechsp]

Nice review, miss the total power consumed present in the B560 comparison, I find it really useful.

[@jonasziegler3025]

An H610 VRM testing for i3 12100 and i5 12400 and maybe 12600K would be interesting as I think especially for these CPUs most H610 boards are plenty enough.

[@LISTEDGames]

Curious about that

[@paulking4908]

The Soyo Dragons bring back memories.

[@AY-dw4om]

I want you to test the 12400 and 12100 with out extra fan on the VRMs, with and without power limits, to see how well they really do handle those CPU's .... the gigabytes especially as they are the most easy models to acquire world wide in most places...

[@Rogerkonijntje]

Thank you for the massive undertaking this test was

[@DeathStrike562]

I got the asrock pro rs for $80. With an i3-12100, 1TB NVMe ssd and 32GB ram it’s done well so far. I only had $500 to setup a new rig tho. On 500wpower supply with one 120mm fan it’s actually good for lower end stuff that I’m doing like Cad work and Star craft 2

[@aminaj701]

thank u so much looking for this type of video couple days

[@__aceofspades]

MSI did a great job, but there are several great B660 boards for cheap. Really great showing for these budget boards, except for Asrock's cheapest board.

[@someguyfromtheinternet1658]

I see your persistence has finally beaten MSI into submission, no more cheap crappy motherboards. As an unfortunate purchaser of an X570-pro A I appreciate the effort, pity I didn't check out your reviews back then!

[@blueryxfalls7949]

It's really pity because I think last year they released a refreshed x570 series of mobo with an 'S' on their name that seem to have fixed the issues

[@ogbenchmarks7127]

That's some nice colorful tile in the background of the test system.

[@MikhailTimokhin1980]

Thank you very much for this in-depth review!

[@alphasixty1316]

More Kudos, thanks for your work and keeping it entertaining.

[@QuentinStephens]

A lot of work there. Thank you. I'm looking forward to your ITX roundup. Here up over the MSI B660M-A is £162 on Amazon (cheaper if you're willing to wait a month) which begs the question: is it worth spending £18 extra to get the MSI Mortar for £180? Something for a follow-up video, perhaps? Those Chinese boards are superficially impressive so perhaps you might do a deeper dive to look at the companies and their ranges of products?

[@nayan.punekar]

I too would like to look at the other products from those Chinese manufacturers as they are literally the best performers in Steve's data and it sure is kinda superficial given the price.

[@thelawnet]

both of them are grossly overpriced, you can buy the B660M-A for £130 from technextday in stock. £180 is far too much for the Mortar you'd best look at Z690 for that money.

[@nayan.punekar]

@@thelawnet what boards are you referring to by both?

[@Thunderstorm804]

I waited for this video thx for bringing.

[@Lawdrich]

A very useful comparison and gives a stark contrast in the quality available, even at similar price points. One thing I would be interested to know is whether there's any variance in system power use between the boards. Is the excess heat just because of inadequate cooling capability, or is more power being turned to heat due to less power efficiency?

[@gurjindersingh3843]

Ask this question in his community Q&A and you might get an answer if you have enough upvotes.

[@GuillermoSTD]

Quality video as always, but considering the prices of these 10 boards maybe there could have been some results with a 12400/12100 and less with the 12900?

[@iq_thepunisher3767]

i really agree with you but Steve did mention that any of these boards will do good with the 12400 cause it only uses like 70W

[@null2089]

bro use gigabyte ds3h for 12400

[@Ayzprella]

thank you for this video

[@jitech_]

Back in my days (lol) any board could run a compatible CPU at stock frequency. High-end motherboards were needed for overclocking. It makes the choice a lot more complex so thank you for these comparison videos.

[@AJBtheSuede]

Looking forward to seeing the TUF and MORTAR results :) To few people show how the boards behave with the non-K SKU's, I'm looking for a B660 MATX for a 12700 non-K right now :)

[@aesmaeilig]

Thank you for making this video. Great info and nice to look at

[@cebuanostud]

I can't wait for you to test the midrange B660 mobos

[@benchosei9878]

Big thanks, Steve 😘

[@slimshady392]

Thank you so much. Greetings from Argentina !

[@macindog4939]

I finally know what board to get for my 12400, thanks guys.

[@DGao-zz5vq]

I’m not in the market for a full sized board but still watched through the whole video. The amount of work put into this is insane. Also, am I reading this right, the ASRock HDV can’t even run the 12900K properly at PL1=65W? Anandtech reviewed a NUC Compute Element card with a 12900 (PL1=65W) and it yielded an R23 score of almost 18000.

[@bluebaconjake405]

Holy shit! Thanks for the video. I was planning on building a pc and almost bought an Asrock board and thanks to you, i dodged a bullet.

[@NalinKhurb]

Wide berth hahaha nice. Very thorough and great video, thanks

[@MikaelKKarlsson]

Small bump for any B660 board featuring the dual position mounting holes, as affordable socket 1700 compatible coolers can still be a bit scarce when over the counter shopping.

[@blogJM]

This is exactly what I need. Thanks!

[@victorhenostroza1871]

Man please I want u to review all b660 itx motherboards please.

[@ikku4321]

For the future videos it would be nice if some of the text was visually supported on the screen, even holding a box of a product would help. After watching two videos back to back about motherboards my ears are spinning and head is dizzy, most of the speaking part are just rows of numbers, dash's and letters. Really hard to follow, especially if the products are unknown for the viewer. Otherwise thumbs up form me, very useful stuff.

[@GabrielKLKN]

Good testing! Looking forward for more motherboard content 😆

[@fungalcoffee]

Ohh, good information to know, keep up the good work guys!!

[@AlyxSharkBite-2000]

Awesome comparison. The MSI with a 12600k would be a great budget starting point