7 Best Motherboard for i5 6600k 2024 Reviewed
i5 6600k CPU i5 processors come with 3.5 GHz 4 cores, which takes lower energy and allows 4k resolution, particularly for gaming and content creation purposes.
- Z170 motherboards are considered to be highly powerful motherboards with the i5 6600k.
I sought mobo recommendations from experts for my first PC build, and I am convinced that ASRock Z170M EXTREME4 is the best motherboard for i5 6600k.
Related: Motherboard for i5 7600k
Reviews: 7 Best Motherboard for i5 6600k in 2024
My main consideration was overclocked capability and crossfire support (maybe SLI).
1. MSI Pro Solution (Z170A PC Mate) – Mid-range Motherboard
MSI Pro Solution (Z170A PC Mate) is a greatly priced motherboard for the quality and suitable over-clocking that MSI has maintained.
And it gets even better. The MSI motherboards, including the Z170A PC Mate, will last longer and give you quality service that you would not match with its price if you give them the best care.
Further, you can use the motherboard for mid-range gaming, office works, and internet surfing.
It offers adequate ports and slots for the various add-ons and peripherals that you could require for your office work and light gaming.
Otherwise, Z170A PC Mate has the regular specs in different motherboards. These specs include Intel Z170 Express chipset, Realtek RTL8111H LAN, 4x DDR4-3200 memory slots, and onboard sound and video. Has only 3 system fan slots.
Pros:
- Moderately priced mid-range mobo
- Easy to Use Bios
- Strong and durable design
Cons:
- Has only 3 system fan slots.
✔️
2. Gigabyte LGA1151: GA-Z170X-Ultra Gaming – Intel ATX DDR4
LGA1151: GA-Z170X-Ultra Gaming support Intel Core 6 Processors, Two-Way Crossfire and SLI Multi-graphic, Intel USB 3.1. It is a non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4.
Second in line is the Best motherboard for the i5 6600k CPU is, of the Z170-based motherboard, the Z170X-Designare and Z170X-Ultra Gaming are among the newest models.
The LGA1151 motherboard supports the sixth-gen Intel Core Processors. The Z170X-Ultra Gaming is unique as it has metal shielding, features neutral color, and supports 100W USB Type-C.
Improved PCIe slot to reduce GPU sag and support EVGA 1070 SC. Has audio CAPs and red LED strips for sound and aesthetics? However, the board only has red LEDs, which you can turn off.
Excellent Surround LED – It allows for additional LED customizations that you can adapt to your lifestyle. In the beat mode, when you play any music via the audio jack, it will pulsate the LEDs to the music’s sound.
Further, it has a front panel G connector to enable easy installation and supports thunderbolt three. The board is mainly black but has silver metal details that pop up on its RAM and PC Express slots.
It has 2 black heat sinks which are covered in a black finish that matches the black PCB and other board’s components.
Thunderbolt™ 3 protocol – The motherboard allows single-wire bandwidth that runs to heights of about 40 GB/s, which is double the amount in the previous Thunderbolt.
- The bandwidth will come with protocols like USB 3.1 and Mini Display Port 1.2 that have backward compatibility.
Hybrid Fan Headers – The motherboard has a water pump power header that will control the fans and ware pump. Further, with the fan system, you can easily select between various available PWM and voltage calibration modes.
VR Support and LED Surround – The motherboard has metal shielding, NVMe support, and Thunderbolt™ 3 for fast video and data transfer that will boost your VR gaming experience.
Further, it allows Intel® USB 3.1 and uses 4 PCIe Gen3 Lanes that will provide you 32 GB/s with about 10 GB/s transfer speeds for every USB 3.1.
Extra Durable PCIe Metal Shield will protect your motherboard from damage caused by the heavy graphics card. Related: Motherboard for i7 6700
3. ASRock Z170M EXTREME4
ASRock Z170M EXTREME4 is one of the best for its superior specifications with the small form factor and excellent graphics performance.
With its 12 power phases, reset or power buttons, and a diagnosis HEX screen, the ASRock Z170M EXTREME4 comes out as the best mo-bo in this class for overlapping.
It comes with an Intel LAN controller and secondary “recovery” BIOS, which allows a top gaming experience with minimal problems.
5 real fan headers – Also, the mobo has all its 5 fan headers supporting PWM.
Notably, in other motherboards, just the CPU-OPT and CPU pin headers (of the 4 generally available) are real PWM headers. The PWM allows more precise control of fan speed as compared to when using voltage.
12 power phases – ASRock Z170M EXTREME4 provides greater OC stability and highly stable power since it has more power phases (12), while other moos have 8-10 power phases.
On-board HEX screen – Also, it has power or reset buttons (great for OC-ing) and the on-board HEX screen (need for trouble-shooting), features that are only available on premium motherboards.
It comes with has SLI support and a two-card crossfire. Further, due to its micro ATX mobo design, the motherboard will fit into the squeezed CPU cases.
- I consider this motherboard an excellent mobo for i5 6600k as it has great specs to play video games that require heavy graphics.
The ASRock Z170M EXTREME4 comes with M.2 SSD storage, reset buttons, and onboard power, which allows you to diagnose and test any issues.
- Also, the CMOS reset button (IO panel) will enable you to recuperate from the ardent overclocking.
The x16 PCI-E slots have suitable release procedures that are easy to operate and thus you can easily remove the graphics card.
It has right-angled SATA ports (most of them) and hence will be easy to install. Also, it comes with 4 slots for RAM that will be compatible with various futuristic video cards.
Pros:
- Power or reset buttons
- Will allow multiple graphics processors
- Compact build allowing smaller case installation
- Easy to overclock due to favorable BIOS
Cons:
- No 4k video support
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4. GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 rev. 1.0
The GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 has an additional M.2 slot (hitting 32Gb/s) and extra USB ports headers on the mobo.
It comes with a 3 steel-protected PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot (s), a seven power phase CPU build, headphone gain switch, 3 PCI-E 3.0 x1 slot (s), three-way CrossFireX or two-way SLI, 6 SATA 6GB ports.
Further, GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 has the E2201 Gigabit LAN controller that is Qualcomm Atheros built and is excellent for gaming. ALC1150 (Realtek) 10-channel HD audio codec.
The mobo has an ALC1150 (Realtek) 10-channel HD audio codec that, attained a high of 115dB SNR, which will be shielded using a replaceable EMI cover.
Further, it has a Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 that will be great for gaming.
Core i5-6600K is limited to 4 threads or 4 cores. However, it allows simplified overclocking, its performance is analogous to the Core i7 chips and its chipset has extra PCIe wiggle room allowing faster storage.
Pros:
- USB 3.1 port Type C
- Changeable OP-AMPs
- Top-performing E2201 LAN controller
Cons:
- Has no power or reset buttons
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5. ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING – Budget i5 6600k Motherboard
Z170 PRO GAMING has USB 3.1 as Type-C and Type-A connections and 4 USB 3.0. Further, the Gigabit Ethernet port has the Asus LAN Guard protection.
It has a bolstered CPU power solution. Uses Realtek ALC1150-based audio that has a quality Intel I219V Gigabit network controller.
Maybe you’ve to know Asus for the famous ROG line which presents premium computer parts.
Luckily, ASUS presents the ASUS Z170 PRO Gaming that has great specs but is great if you are on a tight budget.
The micro Z170 ATX board is one in the 100-series chipset cluster by Intel, which will be great for your top-end gaming.
Similar to the ROG motherboards, this ASUS Z170 PRO Gaming motherboard comes with 5-way optimization controls that enable maximum capacity operation and easy processor overclocking.
Interestingly, the Z170 ATX is made of the LGA1151 socket with a DDR3 or DDR4 memory controller. Further, it possesses a double DDR4 3400 support.
Further, the motherboard is backward compatible with the LGA1150 socket that is common in Broadwell. The RAMCache feature will allow the motherboard to speed up the loading of games.
The board style matches the red and black theme common in all gaming components. Also, it supports CrossFire and SLI.
Z170 Pro Gaming has a better power solution – the bolstered CPU. The CPU is an eight-phase VRM and it allows ten-phase implementation.
The motherboard has a Gigabit Ethernet port that allows Guard protection for the Asus LAN. It also has SupremeFX that allows a seamless audio experience.
It has Sonic Radar ll that will allow you to detect and scan the enemies you will require to dominate.
Pros:
- Has a small form factor thus usable with irregular cases or small tower cases for increased aeration.
- Has great looking LED lights
- Has simple optimization thus enabling one-click system tweaking and overclocking
Cons:
- Will not work with select high-end RAM
✔️
6. ASRock H170 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard – DDR4
ASROCK H170 Pro4 motherboard features Intel® H170 with a single-chip set design supporting 6th generation processors. The component enables better performance, stability, and bandwidth.
ASRock H170 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard has 32 GB/s data transfer speeds, will support SATA3 6 GB/s M.2 modules.
Further, it supports DDR4 memory modules. In addition, it supports ASRock Live Update and Full Spike Protection.
It employs a highly heavy PCB devoid of alarming flex, with solid capacitors and better ferrite core chokes. Considering the aesthetics of the motherboard, ASRock installed different design variations.
For example, passive heat sink’s color schemes for power regulation and chipset have changed to bronze as compared to the previous one. However, the new color scheme perfectly matches the motherboard color.
The fiber (integrated voltage regulator) was ejected from the CPU and returned to the motherboard.
At the bottom half section of your motherboard, you will find a set of x16 PC Express 2.0 slots that can perform crossfire configuration.
7. Gigabyte – GA-Z170-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard – DDR4
GA-Z170-HD3 motherboard is designed both for photography and video production and for gaming.
- It is created from quality components that allow 4-way GPU support and extreme overclocking capabilities.
- Gigabyte – GA-Z170-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard – DDR4 has a highly durable motherboard (100 series) to improve speed and efficiency.
Also, it supports SATA M.2 SSD devices and PCIe. Also, the motherboard has a Two-Way CrossFire Multi-Graphics and 4K Ultra HD Support.
- Supports DDR4-2400 / 2133 / 2800 / 3200, and has 4 DDR4 DIMM slots with a max capacity of 64GB.
- With the Z170 chipset in the motherboard, you can overclock it with the correct setup.
The motherboard’s LGA 1151 socket supports dual channel ddr3 3 SATA Express connectors clocking a maximum of 16 Gigabits per sec transfer speed.
Further, the product has a built-in creative Soundblaster that will allow you to achieve better sound without the need for a desktop DAC.
The motherboard features LED trace paths in its branding: RGB implementation. Do you fancy water cooling in your motherboard? Well, Gigabyte has installed G 1/4 thread fittings on your motherboard’s heat sink.
Also, its PCI lanes are reinforced with metal housing to improve durability and stop GPU sag.
Further, it has 2-way crossfire multi graphic support, features an audio noise guard, and high-end audio capacitors. Also, it has 3 SATA Express allowing next-generation storage and connectivity.
Considerations for the Best Motherboard for i5 6600k CPU
1. Form Factor.
The motherboard form actor includes aspects such as its shape and size, connector and ports type and location, and the layout of the power interface and mounting holes.
- An ATX design is the common motherboard size and they will require the largest cases.
However, the ATX design motherboards have a high number of memory sockets and PCI-E slots.
2. Supported RAM
Ensure that your motherboard will support the RAM you have or need to use on it. For example, DDR-2 is a common RAM. However, the motherboard should also support RAM sticks.
3. Supported Processor and Expansion Ports and Slots
To achieve maximum efficiency, you’ll need to choose a motherboard that will support the speed and type of processor you need.
You can check this physically through the allowed processor socket. You should check the number of expansible ports and slots of each type.
4. Chip-set support
Determine the type of chip-set that is on your motherboard. However, you should not that the chip-set is not replaceable.
Therefore, consider checking reviews on the type of chip-set on the motherboard to determine its usefulness or your desired gaming purposes.
You can check motherboard reputation on sites like Motherboards.org. Also, consider the motherboard compatibility with different operating systems.
5. On-Board Attributes.
Consider support for features such as multimedia, video, graphics, and audio support if you’ll need them on your motherboard.
Components for i5-6600K CPU
Operating system – (32bit or 64bit processor)
The i5-6600K processor is a 64-bit component. Therefore, the processor will also support other 32-bit applications.
Therefore, you can install the 64 bit Windows 10 Home from amazon.
i5 – 6600K Graphics Card
The PowerColor PCS+ R9 390 is an excellent choice for the i5-6600K CPU. With its 3-fan structure, the card will allow adequate cooling and performance.
Related: Motherboard for Gaming
Conclusion
You now have adequate options on the Best motherboard for an i5 6600k CPU for your gaming purposes.
- We have conducted a thorough analysis and made recommendations for the best features in each device outline above.
It is your time to pick your ultimate i5 6600k motherboard. You’ll love the stability, efficiency, and reliability of the motherboards in this cluster.
