KITGURU SHORTLISTS: THE BEST MOTHERBOARD OF 2025

MSI has delivered the MPG X870E Carbon WiFi and it is packed with features, starting with the headline USB4 ports and blazing fast WiFi 7. In addition we have an 18+2+1 x 110A VRM which could likely power a small city. To add to our delight the price comes in just over £400 where previous high end models could touch £700.

PC Enthusiasts love more affordable motherboards that support the latest AMD CPUs, but the obvious snag is that moving down the product stack usually means you miss out on features. With the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Elite WiFi7 we have a solid VRM, support for three Gen 5 M.2 SSDs (and a Gen 4), a decent array of USB ports including 2x USB4, WiFi7 and a price under £300.

The Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master comes with a list of impressive features as long as your arm, including twenty 105A power stages, five M.2 SSD slots, DDR5 support up to 8000MHz, as well as 10Gb Ethernet. That's all well and good, but we can safely say this is also the first motherboard we've ever encountered that promises to count our Biscuits...

Overclocking performance throughout our testing was good, despite the awkward LLC settings. VRM performance was fine even when coupled with the mediocre heatsink and fan solution. The lack of a proper or accurate VRM temperature sensor is annoying, but the VRM heatsink and 30mm 5700 RPM fan worked well together to cool the eight CPU-focused Vishay SiC639 50A power stages beneath.

The MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk does well to offer a solid balance of features, good cooling capability, and strong overall performance. This blend of positives is likely to appeal to many prospective buyers, particularly as the notable shortcomings are of minor importance. Performance was excellent at stock conditions. Overclocking numbers were also positive, and it was easy to push our 16-core chip to 4.25GHz thanks to MSI’s simple UEFI and clear LLC settings.