Intel’s new thirteenth Gen “Raptor Lake” CPUs are the quickest in the marketplace, however do not come low-cost. A method to economize in your construct is by utilizing a last-gen Intel 600 sequence motherboard, since these boards use the LGA 1700 socket Raptor Lake requires and Intel says that, all issues being equal (like board energy supply and cooling skills), you must get the identical efficiency as on a 700 sequence board. (Be sure you verify our finest motherboards web page for one of the best choices we have examined.)
However there’s a catch. Although all 600 sequence motherboards can assist Raptor Lake chips in principle, most (or not less than many) might want to have a more moderen BIOS put in to acknowledge thirteenth Gen processors. Strive popping a Core i5-13600K, Core i7-13700K or Core i9-13900K into your 600-series motherboard with out the fitting BIOS and it gained’t even POST.
That is a disgrace, as a result of the most cost effective Z790 motherboard we discovered on the time we wrote this price $169, whereas the least costly previous-gen Z690 motherboard was $129. And in case you aren’t going to overclock your CPU, the less-expensive H610 or B660 chipset boards, that are finest fitted to pairing with a Core i5 or Core i7, can promote for as little as $89 or $99.
We contacted the 4 main motherboard distributors (ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI) to ask if any of their 600-series boards will work with Raptor Lake chips out of the field. Asus and Gigabyte stated that a few of their recently-produced boards would possibly ship with a Raptor Lake-compatible BIOS, however there’s no affordable option to know that earlier than you buy. Asus stated you could inform which BIOS model a motherboard comes with by a sticker (opens in new tab) on the board itself, however that gained’t do you a lot good until you’re shopping for at a brick-and-mortar retailer that permits you to open the field up earlier than buying.
Most (if not all) 600 sequence boards have BIOS updates out there that add Alder Lake assist, however you want to have the ability to obtain and set up these updates earlier than you attempt to boot with a thirteenth Gen Raptor Lake CPU. When you have entry to an older Intel twelfth Gen “Alder Lake” CPU, you may put the older CPU within the board, boot into and replace the BIOS within the UEFI interface (see methods to enter the BIOS in case you don’t know methods to get there), after which you need to be good to go.
However most individuals shopping for a Raptor Lake CPU and new motherboard as we speak don’t have a last-gen processor simply mendacity round the home. At one level, AMD, which used the identical AM4 socket throughout 5 totally different processor generations, had a loaner program the place the corporate would ship you an outdated CPU to make use of for the BIOS improve, however Intel has nothing like that.
So, if you wish to purchase a 600 sequence motherboard to make use of with a Raptor Lake CPU, your finest guess is to purchase a mannequin with BIOS Flashback, a function that permits you to replace the BIOS with no CPU put in in any respect. You simply put the BIOS replace on a USB Flash drive, plug it into your board and hit the Flashback button on the motherboard and wait a couple of minutes whereas it updates.
That can assist you discover out which fashions you need to use to save lots of your self some cash in your new construct, we’ve generated an inventory of all of the Intel 600 sequence motherboards with BIOS Flashback that we might discover on the market.
We discovered 72 600 sequence motherboards in complete which have BIOS Flashback (Gigabyte calls the function Q-Flash Plus, but it surely’s primarily the identical factor). There are roughly one other 30 fashions, most of them Gigabyte SKUs, which might be listed on the producer’s web site, however that we couldn’t discover on the market within the U.S.
Motherboard | Present Worth | RAM Sort |
---|---|---|
ASRock B660 Professional RS | $109 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660 DS3H DDR4 | $109 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M DS3H DDR4 | $109 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M Energy DDR4 | $109 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock B660M Metal Legend | $114 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock H670M Professional RS | $119 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock H670 PG Riptide | $129 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660 DS3H AX DDR4 | $129 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M DS3H AX DDR4 | $129 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming 4 | $139 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690I Aorus Extremely Lite DDR4 | $139 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Professional RS | $144 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock H670 Metal Legend | $149 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M Gaming X AX | $149 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M Gaming X AX DDR4 | $149 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock B660 Metal Legend | $159 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690M PG Riptide DDR5 | $159 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte B660M Aorus Professional AX DDR4 | $159 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M Aorus Professional DDR4 | $159 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 PG Riptide | $168 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock H670M-ITX/AX | $169 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Metal Legend | $171 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M D2H DDR4 | $171 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660 Aorus Grasp DDR4 | $179 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660 Gaming X AX DDR4 | $179 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Excessive | $182 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M Gaming DDR4 | $189 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 | $189 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Excessive Wi-Fi 6E | $196 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660 Aorus Elite DDR4 | $199 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M Aorus Elite DDR4 | $199 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
MSI Professional Z690-A | $206 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Asus ROG Strix B660-A Gaming WIFI D4 | $208 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X DDR4 | $209 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690 UD AX DDR4 | $209 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Metal Legend WiFi 6E | $219 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MSI Professional Z690-A WiFi | $225 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X | $229 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte B660M Aorus Professional | $236 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB4 | $245 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite AX DDR4 | $249 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690M Aorus Elite AX DDR4 | $249 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690M Aorus Elite DDR4 | $249 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
MPG Z690 Edge WiFi | $249 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MPG Z690 Edge WiFi DDR4 | $256 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
MSI Professional Z690-A WiFi DDR4 | $256 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690 Aero G DDR4 | $259 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk WiFi DDR4 | $259 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Asus ROG Strix Z690-A Gaming WiFi D4 | $269 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte B660M D3H DDR4 | $269 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Gigabyte Z690 Aero G | $269 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Asus ROG Strix Z690-G Gaming WiFi | $274 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk WiFi | $275 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MPG Z690 Pressure WiFi | $299 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Asus ROG Strix Z690-F Gaming WiFi | $305 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
ASRock Z690 PG Velocita | $309 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690I Aorus Extremely Plus | $309 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
MSI MAG Z690 Torpedo | $328 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Asus ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi | $365 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi | $369 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690 Aero D | $379 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690 UD | $387 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite DDR4 | $395 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
Asus ProArt Z690 Creator WiFi | $449 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MEG Z690 UNIFY-X | $459 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MSI MEG Z690 ACE | $539 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Professional DDR4 | $592 (opens in new tab) | DDR4 |
ASRock Z690 Taichi Razer Version | $619 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
ASRock Z690 Aqua OC | $756 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MSI MPG Z690 EK-X | $766 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
ASRock Z690 Aqua | $889 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
MSI MEG Z690 Godlike | $1199 (opens in new tab) | DDR5 |
The most effective worth we’ve discovered on any 600 sequence board with BIOS Flashback is $109, a worth we’ve seen for various B660 SKUs from ASRock and Gigabyte. If you wish to overclock your Raptor Lake chip – one thing lots of people would wish to do with a Ok-series CPU – you’ll have to spend not less than $139, the minimal worth we noticed for a Z690-powered motherboard within the ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming 4 (opens in new tab) and Gigabyte Z690I Aorus Extremely Lite DDR4 (opens in new tab), each of that are DDR4 boards. If you need a board that makes use of DDR5 RAM, your least costly choice is the ASRock Z690M PG Riptide DDR5 (opens in new tab) at $159. By means of comparability, the most cost effective Z790 board with DDR4 we’ve seen is $179, and that worth rises to $199 for the DDR5 mannequin.
If you need Wi-Fi in your Z690 motherboard, the least costly choice we noticed is ASRock Z690 Excessive Wi-Fi 6E (opens in new tab) for $196. That’s a DDR4 board. If you need Wi-Fi and DDR5 assist, the least costly choice is the ASRock Z690 Metal Legend WiFi 6E (opens in new tab) at $219. The most affordable Z790 board we’ve seen with Wi-Fi goes for $249 so that is nonetheless a financial savings. In the event you’re spending far more than $250, it makes little sense to go together with a Z690 board over a Z790.