Best Intel Motherboards in 2026: LGA 1700 and LGA 1851 Boards for Core and Core Ultra Ranked by Owners

The Z790 Eagle AX is the way to get the Z790 chipset, DDR5, PCIe 5.0 and Wi-Fi 6E for less than the MSI PRO. Gigabyte lists support for 14th, 13th and 12th Gen chips, a twin 12+1+1 digital VRM with enlarged MOSFET heatsinks, three M.2 slots with Thermal Guard, a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port, 2.5GbE and Wi-Fi 6E, plus Q-Flash Plus for updating the BIOS without a CPU and the EZ-Latch slot release. Hundreds of owners rate it strongly. The VRM is a step below the MSI’s 14+1+1, so pair it with a Core i5 or i7 rather than an overclocked i9, and the audio and styling are entry level; for a sensible DDR5 build it is the budget Z790 we would choose.

The Maximus Z690 Hero was the flagship of the first LGA 1700 generation and it remains the most capable board here for a 13th or 14th Gen Core i9 once the BIOS is updated. The power design is 20+1 teamed stages at 90A with ProCool II connectors, the VRM heatsinks join an aluminum I/O cover and thermal pads, three M.2 slots have their own heatsinks, and there is a ROG water-cooling zone for custom loops. It runs DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, has Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 and Intel 2.5G Ethernet, and bundles ASUS AI overclocking, cooling and two-way noise cancellation. It has the biggest owner review base of any pick, with a solid rating that reflects some early-batch problems in the oldest reviews. It is flagship money, and brand-new stock may need a BIOS flash for the newest chips, but for an overclocked i9 with custom cooling on LGA 1700, nothing else here matches it.

MSI’s MPG Z690 Edge WiFi is the gaming version of the formula: the same six-layer, 2-ounce copper PCB as the PRO board, a heavier VRM cooler with an aluminum cover and a heat pipe, MOSFET pads rated at 7 W/mK, M.2 Shield Frozr, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, 2.5G LAN and Wi-Fi 6E, dressed in Mystic Light RGB with a front LED strip that shows game and system status. Hundreds of owners rate it strongly. It is a Z690 board, so it trails Z790 slightly on chipset USB and PCIe 4.0 lanes, and the listing names 12th Gen, so a 13th or 14th Gen build may need a BIOS update first, which MSI supports with Flash BIOS Button. If the price lands below the Z790-P on the day you buy, it is the better-cooled board; if not, take the PRO Z790-P.

If you own 32 or 64 GB of good DDR4, the Strix Z790-A D4 lets you move to a Z790 board without buying memory again. ASUS gives it 16+1 power stages, PCIe 5.0 for the graphics slot, four M.2 slots, Wi-Fi 6E and a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port with 30W power delivery, in the white ROG Strix livery, for 13th and 12th Gen chips. Its owner rating is solid, the lowest of the seven, and the review history is thin on detail, and DDR4 will hold a 14th Gen i9 back a little in bandwidth-sensitive work. The listing’s price has also run high relative to its DDR5 siblings, so check it against the MSI PRO on the day. For a DDR4 upgrade path it is the most complete Z790 board we found; if you are buying memory anyway, go DDR5.

The Prime H610I-PLUS D4 is the Intel board for the small, quiet PC that does not need a Z-series chipset: a mini-ITX H610 board for 12th Gen chips with DDR4, a PCIe 4.0 SafeSlot, one 32Gbps M.2 slot, a Key E slot for a Wi-Fi card, Realtek 1Gb Ethernet and DisplayPort, HDMI and D-Sub outputs so it can drive three monitors from integrated graphics. ASUS adds a TPM header and vPro support for business deployments and a mono-out header for a small chassis speaker. Hundreds of owners have rated it, with a solid rating that reflects a few complaints about BIOS and fan control. H610 means no overclocking and one M.2, and the 5+1+1 VRM is matched to i3 and i5 chips. For an office box, a home server or an HTPC on a budget, it is the right board; for anything else, start at the Eagle AX.

For a build on the newest Intel socket, the Maximus Z890 Hero is the board with everything. It feeds Core Ultra Series 2 chips through 22 stages at 110A plus 2+1+2 supporting stages, runs DDR5 through NitroPath DRAM and DIMM Flex for higher memory clocks, has three PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots with Q-Release and Q-Latch tool-free fittings, and connects through Wi-Fi 7 with the Q-Antenna, Thunderbolt 4 and USB Type-C. ASUS layers AI overclocking, cooling and networking on top. Hundreds of owners rate it strongly, though as a newer platform its base is smaller than the LGA 1700 boards above. It is flagship money, and LGA 1851 shares nothing with LGA 1700 beyond the cooler mount, so it is a from-scratch build. If you are going Core Ultra, this is the board; if a 14th Gen i7 on a Z790 does the job, it will cost half as much.