Getting one of the best Z490 motherboards may be tempting for the elitist within, but the price shock is definitely a problem for many. Sure, 10Gb LAN, seven M.2 slots, and quad GPU support would be nice, but no one really needs those things. Most people will be perfectly happy with a high-quality B460 motherboard like the MSI MAG B460M Mortar WiFi on hand here.

If you can tolerate the memory speed limitations and don't intend to overclock (well, with a K-series CPU anyway), this is a board that should be on your PC building wish list. Many premium B460 motherboards are in this price range, and competition is stiff, but it ticks most of the important boxes and is well priced at $125.

The MSI MAG B460M Mortar WiF - let's just call it "Mortar" here - is a Micro ATX board with a very competitive feature list. Looks are obviously subjective, but it is a very good-looking board with a solid metal heatsink and a fairly unobtrusive, perhaps even practical theme. There are no RGB LEDs on the board itself, but RGB and ARGB connectors are available if you really need to sparkle.

Despite its size, it has almost all the features a full-size ATX B460 board would have. It has dual M.2 slots, one of which is cooled by a passive heatsink. It is also placed above the primary GPU slot, preventing hot air from the GPU from hitting the slot. A front USB Type-C header, Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 G LAN, Intel WiFi 6, ALC1200 audio, and six SATA ports are included. This is a welcome addition to an affordable mATX board. However, there are only four fan headers at most, which is not enough. One or two more would be nice.

MSI seems to have made a real effort to improve the VRM design compared to recent generations. While many users will not be pairing a 10-core Intel Core i9 10900K processor with a B460 board, those users need a board with a robust VRM, and Mortar has it. 12+1+1 phase design is a great way to get more power to any 10th 10 generation CPUs; 1+1 indicates dedicated phases for onboard graphics and system agent voltages; an 8-pin EPS power connector provides power and a big chunk of heatsink keeps everything from getting too hot, but if you run high loads frequently, airflow is needed to keep the PC from becoming smoky silicon. Of course, this is true of any board.

Rear I/O is quite good, although the six USB ports are barely adequate, even though they are found on many 2020 motherboards. Connecting a keyboard, mouse, and printer, plus an external hard drive and gaming headset, would leave one extra Type-C port; can we get a Type-C USB electric toothbrush?

It's nice to have S/PDIF for connecting to an amplifier or receiver; there are MSI HDMI 1.4 and DP 1.2 ports; HDMI 2.0 is nice for HTPC use, but pointless if you're using a discrete graphics card.

As for performance, Mortar did nothing to disappoint us. While not the fastest B460 board we've tested so far, it was able to go toe-to-toe with the MSI MEG Z490 ACE we chose for our comparison test. Top honors for B460 performance, however, go to the ASRock B460 Steel Legend. But let's be honest: a difference of just 1% is nothing to be concerned about.

The B460 motherboard has some limitations related to overclocking and memory support: if you are using an i7 or i9 processor, you can run memory up to 2933 MHz, otherwise 2666 MHz with i5 or lower Support. I understand that you can't overclock, but what about memory support? Intel, 2666MHz is too slow. There is no reason to limit this other than to force people to buy more expensive Z490 boards.

The B460M Mortar, like the ASRock also tested, has a BIOS setting that increases the default 65W CPU power limit. This means that non-K series CPUs can be "overclocked" if cooling can be accommodated. This is a good way to improve performance, especially if you often load all cores in a variety of productivity applications MSI also deserves praise for its fan hysteresis feature. If you like to adjust fan curves for optimal noise levels and cooling performance, MSI has you covered.

The MSI B460M Mortar is an excellent B460 motherboard that offers a great feature set at an attractive price. All major items have been checked, or at least those that MSI can manage (due to Intel's B460 memory limitations). It has a strong VRM, 2.5Gb LAN, WiFi 6, and adequate if not particularly good I/O. Paired with a 65W Non-K processor, the pseudo-overclocking challenge is worth the minimal effort.

If you can stand the top speed of DDR4-2666, something like an i5-10600 and a B460M Mortar with a decent mid-range GPU would make for a high-quality, affordable gaming combo.