Affordable B760 motherboards have been revealed by all the major brands at CES 2023. Priced from around £120 here on UK shores, the budget-friendly platform is designed specifically to compete with AMD’s B650 in both value and performance, and offers a sensible route to a 13th Gen Raptor Lake upgrade.
Those wanting to keep costs down will find boards from the likes of Asus and MSI readily available for under £150, but if, like us, you’re a sucker for nostalgia, you might gravitate toward ASRock’s B760M PG Sonic WiFi.
Following in the footsteps of Z790 PG Sonic, this smaller, more affordable sibling ought to fetch around £170 when it makes its way to retail and serves all the goodness of B760 with a healthy slice of everyone’s favourite hedgehog.
Making use of a micro-ATX form factor, the board’s blue-and-silver colour scheme looks great alongside a spinning 16-bit ring emblazoned on the I/O panel cover, and though you’ll never again see the rear graphic after installation, it’s nice to know Sonic is there, right? ASRock’s BIOS also gets a Sonic-themed blue makeover, and the board itself is reasonably well specc’d.
Aiming for the quicker end of B760, as any Sonic motherboard should, there are four DDR5 memory slots officially supporting speeds of up to 7,200MT/s, a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics, 2.5GbE LAN, onboard Wi-Fi 6E, three M.2 storage bays, and 7.1 audio powered by a modest Realtek ALC897 codec.
There’s no mention of whether or not the board screams ‘SEEEGGGAAAA’ when you power on – it absolutely should – but you do get a PS/2 connector on the back; helpful if you’re still clinging on to your ’90s peripherals.
DisplayPort and HDMI are both available if you prefer to stick to classic games on IGP, and USB comes in the form of two USB 2.0, four USB 3.2 Gen 1, a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, as well as a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C. You’ll also find a front-panel Type-C header on the board, alongside a trio of addressable LED connectors, and a total of five four-pin fan headers (CPU, pump and three chassis).
Not quite feeling it? For the Nintendo fanboys and girls, ASRock’s B760 portfolio includes a total of 10 unique models, including familiar names such as the Pro RS and Steel Legend.
ASRock X Sonic
“Designed to bring back epic memories of catching rings in Green Hill Zone, the motherboard echoes Sonic’s lightning speed with its fast blue and silver shards and Sonic silhouette.”
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