Need help chosing a mainboard for i5-8500

[sunsanvil]

I'm having a bit of purchase paralysis. I need to pick a microATX board for an i5-8500. I thought I could just shop on features but TechSpot's first look at B360 boards got me concerned about power delivery to the CPU. Specifically, I dont want to get stuck with a board capped at 65W, barely able to squeeze out 82 transiently (like that B360M PRO-VD). Now I know most people will say "its not a K cpu so it doesn't matter", except I believe it does. In Tomshardware's review of the plain i5-8400 they demonstrated that it can, if supplied, consumed well over 100watts. Yes yes, that was with an unrealistic Prime95 torture test but I believe it demonstrates that even a non-K coffee lake can benefit from a generous power supply, more like that B360 Gaming Plus TechSpot tested with its 95watt base, 119 transient.

Having said all that I know the "safe" bet is to get a Z370. Keeping in mind I'm after a microATX, not a lot of choice. The MSI Mortar is just at the top of what I'm willing to spend....yet does not have USB3.1 G2 which I think will be nice to have in the future. So other boards I'm considering:

MSI B360M Mortar
MSI H370 Bazooka
Gigabyte H370M D3H
Asus H370M-Plus
Asus STRIX B360-G Gaming

First question would be what their watt ratings actually are. Any way to find out?

Interesting how the "lower" B chipset gets used in "better" series by these manufacturers. I wonder why that is? The above H models "look" cheap, have less VRM cooling etc (thought that could be totally cosmetic...I dont know). At the same time the B boards are lean on ports (limitation of the chipset of course).

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[MaikuTech]

I would recommend gigabyte over msi for safer wattage use and voltage regulations coupled with that six core chip.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145070
Yes it has usb 3.1 so does the mortar but it is limited to rear end sides.
I really don't think you need a complicated explanation or story of why this should work over something else.
Now you could choose not to listen to me and stress yourself out over picking a particular mobo.

Thats perfectly fine with me however look more closely at your needs and read the specs page on the online stores.
If you feel more content with msi and it has done you right over the years...
Buy it with confidence and just build the machine when it comes, hexacores in general don't take up alot of power in general.
Unless of course you want to extreme overclock it 24/7 and have major system problems 6 months or so later.
Learned that lesson quickly with Phenom ii 1055T, one hell of a beast but problematic if u push the voltages too much.

 

[sunsanvil]

Thank you for your thoughts. The Gigabyte does seem a practical choice. The only item of note is that the "better" (x4) M.2 is located under the GPU slot where it is bound to get hotter compared to the x2 M.2 above. Yet I notice this is the case with virtually all boards with an x2/x4 M.2 slot combination. I wonder why that is.

 

[MaikuTech]

Well its just a risk you have to take, find a good quality M.2 shield as shown here by MSI.

Once you do that setup your case fans so your m.2 will get air to keep cool.
I admit I don't do M.2 or SSDs at all but this should do you fine for a long time.