Dominate the other players with this value piece of ordnance
The range of Skylake Z170 motherboards the are made by the folks at MSI are pretty spectacular. They generally contain the highest level of technology and features. However, with all the emphasis on the Z-based chipsets, it's difficult to see what else is available. As it happens, there's something quite special from the MSI camp, which is definitely worth looking at.
The B150M Mortar is a part of the MSI value gaming range of products. It has support for socket 1151 Intel 6th generation processors, four DDR4 memory slots, a pair of PCI-E x16 slots - with the second dropping to x4 when occupied, as well as two PCI-E x1 slots. There are six SATAIII connections available, as well as an M.2 port and a single SATA Express. The rear I/O is made up of a PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo port, two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.1 ports, gigabyte Ethernet, HDMI, DVI, VGA and a five port audio block complete with an optical SPDIF.
MSI has included a red LED strip along the audio circuitry that can be configured from within the MSI software. The effect is pretty cool, if we're being honest and adds to the gaming-centric styling of the motherboard considerably.
The emphasis of the Mortar, though, isn't the extreme gaming and overclocking side of things. As we said, this is within the ’value' range of MSI's boards and, as such, you can save a fair amount by avoiding the unlocked CPUs and instead focus the money you spend on getting yourself a better graphics setup.
As you would expect from MSI, though, just because overclocking is a missing feature with this motherboard it doesn't mean there's a lack of quality components or build quality. You'll find the usual military grade components throughout the B150M Mortar as you would with all higher end MSI motherboards, and the same goes for the UEFI BIOS and the included software that comes with it. Also thrown in is the MSI isolated audio PCB, the highest quality capacitors and overvoltage protection.
It's pretty clear then that is a motherboard for the serious gamer, but one that can see a bargain when it's shoved under their nose. The RRP for the MSI B150M Mortar is a surprisingly low £70. Which is pretty impressive for a motherboard of this quality, features and specifications.
When we kitted out the Mortar with an i5-6600K alongside 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a GTX960 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark scored a good 1169, though we could probably have squeezed out a few more points with a better build of Windows 10 installed on the hard drive.
Needless to say there's plenty of gaming performance with the MSI B150M Mortar, and considering the overall cost you're on to a winner if you include this into your next system build. David Hayward
A great budget gaming motherboard.
Specifications
• Supports sixth-gen Intel Core, Pentium and Celeron processors for LGA 1151 socket
• Supports DDR4-2133
• Intel SBA support: improves productivity, management and security
• DDR4 boost
• Gaming LAN
• Gaming DNA: LED ambient lights
• Audio boost
• Military class 4 components
• Guard-Pro: improved protection and power efficiency
• MULTI-GPU with VGA Armor: VGA Armor PCI-E slots. Supports AMD Crossfire
• SATA Express 16Gbps + SATA 6Gbps
• Click BIOS5: secure and reliable UEFI BIOS solution
• EZ Debug LED: easiest way to troubleshoot
• Overvoltage Protection: prevent unforeseen damage
• 4K UHD support: ultra-high definition visuals