ASRock B860 Motherboards Review – RIPTIDE, LIGHTNING, STEEL LEGEND & LiveMixer All Great Value For Intel Builders

Conclusion - Well Priced & Feature-Loaded That Are Core Ultra Ready!

Last year, we tested loads of ASRock Z890 options which offered great features, aesthetics, and overclocking capabilities. This year, the company is rolling out more budget-oriented options in the B860 series. So with our roundup complete, let's talk about what these new offerings have got to offer to consumers building Intel Core Ultra PCs.

Starting with the ATX B860 offerings, the RIPTIDE, Steel Legend, and LiveMixer all come with the same VRM arrangement which includes a 14+2+1 phase design and super strong memory support with all models dialing things above DDR5-8000 MT/s. You'd need such support since the B860 motherboards don't support CPU overclocking and are limited to memory overclock capability. That is a big downside versus AMD's B850 offerings which are cheaper alternatives to their higher-end solutions but carry both CPU/DRAM support.

The performance across the lineup is in line with what you'd expect of running Arrow Lake on a high-end Z890 motherboard at default and the VRM heatsinks on these motherboards keep things cool with the B860I Lightning going an extra mile with its active-fan cooling.

In terms of design, gamers can go for the Phantom Gaming route while the Steel Legend series offers nice white aesthetics. The Mini-ITX B850I Lightning also looks great on its own. In terms of IO, all motherboards have many USB ports. The LiveMixer leads with 22 USB ports as it is a content creator motherboard, the RIPTIDE and Steel Legend come with 19 USB ports and the PG Lightning comes with 13 ports in total, a respectable number for a Mini-ITX design. Each board has at least two USB 3.2 Gen2 ports but these The benefit B860 series have over B850 is that they come with Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports.

ASRock B860 LiveMixer WIFI USB Options (22 Total):

• - 1 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C (Rear) Chipset:
• - 1 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C (Front)
• - 10 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A (6 Rear, 4 Front)
• - 10 x USB 2.0 (6 Rear, 4 Front)

ASRock B860 Steel Legend WIFI USB Options (19 Total):

• - 1 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C (Rear) Chipset:
• - 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C (Front)
• - 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear)
• - 8 x USB 3.2 Gen1 (4 Rear, 4 Front)
• - 7 x USB 2.0 (3 Rear, 4 Front)

ASRock B860 PG LIGHTNING WIFI USB Options (19 Total):

• - 1 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C (Rear) Chipset:
• - 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C (Front)
• - 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear)
• - 8 x USB 3.2 Gen1 (4 Rear, 4 Front)
• - 7 x USB 2.0 (3 Rear, 4 Front)

ASRock B860I PG LIGHTNING WIFI USB Options (13 Total):

• - 1 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C (Rear) Chipset:
• - 1 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C (Front)
• - 2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A (Rear)
• - 6 x USB 3.2 Gen1 (4 Rear, 2 Front)
• - 3 x USB 2.0 (1 Rear, 2 Front)

All of the tested ASRock ATX B860 motherboards come with WIFI 6E and BT5.3 support. Other features include Toolless M.2 Gen5 slots while the Mini-ITX gets a screwed design. The Mini-ITX also gets a Gen4 slot on the back though there's no heatsink and the smaller Gen5 heatsink can get a bit warm.

In terms of pricing, the ASRock B850 lineup starts at $119.99 with options such as the B860M-H2 which has the baseline set of features. We didn't have that motherboard with us for testing, but other designs mostly sit around $150-$200 US. The options we had today are closer to the $200 segment and here we have the B860I Lightning WIFI at $212.99, B860 Lightning WIFI at $209.99, B860 Steel Legend WIFI at $199, and the B860 LiveMixer at $189. It's a good thing that Intel has launched Non-K Core Ultra 200S CPUs which can be great options with these motherboards and based on their features and performance, they are definitely superb for mainstream PC builders.

You can find additional information about our hardware review process and ethics policy here.

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.