The Intel B560 Motherboard Overview: 30+ Budget Models Starting from $75
by Gavin Bonshor on March 29, 2021 7:00 AM ESTASRock B560 Steel Legend
Starting our B560 overview in alphabetical order (by vendor), the first board we're taking a look at is ASRock's B560 Steel Legend. The Steel Legend is a common mainstay on its premium desktop chipsets as a mid-range model and currently sits atop its product range for B560. Visually, the ASRock B560 Steel Legend is using a black, grey, and white urban camouflage theme on the PCB, with silver and grey heatsinks. It includesRGB LEDs integrated into the chipset heatsink and along the right-hand side of the board which creates an underglow effect.
Located centrally on the board are two full-length PCIe slots, with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and the bottom slot electronically locked to PCIe 3.0 x4. ASRock also includes two PCIe 3.0 x4 slots for devices such as additional networking and audio controllers. For storage, the B560 Steel Legend includes three M.2 slots with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x4 and the other two including support for both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA drives. The third M.2 slot does share bandwidth with one of the board's six SATA ports, which as with Intel chipsets, includes support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. ASRock also includes four memory slots with support for DDR4-4800 and a maximum capacity of 128 GB.
On the rear panel are one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports, with an HDMI and DisplayPort video output pairing. For networking, there is a single Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 GbE controller, while the board's five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output is driven by a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec. Finishing off the rear panel is a PS/2 keyboard and mouse combination port.
ASRock has set an MSRP of $130 for the B560 Steel Legend, which is representative of its modest controller options,and the market position of B560. It is nice to see ASRock has included a 2.5 GbE port which is becoming normalized as we move past Gigabit networking.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
59 Comments
View All Comments
siggidarius - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
With pricing like that for both motherboards and cpus, and good availability Intel is becoming a great value option.Personally I don't see why I'd choose AMD cpu in 200-350USD bracket with local prices.
ballsystemlord - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
"Intel great value option" LOL. How the mighty have fallen.m53 - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
@ballsystemlord: Or in other words how AMD starts price gouging and becoming more anti-consumer. How the "value brand" is now too expensive for the average customers.(not disagreeing with you. Just showing the other side of the reality.)
WaltC - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
If it wasn't for AMD you might be in one of these Intel "value" motherboards, only you'd be paying 2x-3x as much for it....like you were about 4 years ago, remember? And there's no question that if it wasn't for AMD you'd be paying *huge sums* for ~14nm++++++++++++++++++++ CPUs Intel is selling now for bargain-basement prices *because* of AMD. Don't you realize that if not for AMD you'd be paying more, though the nose, for inferior components? Have you even checked to see that Z590 motherboards are ~$1k and up and can't even provide system-wide PCIe4 bus coverage? Heck, that's more expensive than the most expensive x570 motherboards. Welcome to the real side of reality....;) Without AMD there would be no competition in these markets at all and Intel would be selling the same--likely worse garbage--at stratospheric prices.laduran - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Everything you said is provably falseQasar - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
you sure about that ? i guess you forgot the wonderful <10% gen on gen performance increases we were getting before Zen was released, and the ever increasing prices for that performance ? or the fact that mainstream was stuck on quad core cpus and you NEEDED to get intel HEDT cpus to get anything more then 4 cores ?RanFodar - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
Tbf what AMD did to competition back then doesn't mean it's an excuse for them to copy Intel's playbook in the past. They can maintain their value position, but even the lowest Ryzen 5000 SKU is a bit overpriced for consumers here in the Philippines. Maybe Intel needs to thank AMD for being in such a position that is desired for consumers.pablo906 - Sunday, April 4, 2021 - link
Even the 3000 series? I've seen the 3000 series for pretty good prices around the world, the 5000 is supply constrained and demand outstrips supply so there is no reason to lower the price....That's how markets workjabber - Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - link
I remember not that long ago an AMD 'budget board' would have HDMI/eSATA/Toslink/6 USB ports (some USB3) and decent audio chip etc. and the Intel budget board would give you just VGA/PS2/ serial, a couple of USB2 and a parallel port instead. Terrible.cxtalxg - Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - link
Such a dumb argument, you do realize than intel had massive generations jumps from core 2 duo, to intel core 1st gen, then second gen. While amds overpriced phenoms flopped. All these companies are the same, lack of competition means lack of advancement