MSI B250M Mortar Arctic, Intel B250 motherboard socket 1151 [7A69-004R]

The Intel B250 chipset supports Intel's processors of the 6th ("Skylake") and 7th ("Kaby Lake") generation and provides a favorable base for office, business and gaming PCs. The B250 chipset offers a maximum of 12 PCIe lanes, six SATA 6G ports, and 12 USB ports, of which up to six can support the fast 3.0 standard. The number of HSIO lanes, which are responsible for connecting the LAN, SATA and USB ports as well as the PCIe lanes, was increased by seven to 25 compared to the predecessor.

The features of the MSI B250M Mortar Arctic at a glance:

Micro ATX motherboard in white / gray
2 x PCIe (3.0) x16 (x16 / x4) & 2x PCIe (3.0) x1
6 × USB 3.0 (1 × Type C / 3 × Type A / 2 × Internal) & 6 × USB 2.0
1 × M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x4) / 6 × SATA 6G
DDR4 Boost, Audio Boost (7.1 Sound), Gaming LAN
LED lighting + Mystic Light synchronization
Support for AMD CrossFireX (2-way)
The MSI B250M Mortar Arctic in detail

The MSI B250M Mortar Arctic Micro ATX motherboard has four DIMM slots for DDR4 memory in fast dual-channel mode and is equipped with two PCIe x16 slots, one with full 16 lanes and the other with four Lanes to the chipset. This supports AMD's CrossFireX technology, allowing the use of two AMD graphics cards.

Data storage in the form of HDDs or (M.2) SSDs can be connected via six SATA-6G connectors and one M.2 slot. The M.2 port allows the use of M.2 SSDs and is typically connected to the chipset via four PCIe lanes, usually in the 3.0 standard. In combination with the NVMe protocol, a data transfer rate of just under 4 GB / s is possible. Thus, M.2 PCIe SSDs are up to eight times faster than SATA 6G SSDs!

The motherboard provides three USB 3.0 Type A, one USB 3.0 Type C, and two USB 2.0 ports for input devices, headsets, and other gaming peripherals on the I / O panel. The special features of the MSI B250M Mortar Arctic include DDR4 boost, audio boost, gaming LAN with LAN-Protect, LED lighting and a Mystic Light Header for additional LED strips and perfect color synchronization. The motherboard also offers excellent 7.1 high-definition on-board sound, and internally provides two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports. For the video output via integrated graphics processor of the CPU, there are three connections available with HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI-D.

Technical details:
Format: Micro-ATX
Chipset: Intel B250 ("Union Point")
Socket: 1151 (for Intel CPUs of the 6th and 7th core generation ("Skylake" / "Kaby Lake")
RAM: 4 × DDR4 (Skylake: DDR4-2.133, Kaby Lake: DDR4-2.400)
Dual-Channel
Slots (physical):
1 × PCIe 3.0 x16
1 × PCIe 3.0 x16 (electrical x4)
Compatible multi-VGA configurations: 2-Way-CrossFireX (Quad-GPU)
2 × PCIe 3.0 x1
Internal connections:
6 × SATA 6G
1 × M.2
2 × USB 3.0 (one header)
4 × USB 2.0 (two header)
1 × Mystic Light Header
External connections:
1 × PS / 2 keyboard / mouse
4 × USB 3.0 (3 × Type A & 1 × Type C)
2 × USB 2.0
1 × Gigabit LAN port
1 × HDMI
1 × DVI-D
1 × DisplayPort
6 × Audio (7.1-Channel High Definition Audio)
Power supply:
1 × 24 pin
1 × 8-pin