The Intel B560 Motherboard Overview: 30+ Budget Models Starting from $75
by Gavin Bonshor on March 29, 2021 7:00 AM ESTMSI MAG B560 Torpedo
A newer addition to MSI'smore cost-effective ranges is the Torpedo. Built around the Arsenal Gaming (MAG) series, the MSI MAG B560 Torpedo a slightly different take on the Tomahawk series, with a more vibrant color scheme, as well as offering a more premium (and ultimately more expensive) alternative. The MSI MAG B560 Torpedo uses a metallic blue finish on its power delivery and chipset heatsinks, with a solid-looking rear panel cover. It also uses a deeper blue and gunmetal grey for its alternative colored memory slots. It does have some RGB, which can be found integrated around the chipset area.
In the center of the Torpedo's PCB is a full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, with a second full-length slot locked to PCIe 3.0 x4. MSI includes just one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, with one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2, and two PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slots. For SATA devices, MSI includes a total of six SATA ports, with two featuring straight-angled connectors found in the bottom right-hand corner. The four with right-angled connectors are located towards the right, with MSI employing a PCB cut-out for easier cable management. Located in the top-right hand corner are four memory slots, with support for up to DDR4-5000 and a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB.
Interestingly, MSI also includes a 6-pin 12 V PCIe power input, which can deliver more power to the PCIe slots for large graphics cards, although the decision to include this on a B560 board that doesn't support overclocking is a little strange.
The rear panel includes one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, with four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A and four USB 2.0 ports. A pair of video outputs including one HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 output allows users to utilize Intel's UHD integrated graphics. MSI hasn't given us information at the time of writing on the HD audio codec of choice, but it'll be Realtek and it powers five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output. The Torpedo drops wireless networking but instead opts for a duo of Ethernet controllers, including one Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 Gb and an Intel I219-V Gigabit.
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FriendlySeaCow - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
The MSI MPG B560I Gaming Edge Wi-Fi has been announced and its features fully released, so you can update that page. Incidentally, there's also a typo in the MSI table, where you have "ATX" instead of "ITX" under the Size Column for the B560I.Looks like a really nice board: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-B560I-GAMING-E...
Jorgp2 - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Why didn't they enable the full 8 sata ports for this chipset, X299 is dead anyway.Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, April 8, 2021 - link
because who uses 8 freaking sata ports at a time, i think the MAX I've ever used is 4Mr Perfect - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Nice round up. Any chance you'll do something similar for H570? They don't seem to cost much more, but have some additional chipset features.Scour - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
B560 also with 6x SATA, PCIe 4.0 and also on ATX-boards, sound good for me.sheltem - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
According to this Reddit post, the Asrock B560 ITX has pretty good VRM's:https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/lao3ym/z59...
BrokenCrayons - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Finally some decently priced motherboards are getting attention they deserve! I'm really happy to see and read about hardware in a price segment I would actually buy and use.evilpaul666 - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
The 10/11 series would be so much more interesting if it had ECC support.jrbales@outlook.com - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
I'm in the process of building a new system for my sister. Bought the ASUS Prime B560M-A at a price competitive with the B460 boards. A very nice mATX board that was nice to work with. One observation and one question. I bought the optional Intel WIFI card & antenna kit to use with the WIFI bracket. On the plus side, it works great and I didn't have to run ethernet cable across the room I was building it in. The negative is that the WIFI bracket has to be attached to the motherboard, using really tiny screws from the rear of the board. That probably took the longest thing in the build as I'd have to try to balance the MB, keep the bracket in place over the holes and the card inserted in the slot, while keeping the tiny screws on the screwdriver long enough to screw in. Now for the question. It involves the first M.2 slot, above the GPU. It's PCIE 4.0. According to everything printed by ASUS, if you use a 10th generation CPU, the slot is disabled, leaving only the second M.2 beneath the GPU. I understand the part about needing an 11th gen CPU to get PCIE 4, but shouldn't the first slot support a PCIE 3.0 M.2 SSD? I'm used to these slots being backward compatible and on my AMD X570 board, you can use either PCIE 3 or 4 SSDs in both slots. Does anyone knows if the B56s0 slot 1 is backward compatible?mobilefrenzy - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
M.2 Slot 1 on B560 and Z590 mobos don't work with 10th gen CPUs, as they don't have the additional PCIe lanes to enable them.