Best PCIe 5.0 motherboards in 2024

AMD’s X870 chipset and Intel’s Z890 chipset are the latest PCIe 5.0-enabled motherboards to be launched. We will add these to our recommendations as we have more time with the new platforms.

The best motherboards all have one feature in common: PCIe 5.0 components. That’s because it promises faster connectivity and more bandwidth for PC hardware, like the best graphics cards and SSDs. This enables better overall system performance, so whether you’re gaming or creating documents, videos, or photos, your system can handle those tasks faster. Whether you’re looking for the best PCIe 5.0 motherboard available, or something a little more modest, I’ve put together a shortlist to help make your decision.

Our picks for the best PCIe 5.0 motherboards in 2024

If I had to choose one PCIe 5.0-enabled motherboard right now, it would be the Asus ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming Wi-Fi because it has more PCIe 5.0 support than most flagship motherboards and at a lower price point. Underneath the stealthy design are integrated heatsinks for three PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs and one PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD. That offers ample speedy storage options right off the bat, and you also get two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics cards or peripherals. Rounding out storage options are four SATA ports for hard drives or 2.5-inch SSDs.

The connectivity continues on the back I/O panel, with a huge total of 13 USB 3.2 ports. Three of those are USB-C, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find enough relevant peripherals to run out of ports on this one. There is also a DisplayPort and HDMI port to take advantage of the integrated graphics present on all AMD Ryzen 7000 processors, 2.5GbE wired, and Wi-Fi 6E for wireless networking.

This motherboard isn’t just great for connectivity, though. It also has some real chops for overclocking. The 18+2 phase power delivery design gives you stable power to push the processor and memory to higher performance. It’s also got a great layout, with sensibly placed USB headers and five chassis fan headers, and it sits comfortably in the middle of the overall price range for AM5 motherboards.

The ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite is only actually ‘lite’ on your wallet, not on features. That’s because it’s almost the Z790 Taichi, which is our favorite enthusiast board for LGA1700, just without the metal armor and a couple of other minor features you might not use anyway. It rivals motherboards that cost $500 or more for a similar feature set, including one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and three PCIe 4.0 ones, as well as two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics cards or peripherals. You also get two 8-pin CPU power connectors, which means enough juice to feed the hungry Intel Core i9-14900K, even when overclocked.

That aim is helped by the 24+1+2 stage VRMs, which seems insanely overbuilt for a motherboard at this price. It’s even excessive for high-end boards, as you’ll have to go to halo products like the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Xtreme X to find a similar power delivery. All the M.2 slots are covered with integrated heatsinks; there are technically five slots, but you can only use four at one time. That’s because the top two slots, a PCIe 5.0 and a PCIe 4.0, overlap in the middle, so you can really only use one or the other. Still, with three other PCIe 4.0 slots to use up, you won’t be lacking speedy SSD storage space.

You also get 12 USB ports on the back panel, with two of them being Thunderbolt 4/USB4. That’s rare on any motherboard, so to see it on one this affordable is almost unheard of. And you get a 1GbE and 2.5GbE wired networking jack, plus Wi-Fi 6E capability. The only thing you lose out on with this motherboard is the looks, which have been pared down to hit a lower price point. If you’re okay with that, this is a feature-rich motherboard with enough power in the tank for hefty overclocking of the latest Intel processors.

The Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero is one of the most feature-packed LGA1700 motherboards available, with tons of connectivity. It has one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot with a thick metal heatsink, and space for four more PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs under shared heatsinks. You also get two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics cards or peripherals that take advantage of the faster standard.

Speaking of faster standards, this motherboard upgrades to Wi-Fi 7, which is also supported by Intel’s 14th Gen processors. Routers that can support this standard are starting to hit the market, and it’s worth getting if you don’t like using Ethernet cables or can’t use them due to your location. You get a 20+1+2 VRM configuration which is plenty to overclock even the beastly Intel Core i9-14900K, and the VRM heatsinks will do a fine job of keeping them cool.

You also get all the other connectivity you could want or ask for. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, five 10Gbps USB-A ports, one 10Gbps USB-C port, and four 5Gbps USB-A ports on the back panel. The front panel connections include a USB-C with 60W of power delivery, and you get HDMI, a bevy of audio jacks, along with optical, and a handy Clear CMOS button for when overclocking goes wrong.

The TUF line has been a great performer at a budget price for every AM4 generation, and that trend continues with AM5. The B650 chipset brings the features that most users will need and want, and Asus has decided to put one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot on this motherboard for the latest and fastest SSD performance. On top of that, you get two more PCIe 4.0 M.2 sockets, and all three are covered by integrated heatsinks. That cooling will help under sustained loads, as we’ve seen PCIe 5.0 SSDs get much hotter than their PCIe 4.0 brethren.

The four DDR5 slots support speeds of up to 6400MHz, although the sweet spot for Ryzen is 6000MHz, so you don’t really need to go any higher than that. The VRM solution is 12+2 stages, which is plenty for even the highest tier of Ryzen 7000 CPUs. Power is supplied by an 8-pin and a 4-pin connector, which is great to see, as many B650 motherboards are limited to 65W processors. You’re not losing out on other connectivity either by going with a budget option, as you get eight USB ports on the back panel, with three at 3.2 Gen 1 speed and one at 3.2 Gen 2×2.

The Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero happens to be the motherboard in my personal gaming build, so I’m well acquainted with the plethora of features it offers for enthusiasts like myself. I’m using a Ryzen 9 7900X with it, and have no complaints about power delivery or performance. That’s partly due to the 18+2 VRM stages, which are rated to 110A, so they are more than up to the requirements of any Ryzen 7000 series processor. It’s also one of the few boards I’ve used that can do 6,000MHz when four DDR5 modules are installed, although the latest BIOS update enabled this, so check what version your board came with if you have any issues.

This premium AM5 motherboard also has two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics and peripherals, with Asus including a PCIe 5.0 M.2 add-in card in the box. You also get two PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD slots on the motherboard, and another two PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD slots for loads of storage. The back panel has two USB4 ports, one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×2, eight USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, and HDMI output. Power is supplied by two 8-pin CPU connectors, and there’s a supplemental 6-pin PCIe connector on the board for better power delivery to the PCIe slots for the most power-hungry graphics cards.

PCIe 5.0 support first came with Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors and the Z690 chipset. The MSI Pro Z690-A is a prime example of how most manufacturers approached support for the new connectivity standard, with one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and no PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots. With 12th Gen Intel CPUs only having 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and no PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives available for purchase, it was the configuration that made the most sense.

While you don’t get PCIe 5.0 M.2 speeds, you do get three PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD slots and one PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD slot, giving you plenty of space for speedy SSD storage. If you need more storage, there are six SATA ports to fill up. On the back I/O, you get eight USB ports, although four of them are USB 2.0 speeds. The other four include two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, and one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×2. It also features a 2.5GbE Intel NIC, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2 for networking and wireless connectivity.

The Asus ProArt Z790 Creator Wi-Fi isn’t just great for artists and other creators, with its DisplayPort pass-through that turns one of the rear USB-C ports into a one-cable solution for the best graphics drawing tablets. It’s also a very powerful motherboard for anyone to use who may not want the garish gaming aesthetic of RGB everything. You get two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for graphics cards or expansion cards, four PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD slots, and eight SATA ports.

That’s plenty of connections for all the storage you could want on a workstation, and you’ll be able to transfer data quickly with the 10GbE Marvell AQtion Ethernet port. The rear I/O has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, both of which can be used as graphics outputs by feeding a DisplayPort cable from your discrete graphics card to the DisplayPort input ports on the motherboard. The rear panel also has six USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and an Intel 2.5GbE wired networking port.

The 16+1 VRM stages are fed from an 8-pin and 4-pin CPU power socket, and there’s a supplemental 6-pin PCIe power socket to keep the power supply to the PCIe slots stable even under overclocking or sustained data transfer.

Mini-ITX boards are often constrained in features, but MSI’s MPG Z790I Edge Wi-Fi goes a long way towards changing that. You get a 10+1+1 stage VRM, perfect for the mid-range Core i7’s from the 12th, 13th, and 14th generations of Intel’s LGA1700-compatible CPUs. With only one 8-pin CPU power plug, you won’t be powering a thirsty i9 on this motherboard, but you probably wouldn’t be anyway, as thermal constraints in a small form factor chassis come into play here as a limitation. You do get support for up to 96GB of DDR5-8000, which will have a bigger impact on the overall responsiveness of the system without worrying about how to cool it.

You get PCIe 5.0 on the x16 slot, which is great to see, even if graphics cards are still using PCIe 4.0. There is a total of three M.2 SSD slots, two PCIe 4.0, and one PCIe 3.0. While we’d like to have seen a PCIe 5.0 slot here, that would have increased the cost substantially. Three M.2 slots is already more than most small form factor motherboards come with, and you get four SATA ports as well if you don’t mind managing the cables in your smaller build.

As for the rest of its connectivity, you get plenty of USB ports. There are four USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, and one USB-C 3.2 Gen2x2 at the back; also, two USB-A 2.0, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, and one USB-C 3.2 Gen2x2 from the front headers. You also get a 2.5GbE network interface powered by an Intel NIC, which is a nice bonus, and Wi-Fi 6E.

What you need to know about buying a PCIe 5.0 motherboard

The best PCIe 5.0 motherboard for most people is the Asus ROG Strix X670-E Gaming because it has two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and support for three PCIe 5.0 SSDs. It does this at a relatively affordable price and has excellent overclocking support thanks to beefy power stages. If you prefer Intel, I recommend the ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite, which is also excellent, well-priced, and has both an onboard PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and two PCIe x16 slots. For cost-conscious consumers, the Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus Wi-Fi is worth looking at, which gives you one PCIe 5.0 M.2 and x16 slot and is our favorite budget AM5 motherboard.