Introduction
Intel not only has premium processors, but it also offers some good-quality affordable options to enjoy the pretty much same performance thrill. The Intel Core i5 10400F is a mid-range chip from the Comet Lake family and a great selection for budget gaming. You can play above-mid-end games with 6 cores and 12 threads topped with a 12 MB Intel Smart Cache and a boost clock frequency of 4.3GHz. The chip uses the same Intel Hyper-Threading technology, which is 25% improved over the previous i5 processors. If you put it toe-to-toe against the AMD Ryzen 5 3600, both carry the same performance benchmarks. You must have one of the best motherboards for i5 10400F to effectively get the chip’s speeds.
In contrast, uncovering a compatible motherboard is not easy, especially when the market is crowded with hundreds of items. You either need an expert suggestion before going to market or do a lot of research to gather the required knowledge. Don’t worry since we have solved all these issues by putting this post against your eyeballs. You must read the whole to drop the best pick. Remember, the motherboard you’re buying must have an LGA 1200 socket to connect with the chip. You can go for the motherboards with the chipsets including H410, H470, B460, and Z490 from the 400-series, or choose one with the latest Z560 and Z570 chipsets.
1. MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge WIFI
The MSI has spent months of work creating the MPG Z490 Gaming Edge Wi-Fi and then putting it into a high-end technologies envelope. It’s the best seller motherboard and is the best enthusiast motherboard for i5 10400F since it has well-established placement in tech lovers’ hearts. You can manually tweak the RAM timing with this board to overcome the performance lag due to the unlocked chip’s multiplier. You can power the latest processors up to i9 with its LGA 1200 socket and can utilize up to 128GB RAM via four DIMMs slots.
Except for the lack of thunderbolt support, we have found any downside during our testing sessions. It has PCIe 4.0 support, six SATA 6GB/s ports, dual M.2 slots, and USB 3.2 connection along with the 2.5G LAN manager and Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX solution for wireless connectivity. If we dig deep into the board’s build, it uses a six-layered PCB and steel armored PCIe slots for protection with aluminum cover, M.2 Shield Frozr technology, full fans control, and more for efficient cooling. In short, if you buy this best motherboard for i5 10400F, there is nothing left behind that you will miss.
| Reasons to Buy | Reasons to Avoid |
| – Excellent performance
– Wi-Fi support – Attractive design and protection – RGB lighting – Adequate cooling performance – Enhanced power solution |
– No Thunderbolt support
– No VGA port |
2. ASRock B460 Phantom Gaming 4
The Phantom motherboards are known for having everything advanced ASRock have found out in the previous decades to ensure stable performance and effective stability. The ASRock Phantom Gaming 4 can pull you through intensive content creation and high-end gaming without any lag. It can be the perfect combo for the Intel Core 10th generation chips since it’s built over Intel LGA 1200 platform. It can accommodate four DIMMs to accomplish up to 128GB of volatile storage. So, if you want an all-rounder type of board, this best value motherboard for i5 10400F should be your first choice.
If we start talking about its connectivity, it has USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, USB 2.0 supports, six SATA 6Gb/s connectors, dual M.2 slots where one is for Wi-Fi and the other for NVMe SSDs, and Intel Gigabit LAN. In contrast, it doesn’t have built-in Wi-Fi and PCIe 4.0 support but has a pair of PCIe 3.0 x16 and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The cooling support is extraordinary with this card featuring seven fan headers and two massive heatsinks, and a DrMOS power solution.
| Reasons to Buy | Reasons to Avoid |
| – Advance ASRock technologies
– Adequate cooling options – DrMOS power phases design – Two massive heatsinks |
– PCIe 3.0, not PCIe 4.0
– No built-in WiFi |
3. MSI B460M Pro-VDH Wifi
We have already discussed two motherboards that have an ATX form factor. In the previous years, the trend of sculpting smaller rigs is touching the sky, and that’s why we have the MSI B460M Pro-VDH WiFi on our list. We are calling it the best mATX motherboard for i5 10400F because you will get pretty much everything the same as the bigger boards do but in a compact form. When you put four DIMMs into a fully-isolated RAM DDR circuit, you can enjoy extra stable and interrupted data signals.
The specifications sheet tells us that the board has four SATA III ports, two M.2 slots NVMe SSDs (one for SATA M.2 SSDs), USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A support, and EZ Debug LEDs at the front to detect any issue. Sadly, it doesn’t carry PCIe 4.0 support, like the previous ASRock Phantom Gaming 4; instead, it has PCIe 3.0 support with steel armor for protection purposes. I’m sure the built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a Realtek LAN port supporting 1 Gb/s of bandwidth will make you happy.
| Reasons to Buy | Reasons to Avoid |
| – Bluetooth, WiFi, Realtek LAN port
– Excellent performance in mATX pack – Customizable mother circuit – Attractive design |
– Basic cooling design |
