MSI B250 Gaming M3 motherboard review. Review of MSI B250 Gaming M3 motherboard Msi b250 gaming m3 for mining

We have already met a large number motherboards based on Intel 200 chipsets - a series with both top-end overclocking solutions and affordable working options. But what about the user who wants to get a normal gaming solution with a pleasant appearance? good sound, reliable element base, user-friendly software and no need to worry about overclocking components? And MSI has the answer to this question - the MSI B250 Gaming M3 motherboard, the features of which we will discuss in this review.

Characteristics

Packaging and equipment

The MSI B250 Gaming M3 is packaged in a box with fairly bright printing; on the front of it is the motherboard, the manufacturer’s logo and the main supported technologies. The appearance of the board and its main characteristics are shown on the back of the box.
The delivery package is extremely simple:

detailed user manual in English;
quick installation instructions;
disk with drivers and proprietary software;
two SATA 6Gb/s cables, one of which has an L-shaped connector at one end;
cable for connecting LED strips;
stickers for marking cables;
plug for the housing;
metal sticker MSI Gaming.

Appearance, lighting options

The MSI B250 Gaming M3, unlike the older Gaming M5 and Gaming M7 models, has retained the feature of the old Gaming line motherboards: an emphasis on bright red color, but still much less of it. There are stripes on the cooling radiators of the VRM zone and a red pattern in the form of stripes on the PCB, but like the older models, the main design colors are now black and gray. All in all, appearance Dragon Lucky approves!
On the back side of the printed circuit board there is a pattern, also in the form of red stripes.
No matter how strange it may be, the MSI B250 Gaming M3 is devoid of backlight zones, but if you really want to diversify your system, it is possible to connect RGB strips and turn on lighting effects: static glow, breathing, blinking, double blinking, random effect.

Arrangement of elements, power supply and cooling

The rear interface panel contains the following connection ports: one PS/2 and 2 x USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen2, one of them is symmetrical - Type C, the second is Type A. DVI-D is provided for connecting monitors and HDMI 2.0, one gigabit Ethernet port, its controller is Qualcomm Killer E2500. The board is equipped with five gold-plated 3.5 mm Mini-Jack ports and one S/PDIF, and the sound is generated using the Rialtek ALC1220 codec.
CPU socket LGA1151, supported Intel processors 6th and 7th generation.
The processor receives power from an eight-pin connector. The processor power system is ten-phase, eight phases are allocated for powering the processor, and another two are for powering the integrated graphics. The power system is built on high-quality components that meet the Military Class 5 standard. Let's be honest, this power system is partially redundant for the B250 chipset, but on the other hand, the power system heats up less, which means it will last a very long time.
CPU power system and kit system logic received aluminum heat dissipators, heat is removed from the power phases using thermal pads, and from the chipset - through hot melt adhesive. The power system radiators are not as massive as they seem at first glance. But thanks to normal fins, they easily cope with their function.

There are 4 slots for RAM Frequencies up to 2400 MHz are supported, after which the chipset limitation is triggered. The maximum total amount of RAM is 64 GB. To the right of the DIMM slots there is a block of 4 EZ Debug LEDs, which is designed to quickly identify a malfunction.
The PCIe slot block consists of two PCI Express 3.0 16X and three PCI Express 3.0 1X. The upper PCIe 3.0 16X received metal reinforcement for installing heavy video cards, the lower slot can handle a maximum of eight PCIe lanes. NVIDIA Technology SLI is not supported, but install a couple Radeon video cards in Crossfire is real.
At the bottom of the board, as standard, there are connectors for connecting the case, 2x USB 2.0, TRM connector, a connector for connecting LED strips, front audio ports. It is possible to connect four case USB 3.0 at once, the second connection connector is located next to the SATA ports. In the lower left part of the board there is a shielded area on which the codec is soldered, as well as Premium Nichicon liquid capacitors and an operational amplifier, so we can be content with high-quality sound.
Six SATA III are provided for connecting drives. Two M.2 slots - they can operate in both SATA and PCIe mode, the top one received support for drives of the following types: 2242/ 2260 / 2280/ 22110; lower: 2242/ 2260 /2280.
When building the system, you will have to face several limitations, which are listed below.

To organize the cooling system, there are six 4-pin connectors (marked in red), one of them is for connecting liquid cooling pumps (marked in blue).

UEFI(BIOS) and software

UEFI is divided into two large sections: “basic” and “advanced”, you can control it with both the mouse and the keyboard, there is partial Russification. Basic mode is designed to control boot priority, case fans, and view system information.

Advanced Mode includes all the same features but adds more detailed settings. Since the B250 chipset does not allow for overclocking, all items related to overclocking are blocked and the only thing you can “play with” is the RAM timings.

To update drivers and software, use the MSI Live Update 6 application.
Let's start getting acquainted with applications that will help us in games.

MSI Gaming App is a program that is designed to select operating modes, adjust the backlight, color correct the image displayed on the display, record macros and hotkeys for the keyboard and mouse, which is important if you have a budget peripheral and it does not have special software.

MSI Command Center, in general, is designed for convenient overclocking of the system, but on the MSI B250 Gaming M3 it is only possible to control RAM, adjust the cooling system, and thermal monitoring.
MSI Smart Tool is a simple program for creating bootable media with Windows.

Killer is used to manage network flows, priorities and restrictions on speed and traffic consumption. Control Center, is mainly needed to set the maximum priority for network games so that some Windows update did not “steal” bandwidth. For fine-tuning the sound, in addition to the standard Realtek center, there is Nahimic 2, but is it more convenient? Yes, at least with a more understandable interface. All the necessary settings are grouped, and the sound quality changes noticeably and not in a bad way, especially in games that support Sound Tracker - the accuracy of sound positioning becomes at the highest level even on budget headphones.
Additional software includes CPU-Z in MSI Gaming brand colors and XSplit Gameсaster, which comes with an annual premium subscription.

General impressions and tests

All testing of the MSI B250 Gaming M3 boils down to checking this motherboard for stability and trying to lower the RAM timings. The B250 chipset imposes restrictions on overclocking both the RAM and the processor, but at the same time does not affect performance in any way, which we have already tested on the example of the MSI Z270 Gaming M5 and MSI B250M Mortar. For this reason, the B250 chipset will be quite optimal for undemanding users.

Let's move on to the MSI B250 Gaming M3. On the one hand, this motherboard does not look like the most balanced solution, because for this money you can buy a motherboard based on the Z270 chipset entry level, but now let’s return to the question that not everyone needs a top-end chipset, and here the MSI B250 Gaming M3 takes advantage of its gaming functionality and a power system assembled with a large reserve.
The MSI B250 Gaming M3 can boast of gaming functionality: it has an excellent appearance, a top-end codec, which means the sound is in perfect order, a high-quality Ethernet controller with the ability to distribute priorities, and convenient, useful software.

The MSI B250 Gaming M3 deserves our Editors' Choice award for being an inexpensive yet high-quality gaming motherboard.