Best Budget Motherboard for i5 8400 (2022)

Are you looking for the best budget motherboard for your Intel Core i5 8400 processor? If so, you’ve come to the right place! In this guide, we’ll break down the best motherboards on the market for the PC builder on a budget.

When it comes to processors, tech moves fast. So, even though the i5 8400 is only about 5 years old in 2022, the list of motherboards that are compatible and available for purchase is growing shorter every day. This can make it difficult to find a solid, yet cheap, motherboard to use for your latest build. Here are our picks for the best ones!

In This Article:

ASRock B365M-HDV ~$70

If you have never heard of AsRock before, get used to the name! You’ll quickly notice that they are featured twice on this list and hold the two top spots for cheapest motherboards compatible with the i5-8400. ASRock is a Taiwanese manufacturer of motherboards and other computer components. As one of the most popular motherboard manufacturers, ASRock has made a name for itself with its dependable products. They’ve also carved out a bit of a niche for continuing to produce budget motherboards compatible with older hardware. For our needs, they are our saving grace. Most motherboards for the i5-8400 are considerably more expensive than ASRock’s offerings.

The ASRock B356M-HDV specifically is a Micro-ATX Board. At the time of writing it has 369 ratings on Amazon with an average rating of 4 stars. The back IO contains 4 USB 3.1 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports. It only has two ram slots and supports 32 GB of DDR4 ram, so keep that in mind if you have plans to add more than that. You can view the full specifications list here.

ASRock B365M Pro4 ~$95

The ASRock B354M Pro4 is pretty similar to the previous model we looked at, but with several key upgrades.

The main things that make this motherboard different than the cheaper model are as follows: Four DDR4 Ram slots and support for up to 64GBs. Steel Slots, A Full coverage M.2 Heatsink to protect and cool your M.2 SSD should you choose to use one, 2 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (This allows for running two graphics cards at once), and a USB-C PORT on the rear IO panel. There are a few other smaller differences, but this motherboard made the list for those reasons as they may be make-or-break features for some people. If none of these features have any appeal for you, you’re better off getting the cheaper B365M-HDV. However, if these features are important to your build or if you value keeping your build compatible with future upgrades you can’t go wrong with this board. It is very highly rated on amazon with 814 reviews at an average of 4.5 stars at the time of writing. You can view the full specification list here.