ASRock B860 Challenger Wifi Motherboard Review: Entry-level ATX at a great price, with drawbacks

Based on the mainstream B860 chipset, the ASRock B860 Challenger Wifi sits on the budget side of Intel's motherboard lineup, and costs a reasonable $149.99 . You get a full-sized motherboard with full support for Intel’s Core Ultra and Core Ultra Series 2 (Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake refresh) processors. Still, some sacrifices in specs and features are inevitable at this price point. The all-black B860 Challenger (there is a white version, too) includes all the basics. You get eight rear USB ports, three M.2 sockets (one PCIe 5.0), four SATA ports, 2.5 GbE, Wi-Fi 7, and a basic audio solution. It falls a bit short on USB speed (5 Gbps max.), power delivery isn’t strong (though it handled our 270K Plus without issue at stock), and ASRock’s BIOS is fully functional but dated compared to the competition. It has everything that most will need from a motherboard, but it’s not the fastest or the best at anything, which you should generally expect from a low-priced mainstream chipset. Performance on this board was actually quite good in our testing. I have to admit, that surprised me a little given the VRM configuration. I expected it to throttle on some longer-running multi-threaded benchmarks. But the B860 Challenger proved me wrong and was average to above average across most of our tests. Whether gaming, doing office work, or juggling creative workflows, the Challenger handled our Intel Core Ultra 270K Plus without issue, though the VRMs ran hotter than on other tested boards. I would suggest using a chassis with good airflow with this board, especially if you plan to run a high-end processor and long-running, heavily multi-threaded applications. Below, we’ll examine the B860 Challenger's tested performance and other features to see if it earns a spot on our list of the best motherboards . But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from the ASRock website: Specifications of the ASRock B860 Challenger Wifi Socket LGA 1851 Chipset B860 Form Factor ATX Voltage Regulator 14 Phase (10x 50A Dr.MOS MOSFETs for Vcore) Video Ports (1) HDMI (v2.1) USB Ports (1) USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) Type-C (6) USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) (2) USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) Network Jacks (1) 2.5 GbE Audio Jacks (2) Analog and SPDIF Legacy Ports/Jacks ✗ Other Ports/Jack ✗ PCIe x16 (1) v5.0 (x16) (1) v4.0 (x4) PCIe x8 ✗ PCIe x4 ✗ PCIe x1 ✗ CrossFire/SLI ✗ DIMM Slots (4) DDR5-8666+(OC), 256GB Capacity M.2 Sockets (1) PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) / PCIe (up to 80mm) (2) PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) / PCIe (up to 80mm) SATA Ports (4) SATA3 6 Gbps USB Headers (1) USB v3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) Type-C (1) USB v3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) (2) USB v2.0 (480 Mbps) Fan/Pump Headers (7) 4-Pin (Accepts PWM and DC) RGB Headers (3) 3-pin ARGB Gen2 headers (1) 4-pin RGB header Diagnostics Panel 4-LED Post Status Checker (CPU, DRAM, VGA, Boot) Internal Button/Switch ✗ SATA Controllers ✗ Ethernet Controller(s) (1) Realtek RTL8125 2.5 GbE Wi-Fi / Bluetooth ***Realtek 8922AE Wi-Fi 7 - 160 MHz, 6 GHz, BT 5.4 USB Controllers ASMedia ASM1074 HD Audio Codec Realtek ALC897 DDL/DTS ✗ / ✗ Warranty 3 Years Inside the Box ASRock includes a few accessories to help get you up and running. You get two SATA cables, an M.2 screw and mount, Wi-Fi antennas, stickers, and a quick installation guide. The collection is sparse, but typical for a low-cost mainstream-class motherboard. Design and Features of the B860 Challenger Wifi Future Future Future Future Future Future Future The B860 Challenger sits on a matte-black PCB with black connectors and heatsinks. Only the Challenger branding on a couple of heatsinks and the capacitors dot the board, breaking up the stealthy appearance. It lacks a ‘full coverage’ heatsink on the bottom, partly due to the M. 2's physical orientation, but two of the three M.2 sockets do have heatsinks. You won’t find any integrated RGB, but the board has multiple headers to add your own. Overall, this is a plain-looking board with a lot of exposed PCB, but that's typical for this chipset and price. Still, it will blend well into any dark build theme. (Image credit: Future) In the top-left area of the board, we see the standard dual 8-pin EPS connectors to power the processor. Below that is the large VRM heatsink that extends to the rear IO area and covers some unsightly motherboard components. On top, we can see the silver Challenger branding. A second VRM heatsink covers the top portion of the power delivery. Both appeared to make good contact with the MOSFETs and inductors/chokes below. Moving right, past the socket, the next feature is the four DRAM slots, each with locking mechanisms on both sides. ASRock lists support for up to DDR5-8666, which is plenty fast for the platform, especially given today’s ridiculous memory prices. Tucked between the heatsink and the DRAM slots on the left, along with two others on the right side of the slots, are the first (of seven) 4-pin fan headers. Per usual, each header supports PWM and DC-controlled devices. The CPU_FAN1 connector supports up to 1A/12W, while the remainder support up to 3A/36W. In other words, you won’t have any issues powering your system fans from the board. Just be sure not to overload them. You can control the headers via the BIOS or the A-Tuning app with FAN-Tastic tuning. Rounding the corner and moving down the right edge, you'll find the first two 3-pin ARGB headers. Along the bottom edge are additional headers: a third ARGB header and a single 4-pin RGB header. The Polychrome Sync application in the BIOS or as a standalone app controls the attached devices. Next are the 24-pin ATX connector to power the board, a front-panel 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen1 (5 Gbps) header, and a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen1 (5 Gbps) Type-C header. Surprisingly, 5 Gbps is the fastest you’ll get out of any USB port on this board. For 2026, that’s disappointing, even in a budget-class mainstream board. (Image credit: Future) Power delivery on the B860 Challenger is paltry, but not by phase count; it’s 14 phases total, 10 dedicated to Vcore — but by the weak MOSFETs. Power heads from the EPS connectors to a Richtek RT3638AJ 3-rail, 8-phase PWM controller (meaning the Vcore runs ‘teamed,’ common in today’s systems). From there, power goes to 10 50A Vishay SiC632 Dr.MOS power stages. The 500A available isn’t a lot, but it handled our Core Ultra 270K Plus without throttling. That said, the VRMs ran hot during our 30-minute stress test, so make sure you have good airflow to keep temperatures down. (Image credit: Future) On the bottom half, starting on the left edge, is the audio solution: the basic Realtek ALC897 and a couple of dedicated audio capacitors. This isn’t the best audio section around, but par for this class of board. Still, most users will be satisfied with this implementation. Two full-length PCIe slots sit in the middle of the board and couldn’t be spaced further apart. The top slot is reinforced, connects through the CPU, and is your primary slot for graphics running PCIe 5.0 x16 speeds (it does not bifurcate). The bottom slot connects through the chipset and runs up to PCIe 4.0 x4. The large gap between them lets you fit any video card, while still leaving that bottom slot open for expansion. Mixed in and around the PCIe slots are three M.2 sockets. The first, above the primary PCIe slot, uses a larger heatsink with a quick-release mechanism that makes installing and removing the device easy. Under the heatsink is a CPU-connected M.2, M2_1, that runs at PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) and supports devices up to 80mm. The other two M.2 sockets run at PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps), with one, M2_2, under a simple (not EZ DIY) heatsink and the other, M2_3, with no heatsink. If you want to use RAID on the M.2 drives, you’ll have to look elsewhere, as the B860 Challenger doesn't list support for that here. Note that the primary M.2 socket made good contact with the M.2 drive. Moving right, past the chipset heatsink to the edge of the board, we reach the four SATA ports. These you can use RAID with (RAID0/1/5/10) for that extra speed or redundancy. Finally, we snapped a few images of the board’s active ICs. This ASRock board uses a combination of Richtek (PWM controller), ASMedia (USB), Realtek (audio and networking), and Vishay (MOSFETs). Future Future Future Future Future At the bottom are several headers, including front-panel audio and USB ports. A complete list of connectivity is listed below, from left to right: Front panel audio 4-pin RGB 3-pin ARGB (2) USB 2.0 headers (3) 4-pin fan headers 2-pin Clear CMOS jumper SPI TPM header Power LED and Speaker Front panel (Image credit: Future) Flipping the board around to the rear I/O, we can see enough ports for most users. Starting on the left, we see the HDMI (v2.1) output for integrated graphics, with the Wi-Fi 7 (the ‘slower’ 160 Hz) antenna screw-in connections above it. Moving right, we spy the only USB Type-C port on the rear IO, and it’s a slow 5 Gbps port. In fact, 5 Gbps is the fastest USB you’ll see on this board, which will disappoint anyone looking for speedy USB. Next are two USB 2.0 ports (black), six more 5 Gbps ports (blue and yellow: the latter are the Lightning USB ports for reduced latency). Above the yellow Lightning Gaming ports is the Realtek-based 2.5 GbE. Next are the audio inputs/outputs, with three 3.5mm jacks (input/output/microphone). The B860 Challenger lacks SPDIF optical output, which could affect users who want to send the audio signal to an AV/R or other external output. If you’re an esports gamer where every millisecond counts, the Lightning Gaming ports could come in handy. Otherwise, the feature adds little value for the average user. MORE: Best Motherboards MORE: How To Choose A Motherboard MORE: Best Motherboard Deals MORE: Best Motherboard Combo Deals MORE: All Motherboard Content Firmware Like other ASRock boards, the B860 Challenger starts in the informative Easy Mode, but it also lets you adjust several options (XMP, profiles, boot order, access to Fan-Tastic Tuning, etc.). The Challenger uses a black background and white text with light blue highlights. The high contrast also makes it easy to read. The standard BIOS displays headings across the top, with subheadings and details below. You can tweak anything here, as ASRock includes every option you can think of. Overclocking is straightforward, with most options readily available. The layout is logical, and the mouse movement is smooth. We have no significant complaints about the ASRock firmware, but it could use a facelift to keep up with recent updates from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI. Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Software ASRock offers several different software options. These include the App Shop, which lets users install drivers and software; the Nahimic 3 audio control panel; the A-Tuning application that lets you overclock and control fans; the Polychrome RGB software; and more. It also includes a Blazing OC Tuner, Motherboard Utility, and a convenient pop-up to install drivers on first boot. ASRock’s software gives users everything they need to manage and tweak their systems. For those who want to run local AI models, ASRock’s Claw Quickset software automates installation, configuration, and environment setup so you can start using AI with minimal technical knowledge. On this 270K Plus system, it takes around 5-10 minutes to install the software and get running (most of the time is spent downloading data). Once installed, you’re presented with a browser-like window where you can chat, build your agent, and more. Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Test System / Comparison Products We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (25H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late April 2026. On the hardware front, we’ve updated the RAM kits to ones appropriate for the platform. Peripherals, including cooling, storage, power supply, and graphics cards, remain unchanged. We also use the latest publicly available BIOS unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows: TEST SYSTEM COMPONENTS: CPU - Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus Cooling - Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420 Storage - Crucial 2TB T705 M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD RAM - Kingston Fury Renegade - 32GB DDR5-7600 CL38 (KF576C38RWAK2-32) RAM - G.Skill Trident Z5 CK - 32GB DDR5-8200 CL40 (F5-8200C4052G24GX2-TZZ5CK) RAM - V-Color 256GB (2x128GB) DDR5-8000 CL64 (TECQ5128G80Q864K) GPU - Asus TUF RTX 4080 16G PSU - EVGA Supernova 850W P6 Windows 11 64-bit (25H2 - 26200.8037) NVIDIA Driver 595.97 (Image credit: Future) Sound Integrated HD audio Network Integrated Networking (GbE to 10 GbE) Graphics Driver GeForce 595.97 Benchmark Settings Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings Procyon Version 2.8.1352 64 Office 365 Pugetbench v1.4.20 Adobe Suite - Photoshop (v27.5), Premiere (v26.2), AfterEffects (v26.2), Media Encoder (v26.2), Lightroom Classic (v15.3) 3DMark Version 2.29.8294.0 64 Speed Way and Steel Nomad (Default) Cinebench R26 Version 2026.1.0 Open GL Rendering Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded Blender Version 5.0.0 Full benchmark (all 3 tests) Application Tests and Settings LAME MP3 Version SSE2_2019 Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s) HandBrake CLI Version: 1.11.0 Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX) Corona 10 Version 10 Default benchmark 7-Zip Version 26.00 Integrated benchmark (Command Line) Game Tests and Settings Cyberpunk 2077 Ultra RT: - 1920 x 1080, DLSS - Balanced. F1 2025 Ultra High Preset - 1920 x 1080, 16xAF/TAA, Texas (Clear/Dry), FPS Counter ON MORE: Best Motherboards MORE: How To Choose A Motherboard MORE: Best Motherboard Deals MORE: Best Motherboard Combo Deals MORE: All Motherboard Content Benchmark Results Our standard benchmarks and power tests are performed using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo) with all power-saving features at default. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS, then enable the XMP profile to set the memory. If the BIOS enables boosts by default, it runs like that. We set the Windows power scheme to Balanced (default) for this baseline testing, so the PC idles appropriately. Synthetic Benchmarks and Real World Applications Synthetics offer a valuable way to evaluate a board's performance, since identical settings should yield similar results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are areas where motherboard manufacturers can still optimize for stability or performance, though, and these settings can impact specific testing scenarios. We’ve also combined our previous ‘timed’ benchmark applications into this section.. Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Starting with our synthetic benchmarks, the B860 Challenger was average to above average in our tightly packed tests, doing well across a wide variety of work. So far so good with this budget board! 3D Games and 3DMark Future Future Future Future Future Starting with the launch of the Arrow Lake refresh chips, we’ve updated our game tests. We’re keeping the F1 racing game but have upgraded to F1 25 . We’ll also continue with the ever-popular, aesthetically pleasing Cyberpunk 2077 . We run both games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed in the table above). Both games are set to use DLSS. These settings aim to determine whether performance differs at the most commonly used (and CPU/system-bound) resolution, with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS metric, which can affect your gameplay and immersion. The B860 Challenger did well in the synthetic 3DMark benchmarks (leading the pack, in fact), and was average in our games. In short, there’s nothing to worry about regarding performance on this board, whether for work or play. Overclocking Over the past few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has been shrinking on both sides of the fence, while out-of-the-box performance has increased. For overclockers, that means less fun. For the average consumer, you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Today’s motherboards are more robust than ever, and most support power-hungry flagship-class processors, so we know the hardware can handle them. You can extract even more performance from these processors by manually adjusting settings or using the fancy AI overclocking that board partners have been touting. Results will vary and depend on the CPU's cooling and quality. In other words, your mileage may vary. With that in mind, we’re not overclocking the CPU for these review articles. However, we'll test our different memory kits to ensure they meet the specifications. Future Future For memory testing, we skipped our fastest kit (DDR5-8800) because it exceeded the board's rating. The second G.Skill kit at DDR5-8200 worked flawlessly, as expected, since it's on the board's QVL list. The Challenger doesn’t have the highest rated memory speeds, but it’s easily capable of working in (and past) the sweet spot. Just don’t expect to break records with this budget board. Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures (Image credit: Future) We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, cache, and Memory enabled for power testing, using the processor's peak power consumption value. We measured wall wattage with a Kill-A-Watt meter, which captures the entire PC (excluding the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same. We now use only the stock power-use/VRM temperature charts, as this section aims to ensure the power delivery can handle flagship-class processors. Stress testing on this board with our flagship-class 270K Plus and the Kingston DDR5-7600 kit at stock yielded a peak of 339W at the wall, and lands on the higher side of average. Idle power use was high, settling around 71W. On average, it uses slightly more power than the boards tested so far, but isn’t out of line, and you wouldn’t notice it on your electric bill. Future Future VRM temperatures were fine during our testing, peaking at nearly 57 degrees Celsius on our sensor (this board does not have an integrated VRM/MOS temperature sensor). While temperatures are warm under ~230W loads, the 50A MOSFETs and heatsink kept things within spec. I wouldn’t push this board's power delivery too hard, but it handled our 270K Plus without issue. Bottom Line ASRock’s B860 Challenger ($149.99) is an interesting board for the price. It can handle the basics and most of what more expensive boards can without issue, but it has shortcomings. Selling a mainstream-class motherboard, even at the cheap end of the spectrum, without at least one 10 Gbps USB port feels like an oversight in 2026. Sure, you can add an expansion card for faster speeds, but other boards around this price point include at least one 10Gbps port, freeing up the slot for other, more advanced, expansion needs. Still, you get three M.2 sockets, one PCIe 5.0 slot, average networking, and an all-black look that skips integrated RGB and blends into any dark-themed build. As for the competition, there aren't many boards near the $150 price point that are readily available. Gigabyte’s B860 Gaming X Wifi 6E ($159.99) is a different option with similar features (though slower, yet still fast enough, Wi-Fi 6E) and at least one 10 Gbps USB port. That said, the contrasting heatsink color on the black PCB doesn’t sell me. Asus’ TUF Gaming B860-Plus Wifi ($199.99) is another strong contender, but costs 33% more. For that money, you get faster USB ports (including 20 Gbps Type-C), more robust power delivery, and several AI and DIY features. MSI’s B860 Gaming Plus Wifi ($209.99) is the most expensive of the bunch and offers the best connectivity, including Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) Type-C, four PCIe slots, and faster 5 GbE and 320Hz Wi-Fi. Whether that’s worth a $60 premium depends on whether you can use the faster options. Overall, we do like the ASRock B860 Challenger. At $150, it is one of the lowest-priced B860 ATX boards you can find. But that low price comes with drawbacks, which is why it doesn't make our best motherboards list like its big brother, the X870E Challenger , did. Still, it’s a capable board and a worthwhile base for building your Intel-based system. If you need faster USB ports or AI features that make life easier, other options exist, but you’ll have to pony up more cash. MORE: Best Motherboards MORE: How To Choose A Motherboard MORE: Best Motherboard Deals MORE: Best Motherboard Combo Deals MORE: All Motherboard Content