motherboard

So I'm thinking about what to do with our computers, and the thought did occur to me to pass down one of the desktops and upgrade one of our workstations.

How are people deciding on what motherboard to buy? It seems to me that the motherboard is what determines a lot of the ancillary specs like wifi 6 and 10GB Ethernet and USB-C ports, not to mention some of the core specs like support for fast memory, NVME drives, expansion ports and PCIe 4.0 lanes.

You can get a basic X570 motherboard for $200 or a very solid reasonably high-end X570 motherboard like GIGABYTE X570 AORUS Master for $360. Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later? Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Just curious what considerations usually go into the motherboard when people are buying.

I am not going to aim my comment at the specs, you can read those and work that one out. What I will comment on is the silly things that you don't see....

A friend and I were looking at the sound side of computing, we both looked for new drivers for the Realtek audio side of out motherboards. Realtek do not supply these to end users, and direct you to the motherboard manufacturer. We went looking , he for an Asus driver and me for a Gigabyte to work with my Z390 Aorus Pro . Sadly only one of us came back smiling , one manufacturer did no offer the new 2020 driver designed by the chip manufacturer to allow higher than 16 bit audio. I find that Gigabyte have been good in this in the past too , and the new driver allows me to enjoy the sort of sound that would have required a separate DAC and workarounds in the past.

I have also received updates for all sorts of light and other drivers and control software.

OK, I'll bite. I built all my main home systems and have some history here.

teddoman said:

How are people deciding on what motherboard to buy?

Click to expand...

Hardheaded research. I don't look for things that look cool and spiffy but things that I really need.

teddoman said:

It seems to me that the motherboard is what determines a lot of the ancillary specs like wifi 6 and 10GB Ethernet and USB-C ports, not to mention some of the core specs like support for fast memory, NVME drives, expansion ports and PCIe 4.0 lanes.

Click to expand...

This is very true. But if you decide on the CPU first and look for a mobo to support that, you might be limiting yourself. For instance, no Intel CPU currently supports PCIe 4.0, so Intel chipset mobos that claim they support it may be, um, mistaken. So if PCIe 4.0 is important to you, you must go to AMD.

teddoman said:

You can get a basic X570 motherboard for $200 or a very solid reasonably high-end X570 motherboard like GIGABYTE X570 AORUS Master for $360. Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later?

Click to expand...

Maybe. I thought a Z87 chipset supporting a LGA1150 CPU would last me a long time but I was mistaken. Those pesky CPU mfrs keep changing the pin pattern on the processors. Drat.

teddoman said:

Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Click to expand...

As implied, you may not have a choice, if the newer CPUs won't fit in your mobo.

teddoman said:

Just curious what considerations usually go into the motherboard when people are buying.

Click to expand...

In my case, I don't care about WiFi on main PC mobos, since they will always be ethernet connected. Faster ethernet will also allow fast NAS connectivity later (or now, if you have one already). Builtin graphics may be (or not) a consideration, depending on what budget I might have for video cards. Overclocking may be a consideration. NVMe, definitely now - getting a mobo without that capability is not reasonable these days, and it should have at least two.

As always, YMMV, de gustibus and all that.

S Castle said:

S Castle said:

Just curious what considerations usually go into the motherboard when people are buying.

Click to expand...

In my case, I don't care about WiFi on main PC mobos, since they will always be ethernet connected. Faster ethernet will also allow fast NAS connectivity later (or now, if you have one already). Builtin graphics may be (or not) a consideration, depending on what budget I might have for video cards. Overclocking may be a consideration. NVMe, definitely now - getting a mobo without that capability is not reasonable these days, and it should have at least two.

As always, YMMV, de gustibus and all that.

Click to expand...

Having 2 ethernet ports allowed me to connect to 2 different routers.

Using the wifi adapter supplied with the mother board - I was able to connect to a 3rd router!

I just made the post below on another thread, but i think it might be relevant to this discussion too:

This past year i decided to upgrade my 2012 desktop. I primarily use Lightroom with On1 and Topaz. I'd upgraded my GPU with a NVIDIA GTX 1070 8gb card some years ago and had some performance improvement but not what I'd have hoped for.

This past summer of 2020 I replaced my motherboard, cpu and memory. I bought:

ASUS AMD AM4 ROG Strix X570-E Gaming ATX Motherboard

AMD RYZEN 7 3800X 8-Core 3.9 GHz (4.5 GHz Max Boost)

CORSAIR Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)

The install went very smooth except that the board couldn't find my boot SSD. One quick call to ASUS tech support and they had me tweak a couple of settings and everything worked just fine.

Improvement was noticeable and welcome. My editing across all of my software was greatly improved.

Still my I/O operations weren't what i'd hoped. I had my LR catalog on my local SSD and still when keywording my 98k images it would bog down and seize after maybe 100 keywords or so...

So then I went an got an

Corsair Force MP600 M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express Gen 4.0 x4 NVMe 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

This Gen 4.0 worked fine in my new motherboard. I moved my catalog to it and now i can keyword forever with no I/O problems with Lightroom.

I found that there is no ONE solution to LIghtroom's lethargy.

On1 was giving me problems with dual monitors and On1 acknowledged this problem.

I have the whole Topaz AI suite and it works just fine in my new setup.

But for now i'm happy using my desktop for all my photo needs.

sludge21017 said:

sludge21017 said:

sludge21017 said:

Just curious what considerations usually go into the motherboard when people are buying.

Click to expand...

In my case, I don't care about WiFi on main PC mobos, since they will always be ethernet connected. Faster ethernet will also allow fast NAS connectivity later (or now, if you have one already). Builtin graphics may be (or not) a consideration, depending on what budget I might have for video cards. Overclocking may be a consideration. NVMe, definitely now - getting a mobo without that capability is not reasonable these days, and it should have at least two.

As always, YMMV, de gustibus and all that.

Click to expand...

Having 2 ethernet ports allowed me to connect to 2 different routers.

Using the wifi adapter supplied with the mother board - I was able to connect to a 3rd router!

Click to expand...

I assume the 3 routers are each connected to 3 independent Ethernet networks; out of interest, what do you use that for?

As I recall (though it's a while back) if an Ethernet node detects a loop (which is what you get if you connect a node to 2 or more routers on the same Ethernet network), then all but one are disabled.

teddoman said:

Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later? Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Click to expand...

After "a few years", it's unlikely that a simple CPU upgrade will be the answer; more often than not, newer versions will have superseded the next logical upgrade. In many cases, changes in socket specification will eliminate all but the most modest upgrade options.

The only time that I considered a CPU upgrade was replacing a Pentium 120 with its 133MHz bigger brother. I chose a RAM upgrade instead.

WryCuda said:

teddoman said:

Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later? Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Click to expand...

After "a few years", it's unlikely that a simple CPU upgrade will be the answer; more often than not, newer versions will have superseded the next logical upgrade. In many cases, changes in socket specification will eliminate all but the most modest upgrade options.

The only time that I considered a CPU upgrade was replacing a Pentium 120 with its 133MHz bigger brother. I chose a RAM upgrade instead.

Click to expand...

Fair point.

I'm thinking PCIe is the big motherboard standard that really kicks off motherboard upgrades.

Don't know how accurate this is, but PCIe 3 chips apparently came out in 2015, and it looks like PCIe 4 chips came out in 2019. So that's a four year cycle? I guess it's plausible that I will wait four years for another upgrade, but I guess it also depends on if I build a workstation now based on a reasonably premium PCIe 4 based motherboard.

The more basic I build now, the more likely I will feel the urge to upgrade in a few years. On the other hand, building a premium workstation means paying premium prices. If I build a PCIe 3 workstation, those prices are more commodified. So I guess part of the question is also where I want to sit in the technology adoption curve and if I will be happy biking in the peleton with average consumers where prices are cheaper or if I will always want to be at the head of the pack.

I guess now that I've done some basic research and looked at prices, I'm inclined to splurge on a higher end PCIe 4 motherboard while I'm ok not getting the highest end stuff in the rest of the build. If some tech comes along in the next four years that really sparks my interest, I can just switch out that more basic part of my build and upgrade it. At least the higher end PCIe 4 motherboard preserves my options.

Is that reasoning sound?

--
Ted
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedchang/
C&C is encouraged, I'm always learning

scastle said:

OK, I'll bite. I built all my main home systems and have some history here.

teddoman said:

How are people deciding on what motherboard to buy?

Click to expand...

Hardheaded research. I don't look for things that look cool and spiffy but things that I really need.

S Castle said:

It seems to me that the motherboard is what determines a lot of the ancillary specs like wifi 6 and 10GB Ethernet and USB-C ports, not to mention some of the core specs like support for fast memory, NVME drives, expansion ports and PCIe 4.0 lanes.

Click to expand...

This is very true. But if you decide on the CPU first and look for a mobo to support that, you might be limiting yourself. For instance, no Intel CPU currently supports PCIe 4.0, so Intel chipset mobos that claim they support it may be, um, mistaken. So if PCIe 4.0 is important to you, you must go to AMD.

S Castle said:

You can get a basic X570 motherboard for $200 or a very solid reasonably high-end X570 motherboard like GIGABYTE X570 AORUS Master for $360. Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later?

Click to expand...

Maybe. I thought a Z87 chipset supporting a LGA1150 CPU would last me a long time but I was mistaken. Those pesky CPU mfrs keep changing the pin pattern on the processors. Drat.

S Castle said:

Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Click to expand...

As implied, you may not have a choice, if the newer CPUs won't fit in your mobo.

Click to expand...

So there are different chipsets that come out and those PCIe 3 motherboards are not compatible with other PCIe 3 motherboards made for other chipsets? So same should apply to PCIe 4 motherboards?

teddoman said:

WryCuda said:

teddoman said:

Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later? Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Click to expand...

After "a few years", it's unlikely that a simple CPU upgrade will be the answer; more often than not, newer versions will have superseded the next logical upgrade. In many cases, changes in socket specification will eliminate all but the most modest upgrade options.

The only time that I considered a CPU upgrade was replacing a Pentium 120 with its 133MHz bigger brother. I chose a RAM upgrade instead.

Click to expand...

Fair point.

I'm thinking PCIe is the big motherboard standard that really kicks off motherboard upgrades.

Don't know how accurate this is, but PCIe 3 chips apparently came out in 2015, and it looks like PCIe 4 chips came out in 2019. So that's a four year cycle? I guess it's plausible that I will wait four years for another upgrade, but I guess it also depends on if I build a workstation now based on a reasonably premium PCIe 4 based motherboard.

The more basic I build now, the more likely I will feel the urge to upgrade in a few years. On the other hand, building a premium workstation means paying premium prices. If I build a PCIe 3 workstation, those prices are more commodified. So I guess part of the question is also where I want to sit in the technology adoption curve and if I will be happy biking in the peleton with average consumers where prices are cheaper or if I will always want to be at the head of the pack.

Click to expand...

It can be expensive staying at the head of the pack, and I've always tried to balance system cost against my foreseeable requirements.

My previous Pentium 120 vs 133 story is typical. When I built that machine back in the 90s, the extra cost of the 133 was prohibitive. Prior to that, I had a 20MHz 486SX rather than the "full strength" 33MHz 33DX. Upgrading was not really an option, and would have involved tossing a slower, but functional CPU.

Dragging myself into the 21st Century, I recently bought a Dell i7 with everything that I need for about USD$1500 in preference to a computer with "the works" for maybe $5000.

The Dell's M.2 slots were a deciding factor (NVMe SSD and WiFi/Bluetooth card), while the mid-range GPU was more than sufficient for 4k games as well as photo work.

Yes, I could afford a much more extravagantly configured computer, but I need four workstations, and it could all become a very expensive exercise.

BTW, the lowest spec. computer in my office is an Acer notebook with AMD A9 CPU and 8Gb RAM. SSD boot drive and HDD storage helps keep this computer competitive. Cost was USD$650 about four years ago, including a passable external monitor.

After having suffered through an intermittent memory issue that took a lot of time and effort to diagnose and isolate, I made the decision to require ECC memory in all my future systems. Memory is the ONLY component in a typical desktop computer system that has NO error detection or correction capability, yet it's absolutely critical for correct operation and the integrity of your data. It's a testament to the reliability of modern DRAM that problems are fairly rare. I actually suspect many of the memory errors that do happen go undetected through luck or via blame on something else (like "bit rot" on disks or unexplained crashes).

To protect the contents of memory, you need a CPU, chipset and motherboard that support ECC DRAM. In the Intel world that limits your options to a Xeon CPU and an ECC-capable motherboard.

I built my Windows 10 system early this year - it's my second system with ECC memory, replacing my 10 year old Windows 7 system. It uses a Xeon E-2278G processor (the ECC-capable equivalent of a Core i9 9900K) and an Asus WS C246 Pro motherboard. All of this is priced very close to an equivalent system without ECC capabilities.

I'm researching a new PC at the moment. I first looked at the CPU benchmarks which resulted in the obvious conclusion that AMD Ryzen COUs offer the best performance for the price. These CPUs are on my shortlist. They are currently somewhat expensive and some have supply issues so I'll probably wait a few months before building the PC:

• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
• AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT

That requires the use of an AM4 socket motherboard which supports the latest CPUs. The best spec boards are those using the X570 chipset. My main requirements are:

• At least a 3 year warranty (rules out MSI & ASRock in the UK)
• Effective VRM design for cool running
• Quiet X570 chip fan
• Sufficient USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 connections for purpose
• At least 6 SATA connections
• At least 2 M2 connections
• Good audio
• UK price under £300
• Intel networking preferred
• Good BIOS features - e.g. dual BIOS, button for flashing BIOS, diagnostic boot LEDs etc
• Good review reports - no red flags
• Good user reports - I look at the UK and US Amazon 1* and 2* reports to check for any issues

Based on the above, my current shortlist is:

• GigaByte X570 Aorus Ultra
• Asus TUF Gaming X570-Pro (WI-FI)
• Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WI-FI)

You mention an expensive motherboard might be more future proof. This is most unlikely to be the case. If you keep your PC for a reasonable time any new CPU worth buying will probably be using a different socket and different memory requiring a new motherboard.

teddoman said:

So I'm thinking about what to do with our computers, and the thought did occur to me to pass down one of the desktops and upgrade one of our workstations.

How are people deciding on what motherboard to buy? It seems to me that the motherboard is what determines a lot of the ancillary specs like wifi 6 and 10GB Ethernet and USB-C ports, not to mention some of the core specs like support for fast memory, NVME drives, expansion ports and PCIe 4.0 lanes.

You can get a basic X570 motherboard for $200 or a very solid reasonably high-end X570 motherboard like GIGABYTE X570 AORUS Master for $360. Even if you don't need all of the features on a higher end motherboard, doesn't getting a high end motherboard allow you to upgrade the CPU later? Why would you lock yourself in and then have to do an entirely new build a few years in the future?

Just curious what considerations usually go into the motherboard when people are buying.

Click to expand...

Do not buy for upgrades. Ever. If you want to do an upgrade down the line and it is possible, great. But more often than not additional money spend on supposed upgradeability only means additional money spend without return. You can always check if an upgrade is possible/needed down the line, but do not waste money for it up-front.

CPU sockets change. Memory standards change. Chipset features change. Sometimes all at the same time (Intel), sometimes one by one. Even if you can upgrade your CPU, it is quite often better and more economical to upgrade more than just the CPU.

Spend your money on the best configuration you can afford and use right now and don't worry about upgrades. It's cheaper and getting the best for your needs will last you quite a while. When it is time the system doesn't suit you anymore, reevaluate your needs and see if you can upgrade parts of your system or a new system is in order.

-> Avoid gamer oriented stuff as best as possible

-> Get a high end chipset, always.

-> After those two, decide based on wanted points, like NVME support, M2 drives, PCI specs, specific sizes for certain cases, etc.

supersargas said:

-> Get a high end chipset, always.

Click to expand...

I don't agree with that. Especially on and the b550 chipset is a very good alternative to x570. (As long as you don't plan on using more than two pcie 4 devices)

There are b550 boards with quite a lot of connectivity and with vrms good enough to run OCd 5950x without any problems.

Tmjc said:

supersargas said:

-> Get a high end chipset, always.

Click to expand...

I don't agree with that. Especially on and the b550 chipset is a very good alternative to x570. (As long as you don't plan on using more than two pcie 4 devices)

There are b550 boards with quite a lot of connectivity and with vrms good enough to run OCd 5950x without any problems.

Click to expand...

I noted the B550 doesn't have a chipset fan unlike the X570 boards

Tmjc said:

supersargas said:

-> Get a high end chipset, always.

Click to expand...

I don't agree with that. Especially on and the b550 chipset is a very good alternative to x570. (As long as you don't plan on using more than two pcie 4 devices)

Click to expand...

I'm no expert on AMD boards, but that's rather limiting. Most B550 boards I see have 2 m.2 nvme slots. If you use iGP or separate graphics card, you will need PCIe lanes for that regardless, so one of those slots is for show or impacting performance. That alone would disqualify a B550 board for me. And then there is all the other peripherals that are connected to the PCIe bus, like SATA, USB, ethernet, etc.

supersargas said:

-> Avoid gamer oriented stuff as best as possible

-> Get a high end chipset, always.

-> After those two, decide based on wanted points, like NVME support, M2 drives, PCI specs, specific sizes for certain cases, etc.

Click to expand...

Useful things to look at, but I'd take them in the opposite order.

If it hasn't got the ports you want, e.g. M.2/NVMe sockets, PCI ports, USB ports etc then it doesn't meet your requirements, no matter what the performance.

High end chipset, probably.

Gaming motherboard: well, it may have stuff you don't need, but that probably doesn't matter provided it does have the stuff you do need.

Simon Garrett said:

supersargas said:

-> Avoid gamer oriented stuff as best as possible

-> Get a high end chipset, always.

-> After those two, decide based on wanted points, like NVME support, M2 drives, PCI specs, specific sizes for certain cases, etc.

Click to expand...

Useful things to look at, but I'd take them in the opposite order.

If it hasn't got the ports you want, e.g. M.2/NVMe sockets, PCI ports, USB ports etc then it doesn't meet your requirements, no matter what the performance.

High end chipset, probably.

Gaming motherboard: well, it may have stuff you don't need, but that probably doesn't matter provided it does have the stuff you do need.

Click to expand...

+1

As for gaming motherboards, you may not need the RGB stuff and other esthetics but gaming boards often do come with the performance features and expandability you may want that may not be available or at a higher price on a workstation board.

As for stability, gamer boards may even have the edge as gamers tend to overclock and if a board is unstable, word gets around real quick and it will not sell. This means they generally have much beefier VRM's, which is good regardless if you overclock or not.

So unless you cannot get over the esthetics of gamer boards, they are actually a pretty good choice and provide lots of features for your money.

Here's what I used back in January of 2020 and I have NO complaints. Your MMV.

Fred

2020 PC Build

Motherboard – Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra _ BIOS – F11 _ $259.99

CPU – AMD RYZEN 7 3700 _ $329.00

Memory – CORSAIR Vengeance RGB Pro 32 G _ $169.99

(2x16GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600)

CMW 32GX4M2C3200C16 in slots A2 + B2

GPU – SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 5700 XT _ $449.99

100416NT+8GSR 8GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0x16

PSU – Seasonic PRIME ULTRA 850W 80+ Gold Power Supply _ $144.99

SSD – Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe Gen4 PCIe M.2 _ $169.99

Case – NZXT H510 Elite _ $129.99

Monitor – LG 27UD58P-B 27” IPS 4K UHD FreeSync Gaming Monitor _ $269.99

OS – Windows 10 PRO _ $239.98