Paulmorgan
Veteran Member
Have you got on overall budget in mind ?
You can get very decent boards for under £200 that support the latest CPUs with some future proof headway, DDR5, M.2 Gen 5 support including Thundebird or just an on board header.
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How to select a motherboard
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You can get very decent boards for under £200 that support the latest CPUs with some future proof headway, DDR5, M.2 Gen 5 support including Thundebird or just an on board header.
If you're going Z890 you should be good with most choices but since you are using the 9 285K I'd keep an eye on the youtube channel Hardware Unboxed. They do motherboard roundups and test out the VRMs which would be my main concern since the 285K while not as bad as the 14900K still can use a good amount of power.
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Morris0
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I completely agree Austianan. One thing to look out for and sometimes it takes reading the manual is features that are limited by other features, for example a PCIe slot that's disabled if you install an M2 in one of the chipset slots. The same can happen with SATA and other components.
For people that are not overclocking, features one needs and cost should be top priority.
Morris
I'm looking in the $250-350 range.
However, I'm really liking the look of the MSI MPG Z890 CARBON WIFI which lists at $499. I'm thinking the street price will come down somewhat in the new year.
I really like my old Z390 motherboard which was a MSI CARBON.
However, I will need to see more hands on reviews of motherboards in actual operation (not just unboxings).
Are you planning to do a big overclock or need 5 NVME drives VS 4?
If not the Z890 MAG Tomahawk from MSI seems like it should fit your needs and it's currently on sale for $240 on Amazon (normal price is 300)
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I plan to do a modest overclock. Not push it to the limits. But wind it up a little so it's still 100% stable with decent temperatures.
No, I don't really need more than 2 or at the most 3 NVMe drives.
Most of my voluminous data is on a NAS so two Ethernet ports would be a plus.
My current system has a second 10G port via a PCIe card connected directly to the NAS. With 1G + 5G ports or better I can retire that card a free up a slot.
This too is on my watch list. I won't be buying until Feb or March next year and expect availability and pricing to ease a little by then.
That may change for better or worse if we get into a trade war due to the possibility of tariffs...........just speculation for the moment.
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Good point.It's possible "Black Friday-Christmas" period prices could be the best we see for a while. I can't think of anything I actually need, but I'll keep an eye out for bargains.
The Point and Shoot Pro
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Wouldn't bother OC'ing. You are not going to see any benefit besides doing synthetic benchmarks. Keep it stock and use it.
Yes, I am keeping the tariff issue in mind too.
Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see many bargains on the new Core Ultra processors, Z890 motherboards or 4070/80/90 GPUs this Black Friday. Supply is still quite constrained.
I also want a new iPhone and I don't expect any discounts there either. At least not without losing my old grandfathered plan with 4 lines unlimited for $100.
But this Black Friday may be a good time to buy TV, audio and, of course, photo gear.
Dick Dastardly
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That's my rule of thumb.
Gygabyte has their Ultra Durable motto, while Asus has ROG and LED lights, personaly i'd rather play games on a mobo that outlasts the warranty by more than 6 months, even if that means not being cool.
Normally you would replace the part that fails after a few years, unfortunately for motherboards they are only produced for a couple of years before the socket gets changed, so good luck finding a new motherboard for your 5-7 year old computer.
PS When it comes to PSUs and GPUs, avoid Gygabyte as well, apparently only their motherboards are ultradurable, the rest is just rebadged asus stuff.
Gygabyte has their Ultra Durable motto, while Asus has ROG and LED lights, personaly i'd rather play games on a mobo that outlasts the warranty by more than 6 months, even if that means not being cool.
Normally you would replace the part that fails after a few years, unfortunately for motherboards they are only produced for a couple of years before the socket gets changed, so good luck finding a new motherboard for your 5-7 year old computer.
PS When it comes to PSUs and GPUs, avoid Gygabyte as well, apparently only their motherboards are ultradurable, the rest is just rebadged asus stuff.
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My Gigabyte RTX 3080 has been reliable, as was the Gigabyte GTX 1080Ti before it.
No problems with my Gigabyte RTX 4090.
My TRX50 Aero D (Rev. 1.0) motherboard has been less of a treat. The way its BIOS settings are arranged is surprisingly poor. To enable Secure Boot, I've had to toggle some settings, rather than just making a setting. Flaky. I also had some USB ports fail. Fortunately, that was during the shop's return window. Board #2 has been solid (touch wood). It's not labelled as "ultradurable", but it's not inexpensive.
Over the years, I've found that I prefer the way Asus does their BIOS settings. I don't know about their current reliability. I have a Z690-E from them that was a little questionable out of the box: it set power limits for Intel Gen13 CPUs that were in excess of Intel's recommendations. That gave slightly better numbers in benchmarking, although it may have exacerbated the fried Gen13/14 problem.
As for PSUs, I've mostly used eVGA the past few builds. My last from them was Supernova 1600 G+. It's on the shelf now because of excessive fan noise. (First time I've had that from them.)
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The last two times I've tried Asus mobos, I've had bad luck. First, the board from Amazon was obviously used, CPU socket badly damaged, visible through the clear part of the box, though sold as new. Not Asus' fault, Amazon's.
Second time, board from B&H, looked fine, refused to power on except for a lonely LED. No apparent damage or reason, exact same setup worked with another board. Maybe next time.
Seasonics for me. No problems so far.
Seasonics has about as spotless a reputation as is possible.
My current main PSU is a BeQuiet! one. (I have no idea whether they make their own.) It's quiet. It might not be chosen by someone who needs many cable ports, though. (I don't.)
BillyBobSenna
Senior Member
I have been building with mostly Asus motherboards for many years. I have never had a problem, and their boards are routinely ranked at the top by many experts. Asus makes several series of boards that are targeted for specific uses.
It's hard to get durability data, however if you search you can find some that has Asus at the top. Like all manufacturers, none are perfect.
I think in the end, all the top motherboard manufacturers are good and it's hard to go wrong.
An advantage of sticking with a single brand is consistency of things like the bios.
As far as product quality goes, I am inclined to agree.
However, what about service?
Asus seems to have a horrible reputation on RMA's.
EVGA has an excellent reputation as one of the best in the industry. OTOH, their new products appear to have dried up -- no Z890 motherboards, no RTX 40x0 GPU's.
The Point and Shoot Pro
Senior Member
May I ask, what "experts"?
They all seem to kinda suck in that respect though Asus was worse than most. Gigabyte at least used to have a bad one as well. Though I did have a decent experience with their support recently so maybe it's gotten better?
The one part that I got an extended warranty from microcenter on for my last build was the motherboard (I went for MSI due to a deal). That way if it fails I'm X years I can just go in and swap it out for a new one.
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