Question What kind of motherboards do you like?

[BoomerD]

Once upon a time...say 20 years ago, I'd only build with ASUS mid-level or better boards. In more recent years, their build quality and customer service seem to have fallen into the toilet, so with my recent build, I went with an MSI Z690 Tomahawk Wifi DDR4 for an i5-13600K CPU. for the most part, I'm happy with the board. The Realtek audio chipset is kind of a PITA...until I finally found a stable driver set. Same with the intel 225 LAN chipset.

 

[thigobr]

Over my life time building PCs the boards I liked most and miss.

• Gigabyte GA-5AX - Super Socket7 Alladin V chipset. Super stable board and fun to play with. My first MB with an AGP slot
• Shuttle MN31/N - Socket A nForce2 IGP. I overclocked and modded everything possible here. Had an Applebred Duron bridge-modded into a XP2200+ enabling full 256KB of L2. Pin modded vcore and multipliers to increse the FSB up to 200MHz DDR
• DFI nF4-Ultra-D - With an A64 3000+ Venice and Geil Ultra-X Winbond BH5. Super stable and fun to play with. You just had to find the right BIOS compatible with your memory sticks
• MSI X570 Unify - Has everything needed for AM4. Used a Ryzen 1700, 5750G and still using a 5950X. No problems at all!

 

[igor_kavinski]

• MSI X570 Unify - Has everything needed for AM4. Used a Ryzen 1700, 5750G and still using a 5950X. No problems at all!

I see in your sig that your RAM is at 3800 MT/s. You may get slightly better performance at 3733 MT/s especially for multicore workloads.

 

[thigobr]

That's interesting. I haven't tried extensively with this current combo. Using my older TeamGroup 2x16GB Samsung b-die CL14 kit I remember couple games I tested and y-cruncher were slightly faster at 3800MHz CL14 than 3733MHz. Maybe I didn't tight timings enough? Anyways, this 2x32GB kit won't do CL15 so I don't think I can see big gains. Any special trick to get more performance out of 3733MHz?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Any special trick to get more performance out of 3733MHz?

Depends on FCLK:UCLK ratio. I think you may get a better ratio with 3733. At least, that's what I've read. Haven't messed around with AM4.

 

[mindless1]

I like flat motherboards. The bent ones are always a problem.

 

[mindless1]

• Shuttle MN31/N - Socket A nForce2 IGP. I overclocked and modded everything possible here. Had an Applebred Duron bridge-modded into a XP2200+ enabling full 256KB of L2. Pin modded vcore and multipliers to increse the FSB up to 200MHz DDR

I had one of those... Epoxied a voltmod pot right onto the joystick/audio assembly, VRM sinks, northbridge sink swap, fan added, etc.



I'm not doing that level of o'c these days, so don't care that much anymore about extra VRM cooling, or even heatsinks, just get boards with max VRM CPU TDP support that's higher than actual CPU TDP. Besides I was blowing up capacitors from heat in the longer term, more often than 'fets in the shorter term.

 

[thigobr]

Yes! This image brings me good memories! The nForce2 IGP ran hot as well! I was unable to run it at 400MHz DDR when using the integrated GF2, only with a video card on the AGP slot. Another thing was that this mobo had no VDIMM adjustment, only way was to volt mod.
Because of that I was always eying a Shuttle AN35N Ultra but that board didn't have the MCP-T south bridge with SoundStorm audio

 

[BonzaiDuck]

At the low end (ie. my computer builds for the average user) I want a board with a heatsink on the VRMs. A decent selection of video out ports is good, as well as a decent number of backplate USB ports. 4 DIMM slots for mATX minimum. I tend to avoid the lowest tier mobo chipset.

For my own PC, I tend to go for boards with more power stages as well. Video out backplate ports aren't so important as I imagine I'll have some kind of discrete GPU in my PC till the day I die.

We're on the same wavelength with that. After 2005 I was sort of committed to "second-tier" overclocking, trying to do as much as I could without (a) water-cooling and (b) pushing the VCORE beyond Intel-advised limits. Whether I could actually see it this way or I just imagined it so, I was greedy for as much phase-power design as I could get, and I paid attention to board-maker's assertions about VRMs and Mosfets.

I have built systems with Intel, Gigabyte, Abit, Supermicro and EVGA motherboards, but beginning with the ASUS Striker board (Conroe and Kentsfield processors), I became enamored of their BIOS design and boards. I was influenced by ASUS''s assertions of building to a "MIL-spec" -- first mentioned with the STriker and then again with their Sabertooth line.

I also thought their warranty support and RMA reliability seemed stellar. What happens as these judgments accumulate is a tendency to decline trying boards of other manufacture. It was the same with RAM choices: I had tried Corsair, Crucial and Mushkin -- but soon settled on G.SKILL -- again impressed with a personal level of tech-support and reliability for their OC models.

I always make myself comfortable with my overkill decisions, but I tend to choose models in the ASUS midrange and below the Maximus price and features level.

If I'm building systems every year, I would choose low-end motherboards. But if I build a new system every three to seven years, it becomes a hobbyist's planning and design effort, and saving money takes a back seat in my decisions.

 

[Sgraffite]

I really like how the EVGA SR-2 looked with the black and red theme and red seven segment LED display. Overclocking options in the BIOS were nice as well, and pretty much unheard of on dual socket boards.

 

[bba-tcg]

I really like how the EVGA SR-2 looked with the black and red theme and red seven segment LED display. Overclocking options in the BIOS were nice as well, and pretty much unheard of on dual socket boards.

View attachment 127782View attachment 127781

I still have one of these.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

One of the things that I liked to have on motherboards was a dedicated SPDIF header. It allowed me to output digital audio either via Toslink or RCA through a dedicated bracket. No analog conversion, no need for a dedicated sound card, just pure sound directly into the receiver.

Nowadays, unfortunately, the vast majority of motherboards doesn't include that header anymore, and in fact most of them don't even have a dedicated Optical output. Instead, they have a buttload of useless RGB headers...

 

[DaaQ]

Alot of reasons here I got the Asrock nova, PCIEx1 for sound card, it does have digital optical out on the mobo as well, has debug LEDs and just 2 power stages short of Taichi.

Had a NF4? might have been 2 for a QX6600EE was in Asus Striker Extreme, ABIT was first board but had issues, was probably from SLI.
Bought a Biostar 775lga board after the above went out in case I ever needed one to put the Kentsfield Quad in, still have it.

Like the Asrock 990FX Fatality, then tried to get an Asrock Extreme 6 990FX but was always OOS. Got the Crosshair V E Formula instead after the Fatality expired.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I also liked boards with an honest number of PCI/PCIe ports.
There's nothing as annoying as seeing an ATX board that has just three ports spaced out for no good reason.
Particularly since the era of multiple GPUs has set...