Question What kind of motherboards do you like?

[Io Magnesso]

Please answer your favorite motherboard
Design, performance, memories, etc.
Any reason is fine.
By the way, I like the GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS Xtreme

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z690-AORUS-XTREME-rev-10

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I don't have one. I have been through a lot of boards over the years. I don't like spending much more than $200 U.S. either. I don't need workstation or serious overclocking features. Hardest thing I do 98% of the time is game. I do like integrated I/O shields, adequate VRMs and cooling.

At the moment all of my boards are Gigabyte and ASRock, with the oldest being a Gigabyte AORUS ELITE B450 from 2018. No issues with any of them. Newest is ASRock B650E PG Riptide WIFI because of the PCIe 5 GPU support at $185. It must be out of production now as neither Amazon or Newegg offer it first party here.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I guess boards just are not sexy anymore? Moving so much onto the CPU responsible? I remember when we would have huge threads about a single board or chipset. Intel, AMD, SiS, VIA, Nvidia, it was the wild west. So many brands - FIC, Abit, Asus, Albatron, Epox, Aopen, DFI, Chaintech, ECS, Shuttle, MSI, Soltek, SOYO, and more.

The IGP was on the board back then. Nforce chipsets were my jam. I built a bunch of systems with the Shuttle MN31N using the Nvidia nForce2 IGP + MCP-T (nForce2-GT)

 

[Io Magnesso]

I guess boards just are not sexy anymore? Moving so much onto the CPU responsible? I remember when we would have huge threads about a single board or chipset. Intel, AMD, SiS, VIA, Nvidia, it was the wild west. So many brands - FIC, Abit, Asus, Albatron, Epox, Aopen, DFI, Chaintech, ECS, Shuttle, MSI, Soltek, SOYO, and more.

The IGP was on the board back then. Nforce chipsets were my jam. I built a bunch of systems with the Shuttle MN31N using the Nvidia nForce2 IGP + MCP-T (nForce2-GT)

AOPEN's motherboard was interesting because there were a lot of interesting things.
Certainly, AOpen was under the umbrella of Acer, and now Acer is releasing PC parts.
I would be happy if acer would release a single motherboard.

 

[Io Magnesso]

I don't have one. I have been through a lot of boards over the years. I don't like spending much more than $200 U.S. either. I don't need workstation or serious overclocking features. Hardest thing I do 98% of the time is game. I do like integrated I/O shields, adequate VRMs and cooling.

At the moment all of my boards are Gigabyte and ASRock, with the oldest being a Gigabyte AORUS ELITE B450 from 2018. No issues with any of them. Newest is ASRock B650E PG Riptide WIFI because of the PCIe 5 GPU support at $185. It must be out of production now as neither Amazon or Newegg offer it first party here.

There was also a mini-ITX motherboard with a ZOTAC DGPU for laptops.

 

[Shmee]

I guess the Meg X570 Ace I have now has pretty good layout, and I like the UEFI design/support. My only complaint really is how the wireless antenna is designed (which I rarely use). My X99 Deluxe is another nice board, but the wireless antenna and also the m.2 placement are a bit odd.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Someone got ASROCK B850-X to boot at DDR5-9000 so I went looking for it and found that the ASROCK B850-X R2.0 was cheaper. Got it to try my luck since the 2DPC B850 Pro RS was disappointing for me and couldn't even manage DDR5-8000.

I've been eyeing this: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B650E-AORUS-STEALTH-ICE

Looks like a fun mobo to play with outside a case but it costs more than double what I paid for the B850-X

 

[biostud]

I just buy the cheapest, which has all the features I want. And apparently ASUS has never hit that spot for me.

For me it was:
Abit AB LX6
DFI Lan party nf2
DFI Lan party nf4
ASrock X99 fatal1ty
ASrock X670E Pro RS

 

[mv2devnull]

I just buy the cheapest, which has all the features I want.

Cheaper is a bonus, but more importantly one that I can get when I want a board. A "perfect" is no use, if it is not available.
On the features, I probably want a bit more than I will actually ever need.

 

[biostud]

Cheaper is a bonus, but more importantly one that I can get when I want a board. A "perfect" is no use, if it is not available.
On the features, I probably want a bit more than I will actually ever need.

Yeah I bought the X99 fatal1ty because it both had an eSATA port and nvme PCIe 3.0 x4, but in the 11 years I had it I never bought a nvme drive

 

[igor_kavinski]

The perfect mobo would be modular and so easy to work with, it would be like a 5 year old playing with Legos. Just attach, click in place and run. No tiny connector or levers or latches in hard to reach places. And absolutely no heatsinks. For the love of all that is holy, NO large uwieldy heatsinks.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Yeah I bought the X99 fatal1ty because it both had an eSATA port and nvme PCIe 3.0 x4, but in the 11 years I had it I never bought a nvme drive

I had a laptop with an eSata port and probably had a mobo too in that era (Z77 I think). Bought an eSata enclosure. But because there were no SSDs at the time (or weren't affordable), I had to use an HDD in it. And I was paranoid about the HDD crashing or the partition table crapping out. So used it simply as an external backup drive and only occasionally at that. Didn't experiment. I still have the enclosure. Laptop I sold long ago. Motherboard is almost useless now. Sucks when standards die.

 

[biostud]

I had a laptop with an eSata port and probably had a mobo too in that era (Z77 I think). Bought an eSata enclosure. But because there were no SSDs at the time (or weren't affordable), I had to use an HDD in it. And I was paranoid about the HDD crashing or the partition table crapping out. So used it simply as an external backup drive and only occasionally at that. Didn't experiment. I still have the enclosure. Laptop I sold long ago. Motherboard is almost useless now. Sucks when standards die.

I had a laptop with an eSATA so I had an enclosure, before buying the X99. I still have it somewhere.

 

[mv2devnull]

Enclosure that could be connected with eSATA or USB and that could have PATA or SATA drive inside. I too see one on my shelf.

 

[mikeymikec]

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.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Enclosure that could be connected with eSATA or USB and that could have PATA or SATA drive inside. I too see one on my shelf.

Must be special. Mine only accepted SATA drive.

 

[Io Magnesso]

The motherboard with U.2 is interesting
Good for workstation and HomeLab applications

 

[igor_kavinski]

I tend to avoid the lowest tier mobo chipset.

In case you have an "enthusiast" level customer who wants better MT perf, recommend the ASROCK B850-X mobo. The two slots reduce interference and allow RAM to hit 8000 MT/s easily, especially useful for dual CCD Ryzens.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It is good AMD finally went with the pins being in the board and stopped putting the pins on the CPU. Not a week goes by someone doesn't pull the CPU out trying to get the cooler off.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Not a week goes by someone doesn't pull the CPU out trying to get the cooler off.

I'm not familiar with AM4 (no experience yet) but isn't the CPU supposed to have a retention bracket over it, preventing it from being pulled out?

 

[bba-tcg]

I'm not familiar with AM4 (no experience yet) but isn't the CPU supposed to have a retention bracket over it, preventing it from being pulled out?

No. There's a proper method for removing the heatsink, but a novice / first time builder probably would be unaware.

 

[bba-tcg]

I'm not familiar with AM4 (no experience yet) but isn't the CPU supposed to have a retention bracket over it, preventing it from being pulled out?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/1lik54l/need_help_asap_cpu_stuck

 

[Io Magnesso]

PGA socket CPU The phenomenon that it can be removed together with the CPU cooler
In Japan, it is called "Suppon"

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/1lik54l/need_help_asap_cpu_stuck

 

[bigboxes]

Probably my favorite motherboard (for reliability) was my Asus P6T-Deluxe v2. That's still going strong in my HTPC some 16 years later.

Then there's my Abit KT7A-RAID that I bought on the recommendation of Anand himself. He was doing a motherboard round-up and I went with Abit over Asus. That had on-board RAID. I never used the RAID, but having a couple more PATA ports meant that my PC could sport 6 storage HDDs, along with an OS drive and CD drive + floppy drive! Too bad the mobo (I still have it) died a long time ago. I bought 5 Abit boards back in the day. I still have one working Socket A Abit motherboard.

Least favorite, DFI LanParty NF4. I hated that board. Spent way too much time trying to get it stable. Used it as a frisbee.

 

[bba-tcg]

Probably my favorite motherboard (for reliability) was my Asus P6T-Deluxe v2. That's still going strong in my HTPC some 16 years later.

Then there's my Abit KT7A-RAID that I bought on the recommendation of Anand himself. He was doing a motherboard round-up and I went with Abit over Asus. That had on-board RAID. I never used the RAID, but having a couple more PATA ports meant that my PC could sport 6 storage HDDs, along with an OS drive and CD drive + floppy drive! Too bad the mobo (I still have it) died a long time ago. I bought 5 Abit boards back in the day. I still have one working Socket A Abit motherboard.

Least favorite, DFI LanParty NF4. I hated that board. Spent way too much time trying to get it stable. Used it as a frisbee.

I still have one of that model Asus board. I'm not using it, but it does still work. Excellent board.