What makes a motherboard?

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Suppose one is going to buy a motherboard for the Intel platform. A quick search on newegg.com reveals that you can get a PC Chips P17G/1333 ($42 shipped). Assuming that no special features (e.g. HDMI) are sought, this seems like it might be the best choice, because it is cheapest. But is it really?

Right away you may notice that PC Chips has a reputation for poor quality control. We can see that four out of the nine newegg reviews for the P17G/1333 report DOA units. But is this really accurate? People with bad experiences are much more likely to post reviews than those with good ones. Could it be that PC Chips is a perfectly acceptable manufacturer, and that the negative buzz is unwarranted?

If we say no to PC Chips, then the next board up the price ladder is the Foxconn M7VMX-K ($45 shipped). This is the board I just ordered for myself, this morning (feel free to tell me what an idiot I am for ordering it, if that is what you believe). This board is from a manufacturer with from what I can tell has a positive reputation. It's somewhat limited--has only two memory slots, two PCI slots and one PCIe x1 slot, and although it can be overclocked, it is not designed to support CPUs with FSB1333--but in many cases none of these limitations matter. It has a PCIe x16 slot for upgrade purposes, integrated graphics, RAID, and DDR2-800 and 45nm (Wolfdale) support. It's even able to overclock somewhat, if you want to risk it.

On the other hand, it can't overclock *that* well, and unlike issues like DDR2-800 vs DDR2-1066, 610i vs G31, etc., overclocking does make a serious difference in performance.

People seem to like Gigabyte for overclocking, and the Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G ($74 shipped) looks to be the cheapest such model with a full complement of overclocking options (e.g. vcore, memory ratio, etc.). It lacks integrated video and RAID, so if you care about those, you might want to stick with something like the Foxconn board. However, in my experience, most PC enthusiasts are uninterested in either one, and so the Gigabyte board might be an acceptable choice for overclockers. Like the Foxconn board, it only has two memory slots, but it also has three PCI and three PCIe x1 slots. So, depending on your upgrade expectations, it might be just fine.

Most of the boards I see suggested on this forum, however, are in the $100 and up range: Cf. this, this, this, etc. Why is that?

When you recommend a motherboard to someone, what criteria do you use? Do you just have a favorite model that you recommend to everyone? Do you think that spending an extra $25-$100 is acceptable to ensure that you have all the features you might need, as opposed to simply the ones you do need?

Perhaps most importantly, how do we distinguish between reliable and unreliable boards--that is, boards with high vs. low rates of failure--?

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[lxskllr]

I use boards from Gigabyte, Asus, and for the right build, Foxconn. I used to use Abit also, but they're no more. The first 2 I listed have always worked well for me, and come with a nice feature set for enthusiasts. Foxconn is a solid board for an office type machine, or one where overclocking isn't a priority. I use Intel chipsets exclusively(except for some specialty boards), and I judge reliability from Newegg reviews, and more importantly forum posts. In the end, buying a MB is a crap shoot. Even the best board, by the best maker comes DOA on occasion. Buying from a reliable manufacturer reduces those chances though.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
In the end, buying a MB is a crap shoot. Even the best board, by the best maker comes DOA on occasion.

I fully agree--but what does that say about custom building? By buying pre-built, do we not circumvent that kind of risk?

I personally am willing to deal with the hassle of RMA'ing boards, if it comes to that, in order to save a significant amount of money. Others should be aware of what they're getting into.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou

Originally posted by: lxskllr
In the end, buying a MB is a crap shoot. Even the best board, by the best maker comes DOA on occasion.

I fully agree--but what does that say about custom building? By buying pre-built, do we not circumvent that kind of risk?

I personally am willing to deal with the hassle of RMA'ing boards, if it comes to that, in order to save a significant amount of money. Others should be aware of what they're getting into.

You run into issues with prebuilts also. The only difference is you call Dell, and say "it doesn't work", and they send you a new machine. When you build yourself, you have to troubleshoot, and determine where the error is occurring. The potential hassles of building your own should be understood before the endeavor is undertaken, but in the end the extra risk is worthwhile. Trying to narrow down computer problems is an excellent exercise in logic, and with practice improves your capabilities in other areas of life. The added stress may not be for everybody, but I quite enjoy it :^)

 

[Denithor]

I always make my recommendation based on what the person states they're most interested in. A poor college kid with $250 to spend total is going to get a different recommendation than someone who built a barn-burner four years ago and wants to update his whole system on a $1000 budget.

For the cheapies I search on newegg using free shipping as the first criteria and then just look at what's cheap from a solid maker (Asus/ASRock, Gigabyte, Foxconn; for example, there's a $55 Asus mATX with free shipping from newegg). For more of an enthusiast I typically recommend a board I have personal experience with or at the very least have seen several top-notch reviews from the better tech sites (AT, Xbit, etc).

 

[mindless1]

The process is pretty straightforward. Budget, uses, lifespan, and needs.

The more complete (and realistic, accurate) the person needing a suggestion lists these things, the easier it is to pick a board that's a good match.

Generally, unless someone is really into overclocking, like it's some kind of contest and/or they're budgeting for higher end CPU and cooling, the post-$100 boards don't make much sense except if the fancy heatpiped coolers on some allow for lower noise without having to DIY a custom cooling solution which may sometimes void the warranty.

PCChips boards are generally considered junk, in that they cut too many corners and have poor support both in the form of bios updates and an enthusiast community, larger userbase of people who really push the feature sets or use a broad enough array of different hardware that if there is a problem there are more people looking for and often finding a solution.

IOW, time is money and time is precious, sometimes it's just not worth saving a couple dozen bucks on a motherboard when the whole system costs a few hundred or more.

It's hard to gauge reliability based on owner reports while a board is still new enough to be current generation (and thus, desirable to buy). There will always be some DOA boards but otherwise the less savvy users tend to buy generic brands and cheap out on the case and PSU so there may be user damage, structural damage in a flimsy case, overheating damage from bad cooling decisions, or electrical damage from a poor PSU. Sometimes DOA isn't even DOA, someone uses an incompatible PSU, ESD damages their memory, their PSU can't manage the load, or any number of other mistakes get blamed on a mainboard.

Generally people recommend the more expensive boards because it's easier to spend someone else's money than to predict what features a user may end up wanting but weren't mentioned at the time.

 

[Blain]

If you just want to cheap out, forget the PC Chips and at least get an Intel MB

 

[mpilchfamily]

On of the things i look for in a motherboard is the overall layout. We have all seen the problems with motherboards that place the SATA connectors where a dual slot video card would cover them. Placement of other connections can be a problem as well. Especially when your trying to take cable managment into consideration.

 

[mindless1]

Why get an Open Box Intel 945 board considering that Foxconn makes Intel's defeatured boards and that Foxconn offers a lot of nicer boards close enough to the same price?