Why are all of the new motherboards covered in plastic ?

[AMDrulZ]

Like the title says why are the motherboard manufactures covering every new board with plastic shrouds and lame rgb lighting ? This might just be an old PC enthusiast ranting but dang every board i see has some lame plastic or freaking rainbow lights all over it....smh

What the heck happened to the time when boards were beautiful to look at like this.

 

[AMDrulZ]

wth were they thinking when they thought this was a good idea ? Seriously this has got to be the dumbest motherboard design I've ever seen....lol

 

[ch33zw1z]

Aesthetics. I actually prefer the newer look for a couple reasons. First, I like it, second, the components on the board stay protected under the cover. As long as it doesn't create heat issues / subsequent failing components then no harm done.

I mean, it's likely just screwed on. Take it off if you don't like it.

 

[AMDrulZ]

I like some lighting and appreciate aesthetics don't get me wrong. But some of these boards have just got tacky and cheesy looking...lol

 

[ch33zw1z]

hehe, it's all about preference. I don't mind the look. It certainly beats our custom rigs from 15 years ago, IMHO.

 

[DrMrLordX]

An X570 board with integrated ports to watercool the VRMs and chipset would be kinda nice for people who have watercooling setups. Otherwise the board armor thing doesn't float my boat at all.

 

[Campy]

Although I like some shiny copper, everything else about the board in the OP looks absolutely terrible to me. I usually don't like boards with "armour" covering most of the front of the board, but ASRock's Aqua X570 is a pretty cool limited board that they'll only make 999 of, and the cover is full aluminium rather than plastic which most of the "armour" on motherboards tends to be.

 

[EXCellR8]

You could easily just take it all off, revealing which is likely an all-black board... which I think looks worse imho. I prefer matching my case accent colors to my boards and that's getting harder to do.

 

[AMDrulZ]

I guess what i was trying to convey with my original post was. I feel that the current trend of covering the whole board in a plastic or aluminum shroud. Is not as aesthetically pleasing Motherboards used to have artistic attributes to them that is simply lost with covering it with boring shrouds and the rgb lighting is getting a bit ridiculous. I guess if i was a high school kid it'd be cool. I mean i dont see the point with most cases having see through panels to cover everything up with shroulds seems kind of counterintuitive.

 

[Sgt. York]

I don't care what a motherboard looks like as long as it works.

 

[sandorski]

I like both. Went RGB Fans for my latest most blingiest build. Wish the Asus B450-F Gaming had RGB on the bottom half of the board though, it's too dark at the bottom. :sadface:

 

[AMDrulZ]

I guess i'm just more old school with my PC building tastes. I want to be able to view my boards features and chips and capacitors. And i love looking at shiny copper heatsinks. Some of these boards and even PC cases look like they are love childs of a PC and a freakin transformer....lol And i simply don't get the whole board armor concept its not like you beat your board with a hammer or go stab the crap out of it with a screwdriver. But i guess in certain situations the shrouds would work for a transformer or halo themed PC.

 

[Staples]

Like 15+ years ago, I bought a windowed case and I was always itching to buy LED fans and crap like that. I swore I'd never buy one like that again. I've honored that. So none of that stuff appeals to me. You can find boards without all this mumbo jumbo but it is surprising that they are only $5-15 cheaper on the low end.

I am more annoyed that a lot of websites only benchmark games now days. Not everyone who is an enthusiast uses their computers for games. Some do actual work.

 

[KentState]

Back in the old-school PC days, the motherboards were all over the place in plastics and color. Once building a PC became mainstream, AGP were colored different than the ISA slots and the comm ports where pink, brown, green, blue and every other color imaginable. Then you would have a metallic gold or blue heatsink on the southbridge. It truly looked cobbled together from a parts bin. Take a look back at some of the older Abit boards or other defunct manufacturers.

 

[mopardude87]

What the heck happened to the time when boards were beautiful to look at like this.

View attachment 7039

Aww, looks like my old P35 Platinum but the platinum had the roller coaster heatsink and not that one. Very bad motherboard if you owned a dual slotted card like me with my 8800gts 512mb. You can prob even see in that picture how high that southbridge heatsink is. Yeah i had to resort to chopping some of mine off just so i could sit the 8800gts in the dang slot. Add insult to injury that despite the roller coaster heatsink it still ran hotter then a camels ass.

Asus Abit and Msi all had some beautiful motherboards though your right.

 

[JPB]

smh

Or like this one ? Was a great board for many years for me.

Gigabyte 7VAXP

 

[UsandThem]

I personally believe it has to do with higher profit margins.

Slap some plastic on there, and few RGB lights, and now a $150 - $180 motherboard sells for $250+ (or even close to $1k like the motherboard in the 2nd post). And yes I know that one has built in water block, and a back plate!

 

[fkoehler]

I guess if i was a high school kid it'd be cool. I mean i dont see the point with most cases having see through panels to cover everything up with shroulds seems kind of counterintuitive.

I grew out of the aesthetics issue back in the cold cathode day, well before RGB LED bling-bling.
Its simply been an excuse to jack up the prices another $10-20+. Or maybe I'm just no cool anymore......
My next 'case' is simply going to be a flat of lexan with mobo on top, and components, hanging on the wall behind my monitor. Maybe add some sides and top for assist with cooling with fans pushing/pulling across ram and components, and I guess a intake/exhaust hole for the x570 IO fan.

If that isn't sufficient, then a simply case that sits under the desk. No bling needed.

Just would like a decent mid-range card for the 3900x, mild OC-ability.

 

[manderson]

I'm with the OP. So far none of my boards or memory have ever lit up like a Christmas tree. I'm assuming it's an option that can disabled, but I will still avoid it if possible, especially the rainbow memory modules. Some armor isn't bad if it makes sense.

 

[aigomorla]

I'm with the OP. So far none of my boards or memory have ever lit up like a Christmas tree. I'm assuming it's an option that can disabled, but I will still avoid it if possible, especially the rainbow memory modules. Some armor isn't bad if it makes sense.

Sigh..

Unfortunately all the highest end gear all light up like a xmas tree.
Unless you venture into pure enterprise gear.

Infact my current system lights up like a rave party, from board + memory and even some of my fans.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Actually, you can get top-bin DDR4 DIMMs without RGB. The Vengeance LPX and Trident-Z lines have top speeds without LEDs of any kind. I'm a big fan of Vengeance LPX since it'll fit underneath huge heatsinks. There are RGB variants, but they aren't any faster.

 

[phreakwarz]

Crazy prices! MY BUDGET WAS $700 $800. Then I raised it to $1000. At this rate I dob;t know if I want to wait for a RYZEN build. Whats even crazier is that all those flashing lights and plasic don't add any significant performance.

 

[PingSpike]

I don't care what a motherboard looks like as long as it works.

I guess that's sort of why this is a thing still. I hate the power rangers Zord boards but if it works and its the cheapest it goes in a case anyway.

But the designs are super weird.

 

[killster1]

Sigh..

Unfortunately all the highest end gear all light up like a xmas tree.
Unless you venture into pure enterprise gear.

Infact my current system lights up like a rave party, from board + memory and even some of my fans.

everything has a non rgb version just about and its all lower priced then the RGB version. I have 1 box that has a few rainbow rgb and its fine. i have put blacklights in my pc's since the year 2000 El wire diff uv water color dyes / , i think its nice that for no extra price i can find 32gb rgb ram and my stock 2700X rgb fan. I wonder how much extra electricity and heat it makes but it looks OK to me.

Motherboards covered in plastic sounds like less RMAs from idiots breaking and scratching things. (So possibly a lower price ) If you dont have a window then why do you care about what lights or plastic it has? and if you DO have a window then hey i guess you do care about how things look inside your case? So funny that people are offended by RGB. You would prefer to see your solid gold caps?

What would be nice if the fan color depended on temp and a green rainbow would be cool / orange warm / red rainbow is hot.

How about a RGB keyboard to throw in there too.. not cool either? turn off the lights!

 

[rrinker]

My PC sits alongside my desk. On the right side. So any windows would be blocked by my desk. I have never built a system with lights, lighted RAM, lighted power supply, whatever. No one would see it, and I'd rather spend the money on something that actually improves performance, or life - step up to the next grade of power supply, or the next faster CPU or RAM instead of spending money on all the flashy bling. To me it's like the good old ricing out of economy cars. Loud muffler tips, underbody lights, fake hood pins - none of that makes you care faster or handle better.
These plastic covered motherboards remind me of modern cars. Lift the hood and you don't see an engine, you see a big pile of plastic. I'm tempted to remove it on my car. Frankly, it looks stupid. I want to see the go, be it a car or a motherboard. Though I seldom "lift the hood" of my computer - I'm not always tinkering with it. Once in a while I'll upgrade a component until it's time to upgrade the whole darn thing - current rig is 7 years old but I've upgraded the disk twice - first to an SSD, then to a bigger SSD, and I upgraded the GPU once. I have some extra memory to take it to 32GB but I just haven't gotten around to it, and nothing I do has so far really stressed the 16GB it has.
Even if I was into overclocking and eeking out the best performance - I'd still rather spend my money on a better power supply, better cooler, better components on the MB, than flashing RGB lighting and all those things that do absolutely zero for overclocking.