Any point upgrading motherboard?

Blue160 · 12 May 2019 at 20:02

I’m in the process of doing a cpu and gpu upgrade and am wondering if there’s any point upgrading the motherboard as well.

I’ve today gone from an i3 8100 to an i7 8700 and I’ve got a GTX 1070 on the way to replace my RX 580 4GB.

Motherboard is a Gigabyte H310M. Will there be any performance penalty to continuing to use this board with the new components?

EsaT · 13 May 2019 at 09:10

Very low end motherboard could certainly struggle to feed these Skylake rebranding's for getting advertised high clocks speeds when loaded more heavily.
But motherboard change would belong firmly to this category:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/throw-good-money-after-bad

Hope you didn't pay lot for something which could start struggling against next-gen consoles.
With what Zen2 likely brings in few weeks, 6c/12t on dead end upgrade path platform is worth more like just £200.
And that might be optimistic.

Blue160 · 13 May 2019 at 12:33

I paid £210 for the i7. I certainly wasn’t going to pay full retail for one.

It’s solved the issues I was having with my music production software, and so far seems to be hitting the right clock speeds without throttling.

Drumroll · 13 May 2019 at 18:01

Better motherboard would allow better overclock and few extra resources, but in general, not worthy.
Better off upgrade the whole system at some point in the future, as CPU-wise you're getting a good processor, pushing your system to its limits CPU-wise. I would also pay attention to the PSU, as a robust processor overclocked will drain quite a bit from your PSU, and put a bit more stress on the vrm of your motherboard. At a good price, a motherboard upgrade isn't that bad. Need just to be a good deal to be worthy. Running stock or little overclock, not really.

Blue160 · 13 May 2019 at 19:13

It’s not a ‘K’ so no overclocking available anyway. PSU is an EVGA 550W so should be more than enough.

Drumroll · 14 May 2019 at 10:05

So no point in upgrading the motherboard, or the PSU.

EsaT · 14 May 2019 at 18:13

Blue160 said:
It’s solved the issues I was having with my music production software, and so far seems to be hitting the right clock speeds without throttling.

Making sure case cooling works would be one way to help motherboard.

Drumroll · 14 May 2019 at 18:21

EsaT said:
Making sure case cooling works would be one way to help motherboard.

Good point.
You don't need a upper mega expensive cooler either. Plenty of midrange coolers, quiet and efficient which will allow your CPU to perform to its best, all the time.

Blue160 · 14 May 2019 at 18:30

It’s under a Coolermaster H412R which seems to do the job.

The case is a Fractal Design Focus G MATX case with the two standard front intake fans. Airflow is something that I’ll look at improving although my cheapo motherboard’s lack of fan headers is no help.

EsaT · 14 May 2019 at 20:42

Blue160 said:
The case is a Fractal Design Focus G MATX case with the two standard front intake fans. Airflow is something that I’ll look at improving although my cheapo motherboard’s lack of fan headers is no help.

Arctic F12 or P12 would be bang per buck fan for rear fan.

Also multiple fans can be connected to one header with splitter.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-cable-y-splitter-2-fan-pwm-10cm-wc-551-ek.html
Though all fans should have similar max speed for control to work properly.

Blue160 · 17 May 2019 at 22:56

Thanks for that. I’m already using a splitter for the two front fans as the motherboard only has one system fan header. How many fans can you daisychain off one header without overloading it?

EsaT · 18 May 2019 at 08:44

1 ampere is typically absolute maximum current for fan headers.
And certainly wouldn't try pushing that.
So would consider 2-3 fans as reasonable number in general.
That's also at what point PWM-signal might start becoming too weak, in case of using PWM fans and control.
In case of low speed fans higher number is possible.

Of course if fans are some super high speed models then they have lot higher current draw...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88t4lXKwONU
Those would need connecting directly to PSU.

Blue160 · 18 May 2019 at 08:54

Thanks again for the advice. Temperatures all seem reasonable so I’ll stick with what I have for now. The GTX 1070 I’ve added has a blower style cooler which has lowered temperature inside the case.

Next build will definitely start with a better motherboard.