how important is the motherboard

aydin173 · 29 Jul 2009 at 11:11

im confused with motherboards(im a noob)i thought that they were just used to put everything together, but iv heard that a decent motherboard can help a lot in a pc and even improve gaming performance but i want to know how thay can if and if they do

and how important is it to have a good motherboard for gaming?
thx

BeeP · 29 Jul 2009 at 11:21

For gaming it is pretty important to have a decent mobo I would say.

You can take a CPU from one mobo to another mobo & get startlingly different results, mainly when you try to overclock. I would say 90% of the time with regards to the mobo that you do get what you pay for, stick with Gigabyte or ASUS & you won't go too far wrong (I'm gonna hide now lol).

unknownsock · 29 Jul 2009 at 13:57

Personally i'd say the motherboard is just as important to any other part.
The better the motherboard, more certainty everything will be stable and compatible with every other part. Especially when overclocking comes into play.

With my current build i went that extra mile for my motherboard and i'm very glad i did so.

mdjmcnally · 29 Jul 2009 at 14:39

Motherboard Quality, only really comes into play if going overclocking.
If just going to bolt together and leave everything at stock then probably very little point in spending extra money on the motherboard.

Even the mid-level boards from Asus/Gigabyte though are good quality boards, and you can't really go wrong. What you tend to get are bigger coolers and more SATA / USB / LAN ports, possibly more PCI-E x 16 slots, along with more BIOS options.

Bear in mind that this is an enthusiasts forum and most people on here will be overclocking, and this will tint there replies.

95thrifles · 29 Jul 2009 at 14:44

Yeah if youre NOT OCing its less important, but Id still say stick to something from a decent brand, just get their budget model, watch out for some other places selling older chipsets with possibly older tech such as PCI-E 1.0 etc

QlimaxUK · 29 Jul 2009 at 16:55

just look for the 'P' or the 'X'

JonJ678 · 29 Jul 2009 at 19:06

It's important, yeah. If overclocking, asus or gigabyte cater to this market. Higher spec compionents, dual bios and similar useful things. Plus they tend to recover happily when pushed too far. If not overclocking, stability is important, and intel reference boards are probably the best choice.

I probably spend too much on motherboards, but they tend to survive several cpus and I do overclock.

setter · 29 Jul 2009 at 22:01

I think its extremely important, particularly when overclocking, my first intel s775 board was an nforce 680i sli board, i had great results clocking a dual core E6600 on it. When i switched to a Q6600 i couldnt get any higher than 3.0ghz, i subsequently changed to a p45 board with which i was able to clock the same quad to 3.8ghz.

GhostlyPea · 29 Jul 2009 at 22:02

First few builds I have ever done I have scrimped on the MOBO, never again. Its the heart of the computer and its stability, features and usability all meet on this part. Regardless of what your doing buy a good one, not necessarily the most expensive, but buy a good one to suit your needs. Splash out a little if you can

- Pea0n

Quixote · 29 Jul 2009 at 22:17

Apart from really cheap boards on compromised chipsets, I don't think there's any correlation between stability and cost.
There are plenty of very expensive boards riddled with stability issues and plenty of mid range boards that are solid as a rock.
Overclocking is the main difference but even then the correlation is far from direct.

robmagee · 29 Jul 2009 at 22:43

With x58 and p55 neraly everthing is on the cpu anyway. just get the board which suits your budget and comes with stuff you will use (no point getting one that has a waterblock if you dont use a water loop)

techmonkey · 31 Jul 2009 at 15:54

When it cvomes to overclocking I would say that the motherboard is one of the most important factors when it comes to chooseing components. Alongside cooling and the PSU of course. IF he motherboard isn't able to atain high bus speeds, then having really good cooling, and plenty of power won't mean squat.

Bozebo · 1 Aug 2009 at 14:40

BeeP said:
For gaming it is pretty important to have a decent mobo I would say.

You can take a CPU from one mobo to another mobo & get startlingly different results, mainly when you try to overclock. I would say 90% of the time with regards to the mobo that you do get what you pay for, stick with Gigabyte or ASUS & you won't go too far wrong (I'm gonna hide now lol).

eeew. I sort of dislike asus, theyr not all bad, but theyr not all good.
dfi lanparty motherboards are excellent... not sure ocuk sell any though? Also, that would mean no sli I believe.

I would stear clear of nForce chipsets.
But to answer overall. The motherboard is the most important component of the whole machine - partly because it denotes what other components are possible, but also because it connects them all together and must perform well to keep overall ownage

When finding a mobo, be sure to google the model and find some reviews on it. Remember that some reviews are old and newer bios updates might fix the issues (like my p5n-t deluxe, its now a great board but was horrible on release)