Simple Question

[Matt_180]

Hi, i just have a simple question.

Why do people buy more expensive motherboards when they have the same features.

For example, this ASRock motherboard at £54

Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 (Socket 775)

And then there is another intel one, for £90 more.

Intel Extreme D975bx-305 975X (Socket 775)

Both of these seem very similar apart from the intel one has fewer PCI slots.

 

[smids]

Overclocking (generally). Cheap boards often have poor clocks/ bad chipsets for clocking.

It's like asking which chipset do you want on the motherboard, a VIA xxxxx or an Intel 975 chipset.

Some chipsets are better than others as they have more features e.g. 975x supports Xfire and to some extent SLi. The 965 doesn't and works better with the E6400 and E6300 when clocking....

 

[FireMoon]

If you are using anything likea professional quality soundcard.... the Intel chipsets are usually the most stable and reliable ( the drivers are writeen with the INtel and AMD major chipsets in mind)..plus the more expensive boards are built to a spec not down to a price... There's no guarantee they will last longer or put up with more *abuse* but they should...

It really depends what you want yours system to do... if its just web surfing and some games well, something cheaper prolly will work fine but if its serious gaming or a DAW the extra spent usually yields worthwhile performance benefits