PC Hardware → What do you look for in a mainboard?

What design considerations, features, and whatever else do you look for in a motherboard?

Here are some I can think of, but I realize there are plenty of others:

1. Position of expansion slots.

2. What expansion slots.

3. Position and spacing of RAM slots.

4. Position of CPU mount.

5. Cooling of MOSFETs and NB/SB chips.

6. What connections are on rear riser.

7. The ability to remove CMOS if BIOS fails, or has second CMOS chip.

8. Power, Reset, and CMOS clear buttons.

9. Type and quality of capacitors.

10. Power circuitry design.

11. Features in BIOS.

...

I like the availability of BIOS options. The more the better.

Otherwise most mobo manufacturers ought to know that high end GPUs are dual slot nowadays and should plan accordingly so the slots beneath then aren't blocked.

The use of the latest technologies I guess. So, for example, at this point I would like to start seeing motherboards with EFI BIOS. One board having a few extra millimeters between the memory slots doesn’t amount to much to me.

Having said that though for those buying enthusiast level hardware one would expect a certain level of quality and component placement.

The location and orientation of the SATA connectors are important as well. While some newer boards have the SATA connectors edge mounted to not interfere with the video cards, they can be a royal pain to reach in a crowded case. But given that or having a port blocked by a video card, I can deal with the awkwardness.

I am surpised that more people haven't responded to this thread, surely there must be more to consider and things I don't know of...

most people just buy the right chipset for the build they are thinking from one of the two or three top vendors they like.

Example, I just did an i7/x58 build, so looked closely at gigabyte/asus x58 boards to find the one with the features I wanted, thats it.

"power circuitry design"? seriously?

Early adopters don’t always have the luxury of a wide selection of motherboards to chose from.

Before looking at a motherboard, I determine my need / desire, and establish a budget based on the approximate costs of components.

Within the budget, I start looking at motherboards, initially by support chipset, then reputation of the board maker, then by reviews of users.

Overall, my budget will decide. Sometimes a kit or bundle will offer a good value, and the components, including motherboard may not quite be my optimal target, but could be close enough if the price is decent.

CPU technology to me comes after budget but before motherboard, support chipset is my first priority when evaluating a motherboard.

I don't think the CPU mounting situation varies as much by motherboard as by CPU. PCI (not PCI-E) slots are no longer on my list, PATA / IDE, floppy support no longer matter to me.

I like decent heat sinks on the support chipset, decent capacitors also help, that stuff is always a nice plus, but that stuff will be sorted out in the peer reviews at Newegg, Amazon or elsewhere.

I haven't had a dead BIOS in a very long time. A failsafe BIOS will help with a sale, but price, reliability and support chipset are what close the deal for me.

Generally I have elected not to overclock, overclocking features are nice to have, but aren't critical to my purchase decision.

Today, I'd lean toward a less expensive motherboard / CPU and toward an SSD drive if it could be kept within my budget. My experience with SSD drives are that they are a large factor in PC performance, and are critical to a newer PC really going beyond the capability of older PC's.

The A number one thing to look for in a system board is that it works with the CPU I'm planning on using. I recommend picking your CPU first and then looking for a board to put it in.

Next I look for features that I want.

Number and type of drives supported.

Who makes the chipset?

Number of slots, and what type I need.

I generally look to see how many PCB layers the mainboard has. The more layers the mainboard has, the better it will be against heat damage. Inexpensive mainboards are bad for that sort of thing.

I'm easy. Right now all I look for is SATAIII, USB3.0, ability to do USB3.0 on front ports, and compatible with the rest of my hardware

When the Core i7 Bloomfield line was launched you had a choice between the Intel X58 Express chipset and the Intel X58 Express chipset. All motherboards likely had the same number of layers. The spec sheets were all probably very similar. Lynnfield had a greater selection of chipsets and boards initially but it was still Intel only solution for the chipset. Upon closer inspection the P/H55 or H/Q57 solutions weren’t radically different.

Its not like there was an nVidia chipset or a VIA chipset for these Intel solutions and AMD makes their own chipsets as well.

Perhaps there is less choice and variety then some people think.

It's too bad nVidia had problems with previous chipsets, it sure would be nice to have more choice, agreed?

Years ago, my choices were mainly avoiding mobos with any onboard crap, but alas those days are over. I found out (these forums?) somewhere that when a component say the onboard NIC or onboard video goes out, you essentially have to through the whole thing out and get another one.

Now, since that's an impossibility, I just look for the CPU then the mobo (making sure the reputation of the mobo manufacture is good, e.g. Asus) and if there are more than one IDE connector on the mobo. Unfortunately, those are rare too.

More choices in chipsets would be nice provided they are quality high performance chips. Buggy middle of the road I think we can live without,…..

I for one no longer care if there is an IDE connector or a floppy connector.

I think that, well, if you get rid of IDE, there should be 3 separate SATA controllers, two that do RAID of up to 6 drives (perhaps 1 that does 6 and supports RAID 0, 1, 10, and 5 and then one that does 2 or 4 drives and supports 0, 1, and 10) and the third controller is non RAID and is for 2 bootup optical drives. The chipset should support one of the RAID and the non RAID, and have one additional controller. That is what I'd like to see. Basically, if your going to get rid of the single IDE, replace it with 2 SATA bootup.

First time I built (current rig) I picked an EVGA based off of Newegg reviews. lol, knowing what i do now, I was lucky to get a decent mobo.

That said, I feel some brand loyalty to EVGA because their tech support has been the most helpful from any tech support I've ever called, ever. I now have an EVGA 460 GPU and I love their warranties, RMA policies, community support, and customer service.

That said, if I had to switch, I would probably pick an Asus off of some industry reviews I've seen of several of their boards. I've seen some Gigabyte boards get marginal reviews, and MSI just seems blah.

Your #1-4 would definitely be my top 4, and possibly your 9 and 11 as well.

Along with the basic CPU/RAM/Expansion Slot questions, what really catches my eye now are the positioning of the SATA ports.

On my Asus P5K-Deluxe (P35 chipset) from '07, my GTX 285 blocks 4 of the 6 ports. I can still use 2 of the blocked ports with right-angle SATA cables, but I'm totally cut off from 2 of the ports.

Seems motherboard architects were not planning on super-sized video cards when they were laying out there '07 models.

For the typical build I look for as many modern I/O options as possible, like USB3, IEEE 1394/FireWire400, Optical S/PDIF out, eSATA, etc. I rarely choose based on MOSFET cooling but I never pick a board that doesn't have all solid polymer capacitors.

Snce most people are budget conscious they aren't usually looking for multi GPU and massive quad core overclocks so I'm usually able to get away with something like an AMD 870 or 890GX chipset mobo, especially since I almost always pair the CPU up with an oversized down blower like the Scythe Kabuto since it will cool the MOSFETs, ram and North Bridge.

These chipsets also offer very good OC options, often on par with top end systems should they be needed, and adding MOSFET cooling is trivial with dozens of purpose made blocks made available, as well as me having a stash of old blocks I can cut up into new custom heatsinks.

High end MOBOs are generally overrated if you don't have an explicit need for multiple 16x PCIe cards, since even SLI/Crossfire generally doesn't suffer much form being run on an 8x setup. But that wont stop the kids from waggling their ePeens about their $300 mobo that offers nothing for their needs over a $100 board.

1. I like having a 1x or 4x PCIe in the very top slot (I use PCIe NIC)

2. not super important to me, just give me a couple PCIe 16 for vid card(s) possibilities and I'm happy

3. I'm a little more careful about where the ram slots are, I've used a few HSFs that needed some...trimming

4. same as above, gotta be careful with that HSF mounting

5. I don't do any high-end overclocking, so as long as there is some passive cooling I'm good with that

6. Pretty much I want one of everything eSATA,Firewire(800 would be nice),USB3.0/2.0, etc etc.

7. with the invent of dual bios, don't really worry about it.

8. I LOVE having a power reset button right on the motherboard. makes things TONS easier when setting up and getting a solid overclock

9. I usually run fairly high-end equipment so I really don't worry bout it too much

10. are you referring to things like Gigabyte's UD3 design and I know that Asus has something too similiar. again, not a super big deal, I just buy quality high-end components... usually not a problem.

11. just give me enough to play a little and I'm happy

overall, I pretty much stick with Gigabyte, they have treated me well over the last 3-4 years and haven't had any problems attributed to them.... UPS on the other hand I would like to meet in a dark alley some day...but I digress. I may try Asus again, but in the past I've been burned by them and they pretty much pissed me off when I couldn't get ahold of support to get things taken care of. Evga I may try, as they seem to have a fairly good track record now, ever since their 680 boards came out a while back. I wish Abit was still around, my IP35 still OCs great and runs flawlessly

Too bad DFI isn't a leading maker any more...

I don't care about features; functionality or capabilities of the board... I only care if it looks nice... I don't even care if it works!

If it's not esthetically appealing ... who cares if it works!

That's why you are the elite badass!

They were hardly a leading maker as RMA is next to non-existent with that company. They will also go out of their way to ensure that the user was at fault for any problem with their products.

it wasn't always like that...

Heh, RGone was fired from DFI because he said a lot worse things about them. One of my previous employers stopped selling DFI products just due to problems with lack of RMA support.

I kind of like what I am seeing here:

MSI reveals mad Sandy Bridge motherboard with eight PCIe slots, eight USB 3.0 ports, and three BIOS chips

Not sure if that’s 3x EFI BIOS though. I think the ASUS Sandy Bridge line will be EFI.

A brief look at upcoming ASUS P67 Motherboards

I'm still wondering what MSI's reputation is like now-a-days, seeing that their P35 motherboards were notorious for going south after 3 to 6 months of use.

*drool*