Technical differences of motherboards?

[madu]

Hi guys..

I have a technical question about mobos.

There are lots of mobo's out there in the market. different people have different preferences. Someone who has bought GB mobo and had no trouble says go for a GB its the best. Someone who has hasnt got any trouble with Asus would say its the best. Some say Abit, DFI and Epox.
My question is, apart from the fact which parts it uses, for exaple DFI says it uses Japanese capasitors, what esle does it matter? I mean except for the quality of the products in the mobo, what techinical aspects does it matter?

As far as I know, there is no one strict standard for manufacturing x86 boards. So different vendors could have different architectures? Is it?
So for how far does these matter as far as the performance is concerned?
For example, in benchmarking, only the cpu type is stressed. But wouldnt the mobo play a roll? suppose if we run the same processor in different mobos with the same bechmark test, would it give different results? at least slightly?
Shouldnt the mobo be well designed to get the best performance out of the processor? If so, is there any kind out there, which has the "best" design? Apart from all the cool features they are boasting.
I'm in Japan, and the most popular mobo's here are only Asus and GB. It is not very common to see Abit or DFI mobos. If actually DFI and Abit are better than Asus or GB, why arent they popular? Is there anything they are lagging with?

Sorry for the long writing guys. Hope to know your comments.

Cheers.

 

[fishmahn]

I'll try and answer them, though some of the answer is 'marketing' not 'technology'.

A company comes out with a chipset to drive a CPU. I'll use nVidia just 'because', it could be Intel, Via, ATI, SiS, any of them. They design a chipset, and a reference design motherboard to send to the mobo mfgs to make retail products out of. The mfg has the option of duplicating the reference design (the layout of the wires, where the connectors plug in, etc.) or using its own internal engineers to design a new board, or make changes (improvements?) to the reference design.

So, the quality of the capacitor, the skill of the designer (for example, the traces that connect memory to the CPU or northbridge; do they need to be the same length or is it better if they are/are not? Do they need a grounding wire between each wire to separate the signals so there's no crosstalk? Hundreds (thousands?) of design decisions like that.

So, a Chipset has a lot of effect on performance, the mobo itself does too. So does the BIOS and the mfg's ability to tune the timings of inter-chip things for performance.

Many sites (Anandtech comes to mind) test a slew of nearly identical boards (7 different mfg's producst with the nForce4 SLI chipset, for example), and there are usually only very slight differences in performance at stock speeds. Bigger differences when overclocking - but 2 boards that are nearly identical benchmarking at stock speed, when OC'd by 25% are still nearly identical, but another mfgs board may not OC as well - maybe they used cheaper components, maybe they didn't tweak the timings of the inter-chip communications, maybe their engineer had a hangover that day and missed setting a trace the right length...

Asus & Gigabyte are '1st tier' manufacturers - big names. Abit & DFI used to be '2nd tier', but they're getting a good name because they put extra design work into some of their boards so they would OC well or solve some specific problem so they improve their standing.

AMD makes faster, cooler, more economical CPU's than Intel today. Why does Intel still have 80+% of the market? Same reason some mobos that aren't as good as others are more popular, or have a better name, or just never became popular. Also, I think Chaintech makes good products, but many people complain about their tech support. That problem has nothing to do with the technical quality of the product, but it sure makes a company have a bad name.

Mike.

 

[hergieburbur]

Excellent explanation and answer. From someone who has done some circuit and wire trace design, I can tell you that it often does make a sizeable difference in performance based on how you lay out yuor traces I.E. Length, proximity, etc. Since Mobo manufacturer's are free to design this as they like, we see some boards that perform better than reference, and some that are slower. Cheaper components/materials also makes a big difference. I don't think its really an issue now, but I can remember when some makers used three layer boards and some used 5. That made a pretty big difference in quality and life expectancy.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

What the "best" is is determined by your personal experience just like anything else you buy. Some say black n decker makes the best toasters while others will disagree.

the best design is determined by the user or consumer.

Look, the word "best" is a word that has a certain perspective around it. It is what the person thinks and what he defines the "best" to be is what the best is.

The reason why motherboard makers make boards differently because it caters to a certain point of view (perspective, philosophy...) of what people think the "best" is.

There are people who think and beleive that what is cheap is what the best is. So mobo makers make cheap boards to cater around that philosophy. Some think you need the best of the best for it to be the "best" and willing to pay for it. Others are in the middle and are willing to pay an average price for an average board (or better but not the best) for it to be the "best". Functionality plays a role also.

So, the word "Best" is really a word that can only be determined by each individual. To determine what is "Best" for others is unwise as the word "Best" is relative. what is best for you is not what is best for them.

Hi guys..

I have a technical question about mobos.

There are lots of mobo's out there in the market. different people have different preferences. Someone who has bought GB mobo and had no trouble says go for a GB its the best. Someone who has hasnt got any trouble with Asus would say its the best. Some say Abit, DFI and Epox.
My question is, apart from the fact which parts it uses, for exaple DFI says it uses Japanese capasitors, what esle does it matter? I mean except for the quality of the products in the mobo, what techinical aspects does it matter?

As far as I know, there is no one strict standard for manufacturing x86 boards. So different vendors could have different architectures? Is it?
So for how far does these matter as far as the performance is concerned?
For example, in benchmarking, only the cpu type is stressed. But wouldnt the mobo play a roll? suppose if we run the same processor in different mobos with the same bechmark test, would it give different results? at least slightly?
Shouldnt the mobo be well designed to get the best performance out of the processor? If so, is there any kind out there, which has the "best" design? Apart from all the cool features they are boasting.
I'm in Japan, and the most popular mobo's here are only Asus and GB. It is not very common to see Abit or DFI mobos. If actually DFI and Abit are better than Asus or GB, why arent they popular? Is there anything they are lagging with?

Sorry for the long writing guys. Hope to know your comments.

Cheers.