Motherboard Selection

I'm wondering what all the important things are that I need to know when selecting a motherboard.

Obviously there are things like selecting a motherboard that is compatible with whatever processor you plan to use.

What are all the other really important things?

I'll list what I know.

Needs to fit in the case. (Form Factor)
Socket needs to be compatible with CPU.
Needs to fit your needs expansion-slot-wise (and USB, etc).
Needs to have interfaces for the drives you want to use.
Should be a good brand like ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Abit?

What about FSB speed? and North and South bridges?
What are things I need to know when selecting a motherboard to avoid bo**lenecking any components?

I'm building a gaming computer.

Thanks.

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Are you going to OC? What chipset meets your needs? P45 chipset is a good choice if you are planning to OC. Are you going to crossfire? SLI? How many PCIE 2.0 slots will you need? (1 - 4) Depending on your answer P45 or X48 might be a good choice. Most boards are now rated for 1600 FSB so I dont think that is a worry. Some boards have better power handling i.e. 8 phase, 16 phase etc. Some boards do a nice job with energy conservation (ASUS EPU - 6). Look at proprietary features from the better mfgrs. Gigabye, ASUS, MSI, ABIT, etc. A few MB vendors are going out of business. You better check them out. Finally, are you going to need raid controller, Wifi, fast memmory, DDR3? DDR3 is still a strictly high end enthusiast feature (cost premium) but you should know what you are getting before you select a MB. I probably left a few things out but you and others can fill in the blanks.

Message edited by jthorn on 09-10-2008 at 11:44:38 PM

Reply to jthorn

You want to avoid DDR3 boards and memory, as they are expensive and do not provide any performance benefits for gaming.

Your monitor resolution also plays a part in motherboard selection. A very high resolution monitor is best supported by the x48 chipset, but standard monitors such as 22" WS LCDs at 1680x1050 will not see much gain from x48 over P45.

Although P45 is usually considered a crossfire board, it should be considered for any single GPU system as well, due to price, stability, and features.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Proximon

Proximon wrote :

You want to avoid DDR3 boards and memory, as they are expensive and do not provide any performance benefits for gaming.

Your monitor resolution also plays a part in motherboard selection. A very high resolution monitor is best supported by the x48 chipset, but standard monitors such as 22" WS LCDs at 1680x1050 will not see much gain from x48 over P45.

Although P45 is usually considered a crossfire board, it should be considered for any single GPU system as well, due to price, stability, and features.

P45 is usually *not* considered a crossfire board. It's pcie2.0 bandwidth cuts by half, to 8x, in cf mode, because the chipset was never designed to handle enough bandwidth for cf. This causes bottlenecking.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/ [...] index.html
It otherwise performs like x38/48, but cost half as much. So it's ideal for single gpu system.

Monitor resolution has nothing to do with motherboard chipset. It depends on gpu performance.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ Q6600@3.6ghz, GA-EX38-DS4 motherboard, 8gb 800mhz ddr2 4-3-3-12, 8800GTS(g92)@780mhz, 1TB + 1.5TB hdds, 850watt psu
Reply to dagger

Well, I do want to get two Radeon 4850's. So, I will want Crossfire and two x16 PCIe slots. I have no idea what chipset meets my needs.

Basically I'm trying to fill in the blanks of:

Processor
Motherboard
RAM
Powersupply
Case

... for between $600 and $1000.

I'm trying to get the best I can for my money and not make significant mistakes.

I also plan to continue using a 320GB Western Digital IDE PATA harddrive. It seems that that will only cause slower load times in games, but I'm not entirely sure. I currently don't have any intentions of using RAID, but surely I will need SATA as that has become the standard, and I will need it in the event of an upgrade.

I'm also wondering if I should, or have to, go AMD on the processor, since I want two AMD video cards in Crossfire. I like AMD. So that's no problem.

Thanks a lot.

Message edited by Pulseczar on 09-11-2008 at 12:37:53 AM

Reply to Pulseczar

Maybe I'm old fashioned,perhaps being over 60 can do that to you,,but ,,when I am going to replace my mobo,my first consideration is the video card,
then I do my best to determine what CPU gives the best results and at what cost,for me stability is far more important than speed,
I find that that formula produces the best results and usually gives me a stable platform on which to run my FPS's,,leading bleeding edge is mostly bleeding...

Reply to dokk2

dagger wrote :

P45 is usually *not* considered a crossfire board. It's pcie2.0 bandwidth cuts by half, to 8x, in cf mode, because the chipset was never designed to handle enough bandwidth for cf. This causes bottlenecking.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/ [...] index.html
It otherwise performs like x38/48, but cost half as much. So it's ideal for single gpu system.

Monitor resolution has nothing to do with motherboard chipset. It depends on gpu performance.

That tweaktown article was written based on very early drivers for both the GPU and P45 chipset. I thought it had long since been put to rest along with this argument. here is a more modern, complete round up of crossfire:
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=761&p=2

It is true that P45 delivers, on the average and at 1680x1050, about 3-4 frames per second less in crossfire than x48. If that difference seems worth the extra cash then you should get an x48.... but such a person generally wants a larger monitor anyway. At 2560x1600 the lesser bandwidth of x8 PCI-E slots show a significant bottleneck.

To say that the P45 chipset is not adequate for CF and should not be used as such is just wrong. Many people on a budget choose a P45 board so that they can keep the option of crossfire open in the future.

So, monitor resolution does have some bearing on MB choice.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Proximon

Proximon wrote :

That tweaktown article was written based on very early drivers for both the GPU and P45 chipset. I thought it had long since been put to rest along with this argument. here is a more modern, complete round up of crossfire:
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=761&p=2

It is true that P45 delivers, on the average and at 1680x1050, about 3-4 frames per second less in crossfire than x48. If that difference seems worth the extra cash then you should get an x48.... but such a person generally wants a larger monitor anyway. At 2560x1600 the lesser bandwidth of x8 PCI-E slots show a significant bottleneck.

To say that the P45 chipset is not adequate for CF and should not be used as such is just wrong. Many people on a budget choose a P45 board so that they can keep the option of crossfire open in the future.

So, monitor resolution does have some bearing on MB choice.

It's not actually the resolutions. Both benchmarks use some the same resolutions. But Tweaktown runs Crysis in DX10, at Very High, with AA and AF, while Legionhardware runs it in DX9, at High, with AA and AF off. At the higher settings, the bottleneck is overshot, at the lower settings, the bandwidth is still enough. At the higher settings, even 1280x1024 bottlenecks significantly.

The more stressful benchmark is more meaningful, as games get heavier over time. Even if you play games at lower settings that doesn't bottleneck as much today, one day the bandwidth won't be enough. Besides, while some people don't use AA, basically everyone want AF. It just looks too different without AF. Why would you pay for high powered cf setup just to turn off the eye candy?

------------------------------ Q6600@3.6ghz, GA-EX38-DS4 motherboard, 8gb 800mhz ddr2 4-3-3-12, 8800GTS(g92)@780mhz, 1TB + 1.5TB hdds, 850watt psu
Reply to dagger

I built my rig based on P45 and 1XGPU (4850) but even if i wanted crossfire down the road, there were plenty of good P45 MB offerings that would do it. Although I used a ASUS P5Q for 1XGPU (Q6600 at 3.0), for 2X4850 I would have chosen P5Q-pro. There was a Tom's article on P45 a few weeks back that I did not think was very fair to P45 chipset. I may be a noob but I feel P45 gave consumers a few nice upgrades over P35 which we would otherwise be doing without until Nehalem. I do not think X48 chipset was mainstream. I was happy to get PCIE 2.0 and stable chipset for OC, all for a budget price.

Reply to jthorn

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