What is the best motherboard today

That is like asking, what is the best automobile? It strictly depends on needs, CPU type, use, price range, and opinion. In other words, it would help to as a more specific question; like, what is the best motherboard to overclock?. Or, what is the best motherboard for the new i7 CPU?

Given that an X58 mobo core presents significantly diminished "operations-per-dollar"

GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

With a Phenom-II 965 x4Core@3.4GHz, a Hyper-212 Cooler and 1600Cas7 RAM

There are 100 little reasons why, but I will stick to the most significant.

(1) The AM3 Socket ... Allows the broadest and most modern selection of cpu's and is compatible with (affordable) Hex Core technology (upgrade) or can be down-migrated to very inexpensive cpus, for a later life as a server or HTPC or office/homework build. With a fast quad core and 8GB of memory, it serves very well as a video editing and pro-graphics compute core. (ADOBE CS4). Socket 1156 (INTEL), on the other hand, is just a truncated socket 1366.

(2) The chipset and southbridge and cardbus and integrated graphics ... Superior in bandwidth with full PCIe 2.0 on *ALL* lanes gives double the bandwidth of INTEL PCIe x1 slots (INTEL does give 2.0 on the x16s) ... this allows for fully saturated USB3 and eSATA3 devices, on a single lane ... INTEL tops out at 1/2 the bandwidth.
... The 890GX also has *NATIVE* SATA3, on the southbridge, which leaves other resources open for advanced features. INTEL makes you choose which features will be disabled, due to lack of bandwidth.

Also spend some real time looking at the features and layout ... The cardbus slot layout gives you a much broader and more numerous array of expansion options.

SIX SATA3 ports ... I have plans for all of them!

SO . . . If you view your system as a compute-engine (like a lawn mower) and If you view your motherboard as if it was a breakout-box for your CPU and GPU, then you will understand the logic ... the prudence ... and the wisdom of this selection.

= Well, you DID ask =

Best how?

The 'Best'?
Take a look at the $600 EVGA Classified SR-2.

If you are looking for a motherboard that you can actually afford, post your budget, intended usage and which components it will be parred with.

Actually, you're completely wrong. If you want the "best", you don't care about price. Period. And LGA-1366 doesn't have the limittations you assumed for LGA-1156.

Begging your pardon, Sir. ... Am I not understanding this Tom's Hardware Article ???? !

= Assume? = (Was I really "COMPLETELY WRONG" ?) Why go INTEL before they go PCIe3.0 ? (Or EVEN PCIe 2.0 !!)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-sata-6gb,25...

=QUOTE = >>

Bottlenecks And Solutions For USB 3.0 And SATA 6Gb/s
2:00 AM - March 24, 2010 by Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos

AMD vs. Intel?

For some reason, all Intel chipsets available today only support PCI Express 2.0 on the primary links that are used for graphics. This applies to the 4- and 5-series chipsets employing the ICH10 southbridge. While Intel claims PCI Express 2.0 support on those links, it limits throughput to PCI Express 1.1-class performance. This is naturally a problem when we start looking at the latest high-speed motherboard-down controllers.

AMD, on the other hand, upgraded the link speeds on its 700- and 800-series chipsets, which means that current AMD mainstream and enthusiast chipsets don’t create bandwidth bottlenecks for high-speed add-on devices.

We took three P55 motherboards from Gigabyte and MSI that all come with different solutions to offer USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s connectivity. We analyzed SATA performance using Crucial’s new RealSSD-C300 and a Seagate Barracuda XT with support for the third-gen standard and found that not all solutions deliver ample bandwidth.

All AMD 700 and 800 chipsets (both northbridge and southbridge) fully support PCI Express 2.0, while Intel’s PCIe 2.0 support is limited to the northbridge/processor-based interface (the company continues claiming PCIe 2.0 support on platforms like P55, despite the 2.5 Gb/s limitation). This is why it's unlikely you'll encounter bandwidth bottlenecks on AMD platforms.

Easy Answer: The author misworded his statement, which should have read "2.0 links that are used primarily for graphics". I reported the mistake long ago, it was supposed to have been fixed before you even read it.

The X58 has 36 PCIe 2.0 lanes, which is 16 per card for two cards, plus four. Those four lanes can be used for USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gb/s controllers, or an x4 slot, or several x1 slots, all in PCIe 2.0 mode. And the two sets of 16 lanes can even be divided to serve up to four x8 slots.

Wholly CARP !!

I am sure willing to believe you ...

The Quoted article is very explicit about citing the "5 series" as limited ...

SLANDER, if you are correct (I'm now betting that you are)!

I am a "veteran" on the "Tom's NewBuild" Forum and have been using this article to sway prosumer-edit and CS4 type builds. Just had a very HAIRY debate with one (now two) of my respected seniors, over the issue.

I look to Tom's articles, for the best possible dope ... This is a glaring and unconsionable mis-representation of the facts, then and is sure to cause (has caused) many problems and issues.

I would VERY much like to see an official correction/retraction, to put this terrible "bad dope" to rest. ... Your word is good enough (for the moment) to get me to stop shooting my mouth off (wrongly) but much damage has been done, to me and others, as a result.

= NOT COOL ! = (VERY "not cool") !

After contacting an editor I found out that it was a wording error and edited my statement. Please note!

Anyway, AMD provides the best value in chipsets, but the OP ask what the best motherboard was. Well, there are lots of "bests" for different markets such as servers, workstations and PCs, but I doubt any particular AMD board can be considered "the best of the best" for any particular market once you take the word "value" away.

I recommend AMD motherboards for any market where AMD has the best-value processor, such as gaming, but that's because of value rather than superiority.

If it is for gaming and oc potential, I recommend the asus crosshair 3 formula 790fx mobo

"Mis-Worded"??? ... This ain't no typo !!! I don't see how a simple change of a word could possibly undo the flat-out bad information that this paragraph explicitly cites, in more than one place !! ...

===== Again ... the quote ==========

For some reason, all Intel chipsets available today only support PCI Express 2.0 on the primary links that are used for graphics. This applies to the 4- and 5-series chipsets employing the ICH10 southbridge. While Intel claims PCI Express 2.0 support on those links, it limits throughput to PCI Express 1.1-class performance. This is naturally a problem when we start looking at the latest high-speed motherboard-down controllers.

=========================

Says "all chipsets" and cites "5 series" (guessing the "5" means P5" and not "X5")
... but "all chipsets" means "all" ... to me.

Also ... just splitting hairs ... With 6x NATIVE SATA3 on the southbridge, the 890GX leaves ALL those (full) PCIe2.x lanes open and free for their INTENDED function ...

My arguments, that (1) Having a bunch of Native SATA3 ports allows for a gaggle of task-dedicated SSDs (important to render rigs with read drive and write drive pipelines/caches) ... And, (2) Edit rigs often use two GPUs and also are more likely to employ HD-SDI capture cards and additional FW800 ports and several other hi-bandwidth peripherals. Having all your slots/lines open can be very "enabling".

... My opinion is that INTEL should balance their rig and remove the intentional bottlenecks, if they want me to go ALL In on a premium build ... If AMD can do this, why does INTEL not do it ?

= Al =

Ahah, X5 vs P5/H5...wholey carp that could give you a headache eh?

Anyway, Intel obviously doesn't perceive short-term profitability in creating a new Southbridge for the X58 in order to enable native SATA 6.0Gb/s support.

But here's something else you might find interesting:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-890gx-radeon,25...

AMD's SATA 6.0Gb/s controller appears to offer similar performance to Intel's SATA 3.0Gb/s controller. OH BOY!

This morning, I got up, poured a nice big bowl of Cheerios(TM) and started to skip, happily along, down THG Boulevard ... and, then? ... You came along and stuck your "thinggy" in my Cheerios(TM) and stirred the whole thing up!

Good thing, too! .. Please go and spank those guys who wrote that Bottleneck article ... I'll be apologizing and back-peddling for WEEKS !

= Cheers! = (And ... thanks).

(I have already cross-posted this thread-link a few times to help undo the ... ... sigh ... damage).

Well what you want to use it for will have an effect on what is "best" ....server, multipurpose, HTPC, etc....but for me, the one I want, I can't buy yet and that's the Rampage III Extreme.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-rampage-extreme-r...
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-republic-of-gamer...

.. Well ...

I suppose I *could* stick all my 1x cards in those long red slots !

= grin =

Heheh, there are "many" bests, depending on your priorities, but at least we know what Jack's best is!

Oh, yes, I think we *do* ... BUT ... I'm not so sure JACK knows it ... yet:

http://www.techspot.com/news/38270-evga-classified-sr2-...


http://pc-technic.blogspot.com/2009/11/four-radeon-hd-5...

Oh yes, Foxconn's Ultra ATX form factor, where the biggest cases have ten slots...and then EVGA puts the FORTH graphics card in the BOTTOM slot! Talk about design stupidity...

Let me present it this way: One of the big problems with ASRock's X58 SuperComputer is that, even though it supports four double-slot cards, the forth card is in the bottom slot. That means to fit it properly, you need an 8-slot case. The standard case has 7-slots.

OK, but you can FIND an 8-slot case, so that's not so bad.

Foxconn's solution was Ultra ATX:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ces-foxconn-x48-shiman...

But Foxconn never made a production Ultra ATX board. Lian-Li was counting on those Ultra ATX boards and actually makes a 10-slot case.

So, with a 10-slot case, you could potentially put in FIVE double-slot cards, right? EVGA, proving it has no idea how to design anything, puts only SEVEN slots on their board, pushes ALL SEVEN to the bottom, and forces four-card users to seek an ELEVEN SLOT case that doesn't even exist.

This is the second time EVGA has done this, so they didn't even learn from their mistakes on the first one.

It never dawned on me, that anyone would ever even TRY to put that thing in a case ... I have been telling ALL my customers, who are buying it, to just screw it to their wall and aim a box-fan at it ... Was I wrong? ... AGAIN !!?

= Al = .

Here's the previous EVGA 4-way SLI board that should fit four double-slot cards into a 10-slot case, but doesn't because the slot placement is FUBAR:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Lian-Li's Ultra ATX case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

They also had a limited-edition red version with a spider-logo window.

On the EVGA Ultra-ATX boards: You can see why I've never reviewed one, EVGA wouldn't send one knowing that the entire company would be shredded over such a bone-headed design move.

Lucky for me, 4-way SLI is not looming in my immediate future.

I can get four HD "edit-streams" out of two 9800GT-EEs ... And I shall "limp-along", thusly.

BUT ... I figgered SOMEbody HAD to pull that mobo out of their ... hat ... at some point, on this venerable thread.

Guess it hadda be me.

= Al =