Why do certain motherboards increase performance over others?

[BigChimp97]

Hi guys

I'm kinda new to computer components (a couple of years) and have been learning most of what I know from forums and YouTube videos by YouTubers such as Tek Syndicate and LinusTechTips. But one thing that has always bugged me is the fact that more higher end motherboards can apparently yield better performance, and it confuses me... alot, why does it matter? What about the motherboards makes the CPU or GPU have more potential than other motherboards? (I don't mean overclocking potential, I understand that completely).
I know that the components are higher quality but it can't be as simple as that surely.
This topic will be a discussion, so discuss away people, any information will be helpful.

 

[mc962]

From what I understand, it's more about what features the board offers (so like I/O connections, fan options, pci slots, temperature sensors, sound, internet capabilities, etc.) Aside from overclocking, and the various features that allow for easier, more stable overclocking, I don't think the board itself does so much to get the "full performance" of the cpu and gpu. Sometimes there are some extra button and gadgets on the board itself but most of these from what I know are related to overclocking (or in the case of the sabertooth boards, are cooling fans and temperature sensors).

Different companies also design their BIOS differently, so Board A might have a very different, more featured BIOS than Board B, and these extra features might confer some benefit to the user that Board B is unable to. I remember hearing that the BIOS menus for some boards was a mess in terms of organization, while the menus for other boards was neatly presented and in a sensible order.

Some higher end boards are able to utilize more graphics cards together (as an example, a board like the z87 msi gd65 (i believe that was the one) has 3 slots that can fit a graphics cards, but only 2 of them actually are designed to use them) Meanwhile, a higher end board like some of the LGA 2011 boards can fit four graphics cards in sli/crossfire.)But other than offering more stable power to the components I'm not sure that the board itself actually affects the cpu/gpu potential, unless there is some shortcoming in the board design itself that is limiting them.

And you might run into an instance where you have a newer cpu/gpu that is compatible with an older board, but that older board doesnt have certain features that would (at least in theory) be beneficial to the newer hardware (for example pci 2.0 in an older board with a newer card, although from what I know gpu these days work just fine in a 2.0)

 

[Tradesman1]

Seems like with every new chipset and socket that comes out, one of the mobo makers get's a slight edge over the others in how they program the BIOS and tie all the various parts in together, the components used play in also, even the PCB that the mobos are based on, with the Z87 chipset it has appeared to me they have the best handle on how the Chipset and the Haswell CPUs mesh, much the same as ASRock did with the Z77 and the IB CPUs.... very simplified say mobo company A programs their mobo's BIOS or BIOS's to use a value of X for something where everyone else is going with a value of Z, maybe 3 instead of 4 of even vice-versa, it may give them a slight edge in overall performance