Does motherboard matter in general?

When upgrading a computer do I need to stringently select a motherboard the same way as I would CPU and RAM? If the motherboard has the right socket, max ram and northbridge clock rate, does anything else matter for performance?

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your credit card number matters
what is it?

It's not a matter of being able to afford it, it's a matter of being ripped off.
A new high end CPU costs $400-600
New high end ram costs $300-400
So are motherboards just priced to be in the $300 range to match? Or is there actually discernible difference between a $80 and $300 mobo with identical socket and peripherals?

They matter less than enthuasiasts think and they matter more than NEETs think they do.

Yes, it matters.
Certainly more than a few extra MHz on your CPU or RAM.

The motherboard is THE critical component that connects everything else.
It is also extremely complex with loads of different component that can go wrong.
You do not want to skimp on that.

That said you don't need a top of the line model with all the bells and whistles if you're not going to use said bells and whistles.
At the very least buy a quality brand, and check that it has the features you will use both now and after your next upgrade.

Stock performance is equal between all motherboards from all prices from $1 to $9999. OC performance may vary from 0 to 2% but system stability and overclock success may improve greatly. However most of the time the price isn't indicative of good OC performance, if you are into that there's probably someone that tested/reviewed each motherboard.

For the essential features that you should know, you can probably google it.

>New high end ram costs $300-400
You fucking what?

Yeah, this is pretty much the answer I expected. Just after something that won't break. Spent $100 on my current mobo which has lasted 7 years with no problems. It's major limitation is the inability to handle anything above 1333mhz ram.

Is that not the general price of 16gb 3200 with low latencies? I do a lot of MATLAB even when I'm not at work so I can't use 8gb or 2400mhz

I could just be retarded and missing something obvious though

No those are definitely exactly what I'm looking for. I live in Australia and the Flare X costs $299 AUD here. I might actually be much better off buying from america and having it shipped here.

Ahhh that makes a lot more sense then. Just make sure the total is a better deal after conversions, shipping, and sales tax. I've tried getting shit imported from the US in europe when I was there and the shipping+tax always fucked me over.
Might as well just buy shit from the store down the street if I'm going to spend 40 bucks on shipping.

Long as it has an Intel nic and doesn't use any 3rd party controllers I'm OK with anything. Ive had good luck recently with asrock

Features and component choice are the two most important things to consider. I always spend a decent amount of money without going nuts about it. I currently have a pretty high end X99 board (the Gigabyte X99 Designare EX), but I got that for less than half its normal price. It has tons of features which I'll never even use, which is almost always going to be the case above a certain price point.

If you're planning a Ryzen build, the Asus Prime X370-Pro is a real good buy. Its component choice is top notch, especially in terms of the VRM setup, which uses the same TI NexFETs as the more expensive Crosshair VI Hero and ASRock Taichi.

Yeah, buying individually with a 30% local markup is generally cheaper than exchange + shipping. What really bothers me is that australia post can't be trusted to transport anything remotely fragile, so I might end up getting a bargain in the US only to have auspost curb stomp the box before it gets to my house.

Good point actually, I've had problems with third party audio before.

Audio is the one place you tolerate 3rd party audio, until Intel puts out a analog audio solution anyways. I try and use hdmi audio when possible and disable the Realtek chip most mobos use

I actually was planning to use the Ryzen 1700, so I appreciate this!
I'll add the Prime to my watchlist, the VI Hero looks pretty obnoxious to me anyway.

>and disable the Realtek chip most mobos use

W-what is wrong with Realtek audio

For most people? Nothing. For people wanting stability? Everything.

How does Realtek audio effect stability?

He's full of shit I'll tell you what.

>northbridge clock rate
>2017
ISHYGDDT

Realtek has shit drivers and since they have a monopoly on the integrated dac market they have no reason to improve.

It doesn't. He's a meme-spouting retard. Every motherboard I've ever owned has had a Realtek chip and they've never given me any problems.

>Realtek has shit drivers

Justify this statement. I've never once had an issue with them, or indeed had to interact with them in any way. Audio just works on a fresh Windows install. If you're installing all the software suite crapware on top of that, that's your problem.

I bought a gigabyte z170x-ud3 which is the lowest tier of the non-shit boards for my 6700k and have no issues. CPU is at 4.7, and ram is at 3000 up from 2666. iirc it was about 130 leafbucks.

Unless you need the features on a higher end board, there's no need. Just don't get something absolutely shit.

Cheapest b350/z270 is all you need to overclock. anything else is a waste for looks and extra features that you will never use

Have a ASRock B250M-HDV paired with a i3 that I use as a FreeNAS box. Shit has been running since February. No crashes, no hard locks, no nothing. The little I messed with it in windows it worked great as well. Having Intel NIC is huge and is about the only thing I look for in a mobo. Plus B250 has 6x sata 3 ports which is a first I think for the budget intel chipset.

Here is the speccy for it, i'm running 6x drives in it for my file sever. If you compare a 6bay ready to go nas box they are like 500 bucks. My B250 build was like 150 total with a spare computer case i had.

I got a $200 processor, $150 rams, $150 ssd, $100 case, $200 psu and a $75 board. Works in my life.

We usually just put the cheapest M-ATX motherboard with 4 dimm slots, and 4~6 sata in most builds, when you don't overclock you don't need the expensive VRM and power phases.

Most motherboards are all solid caps these days and most come with 3~4 year warranties.

In this day and age, most people only need the PCIEx16 for 1 gpu, and maybe a couple of M.2 slots.

Not very many people need all those slots on a full ATX board because most people don't have any expansion cards.

Of course if the client wants RGB and other shit that the gamer boards offer, we're happy to comply.

Stock clocks, all boards perform the same provided they use the same chipset.

It's "extra" features and gamer shit you pay for on the expensive boards and quite honestly, most people don't even use those "features" so why not throw the extra hundred or two hundred dollars on other things like better GPU, 16GB ram or a bigger SSD?

a lot of people overlook the quality of the bios. you could have the best hardware in the world on the motherboard but be severely limited because the bios is pure horseshit.

its the reason why i paid more and got the asus crosshair vi hero for my new ryzen build. i really wanted a gigabyte x370 gaming k7 but their bios is crap. it doesn't even have an option to disable the secondary netework adapter (the killer shit) or even the onboard audio! basic fucking features that motherboards from 2001 had!

My last two PCs had sub $25 mobos and worked flawlessly.

The only thing I was really missing was expandability for future upgrades like crossfired GPUs..

You just have to understand what you are buying, and why it costs what they do.

>$200 psu

which vendor?

In the old days u payed for expensive caps beefy vrms fast ram heatpipe vrm cooling etc. So it was well worth the money op. Esp for FX 8350 platforms. Vishera kills most 970 cheapo boards in about 2 years of heavy use.
>Pr3sent day cpus that sip power: your money goes on gaymurrr chink thrash to keep the jew happy cuz muh rgbbb and memes. Just buy a mobo with decent ram speeds and enought ports for your needs. m2 is also a must. Also never Asus for Ryzen(funny how times change)

If it's a non-oc chipset, not really

If it's an oc chipset, vrm and bios options are the biggest factors.

Not op but I've been looking at upgrading to a 1600 and am going through reviews on newegg for mobos right now.

The X370-Pro seems to have a lot of issues but I'm starting to get the feeling that a lot of A4 socket boards were shit on launch.

Here's the link anyway newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132964&cm_re=asus_x370_pro-_-13-132-964-_-Product

Gigabyte's UEFI is pure trash. In terms of design and features it's inferior to the very first efforts from companies like Asus back in the Sandy Bridge days. It's embarrassing for such a large company.

All Ryzen boards have had problems, because the platform itself has had problems. Most have been ironed out at this point. Looking through the negative reviews there, most of them are complaining about stupid shit. One of them gives it one egg because the onboard graphics don't work, despite the fact that Ryzen doesn't have a fucking iGPU. People are retarded.

>Pr3sent day cpus that sip power:
Unless you're stupid enough to get x299 meme.

How are the old Asus Sabertooth 2.0 boards?

I have one with my FX 4170, but I want to upgrade to a 8370E

(I don't plan on going to Ryzen until a few more years)

0118 9998 8199 9119 7253

it matters for durability, not so much for performance

,>Ah right user. Jews got rekt so hard by ryzen they litterally did the final silution 2.0
Dw goym buy a trane chiller and you will be able to use our cpu at stock freq kek. I remember that extreme chiller threw the towel during the review because goytel went5 400W volcano right?