Motherboard Poll - Motherboards Increase Performance?

[Darren]

Trying to lay to rest the ongoing debate involving motherboard quality and performance. Some people swear that you need a high end motherboard to power a high end processor. Some people say that cheap motherboards will provide the same performance.

- This is a survey and a survey only
1.) Lets make the presumption that we are NOT over clocking
2.) We are talking about motherboards at stock
3.) No configurations just performance straight from the board at default clocks
4.) low/high end motherboards running same hardware (in terms of memory, graphics cards, cpu, and config)
5.) NO OVER CLOCKING TALK


Edit :

For example a high end motherboard against a low end motherboard what is the performance gaining terms of the following:

- is the stock performance gain enough to justify the difference between low and high end?
- benchmarks
- gaming
- frame rate (what would the gain be)
- please provide review evidence
- NO OVER CLOCKING TALK

 

[theonetruewill]

Different motherboards do have different performance, period. However this only in some cases differs hugely. Most of the time it is fairly close- but an enthusiast benchmarker would notice.

 

[erocker]

3.) no configurations just performance straight from the board at default clocks.

In many cases this would prove to be impossible as many motherboards would require a bios flash, proper voltage settings for stock operation, and proper memory timings for stock operation.

First, look at what chipset you want to use, then decide on the brand of motherboard.

I absolutely voted for "Yes high end boards give better performance", because they do. They run cooler, because the the high-end cooling that usually comes with them. High-end motherboards use better quality parts, essential for perfrormance. To put it blandly.

 

[Thermopylae_480]

Some lower quality boards have capacitors and other parts of lower standard; this can cause voltage fluctuations and occasional system instability.

 

[sneekypeet]

As a whole i would say mobo's that are higher quality are assembled with better parts. This does help to get the most out of a CPU or RAM that an average mobo may not.

There are exceptions but as a whole its a minumal difference without that thing we arent supposed to talk about!

 

[erocker]

So, what do you think Darren?

 

[mrw1986]

Many websites test motherboards at stock configurations and they are pretty decent sized performance differences.

 

[Darren]

erocker, excellent stuff.

I suppose the point of this post is to see what users thought of high end motherboards and would one gain enough performance in applications and gaming to justify spending an additional £50 on the motherboard. (this isn't a personal question, just a survey)

 

[GLD]

You do need a good motherboard to oc well. I had a nForce 4 vanilla ASUS board that oc'ed excellent, prob. as good as it's top dollar version. It is chipset specific for the most part, not dollar specific. I always go to the mfg. site to dl the boards manual before I purchase. It sometimes shows the bios options which is key.

If a board is going to cost a mint then it better oc like a champ. Spending a mint on a board is not practical to some people (like me). Doing the research before buying is the key to getting the good frugal oc.

A little off topic, but my current board (but not for long) is a joke. I would not recommend it to any oc'er. It's bios (appears to) has everything you need to oc. All the timings, volts, multis. you need. I put the 5000+ Black in it and can change the multi in the bios but it will not boot, ever. This Sapphire board appears to be a Jetway, that is actually made be Formoza ( I never head of the either).

I think a happy medium in motherboards is the Biostar TForce line. Good prices, good components, and good oc's. I am going back to a TForce after this Sapphire experience.


I see now the thread says no oc talk. Sorry.

 

[Darren]

GLD, appreciate it. But no overclock talk. Stock performance comparison only.

 

[SK-1]

Just like a high end car will outperform a low/midrange car. You still need high end components to plug into your high end motherboard of course to get the desired results.

 

[Darren]

attentions guys : comparison of mid & high end motherboards using the same components (same graphics, ram, cpu, same clock speeds and configuration)

 

[vega22]

@stock mine performs the same as the 680i ones do so.....and mine was only half the price when they came out so i guess that would class it as lowend.

 

[monte84]

There may be some negligible performance differences, but mostly its feature related. Unless your talking your really low end VIA and SIS chipsets. Just because its not an enthusiast board doesnt mean its made using the cheapest parts possible.

 

[imperialreign]

attentions guys : comparison of mid & high end motherboards using the same components (same graphics, ram, cpu, same clock speeds and configuration)

even if you take a mid-range mobo and a high-range mobo from the same manufacturer, and test with the same components, there will be differences.

High end boards tend to have a variety of frivilous crap that sets them apart - perhaps they handle power to components better; there might be a better onboard cooling solution; or the difference itself could lie within how the BIOS is set to control certain components at the hardware level (stuff we can't see or tweak without actually modifying the board). How the BIOS itself is configured to negotiate the hardware once the system is booted up can make a night in day difference in how to *similar* boards will perform.

Usually, high-range boards also have more options available within BIOS, for really precise tweaking. Even if you don't mess with any BIOS settings, they're usually set to [auto] by defualt, leaving their configuration up to BIOS defaults. A BIOS on a mid-range board might not be coded to have the same features (for example, many of ASUS' higher end boards support Hyperpath 3 within BIOS, which reduces unnecessary memory access from components, and allows for better memory latency; a lot of their mid-range boards don't support this feature). Usually, they're built using better components, and can therefore stand up to more abuse than a typical mid-range board can.

You defi pay a king's ransom for them, though, as high-end boards can run upwards of $500 (thanks, ASUS!! :shadedshu - although, if you are in the market for a high-end board, ASUS is the absolute best way to go), but for the money, they'll last a lot longer, even under 24/7 OCing, and tend to be a lot more stable.


A soundly designed, high-range motherboard can easily last you through the life of 3 or more CPU's.

 

[thoughtdisorder]

even if you take a mid-range mobo and a high-range mobo from the same manufacturer, and test with the same components, there will be differences.

High end boards tend to have a variety of frivilous crap that sets them apart - perhaps they handle power to components better; there might be a better onboard cooling solution; or the difference itself could lie within how the BIOS is set to control certain components at the hardware level (stuff we can't tweak).

Usually, high-range boards also have more options available within BIOS, for really precise tweaking. Usually, they're built using better components, and can therefore stand up to more abuse than a typical mid-range board can.

You defi pay a king's ransom for them, though, as high-end boards can run upwards of $500 (thanks, ASUS!! :shadedshu - although, if you are in the market for a high-end board, ASUS is the absolute best way to go), but for the money, they'll last a lot longer, even under 24/7 OCing, and tend to be a lot more stable.


A soundly designed, high-range motherboard can easily last you through the life of 3 or more CPU's.

Thanks Imperial you saved me a bunch of typing! +1 on your words. Higher end boards in my opinion take more abuse due to better binned components and should handle more precise tweaking. So my vote is for higher end boards....

 

[Silverel]

It depends on the particular high/low combination. The way I see it in the high-end boards, you have your pick of tons of features, or tons of performance, or both. Whereas a step down in the mid-level you get standard features and low performance, or basic features and high performance. The low end being reserved for cheap boards, with the bare minimum in the way of features or performance.

So what effect does having 8 SATA ports, onboard video/audio/lan, 12 USB 2.0 ports, 4x12 pcie 2 lanes, and other things like that have on the performance, versus a minimalist board with less than half that stuff? I take what I need, so usually I can find a mid level board, with features that I'll actually use and performance that is negligible to boards twice what it costs. Is there an absolute top end? Of course, but I'd like to keep my limbs when making a purchase. In the range of 100$-300$, I'll take a 100$ board that is slim on features, but bangin' in performance.

 

[Darren]

Silverel, I agree, I feel that high end boards only offer extra features - but in terms of feasible performance whether in FPS the difference isn't measurable.

 

[imperialreign]

Silverel, I agree, I feel that high end boards only offer extra features - but in terms of feasible performance whether in FPS the difference isn't measurable.

You'll see very little difference in FPS - but as for programs that are more CPU intensive instead of graphically intensive, there will be a difference. Even though you might run CPU X on two different boards, that CPU would be able to perform faster on a higher-end board. More stable voltages, better negotiated system BUS, better components . . . all the small things that nickle and dime processor and memory performance on lower end boards.

It doesn't make much of a difference with graphics - but with more and more games using some kind of physics implimentation, and with physics APIs becoming more elaborate, you need as much processing power as you can get.

It also makes a difference if you do a lot of video encoding, or audio sampling or anything else that puts the CPU to a lot of work.



<edit>::

but, to each his own - TBH, I'm too cheap to pay more than $250 for a board, but I'll spend a little extra for a low-high range board knowing the peace of mind it'll bring me - that it will be stable, reliable, and won't kill any other component.

The motherboard is the absolute heart of the system. It has the ability to kill other components, sometimes when it fails. I'd rather spend $250-$300 on something that will be solid, than spend $100 on a board that could die within a year or two, and take either a CPU, VGA adapter, or something else with it; which just increases replacement costs.