After working and building machine for over 2 decades now, it's kind of got the point to me where I no longer see a difference in performance, between different motherboards (maybe 1 fps at best). Now motherboards just seem like they are just parts stuck together, (e.g. combine a set of PCI express lanes, Ram connectors, ALC 1150, intel gb controller etc) as nothing really changes between the brands (last time I ever saw any speed changes were when the memory controller wasn't on the CPU). So now all I look at is the design and look of a board( budget brown PCB - not interested too ugly) I now feel like a black PCB is a requirement (as it stick out no where near as bad as brown). Is this the same for everyone ? When it comes to the heatsinks it has come down to what colour system I have (in my case blue), so when I choose a board I'm instantly remove 90% of the boards (in this iteration it's feels even worse as some reason blue is budget). Why aren't motherboard sold with optional different colour heatsinks? or any option which would allow you to not have to change the whole look of the system. So how many else feel this way ? Also why does every manufacturer have such an obsession with Red atm (for top end boards)? But hey guess I'm a modder and just going to have to do it for this generation the hardway (CNC time).
Looks are important but features matter more to me. For example, isolated audio, direct to bios buttons,bios flashback(awesome feature on asus mb), power phasing, overclocking ability, etc...
These thing are way more important to me. My current build in a gold MB which I am not a fan of but I ran with it because the features were to awesome not to have.
I look at reputation for reliability first, and features and aesthetics are neck-and-neck for a close second. I like a mostly blacked out mobo.
Depends on whether or not I have a windowed case. If I do, then i at least consider it, if i dont then i dont care at all.
its just personal.
Basicly feutures should go over looks. however since gaming is a thing you see allot of gaming mobo´s showing up. its probably one of the best sellings line of boards now days, Basicly every main manufacturer has red/black themes boards. Which attracts gamers.
Offcourse there are also people who using theire system for something else then gaming, for those people´s they basicly have theire normale line of boards, with less fancy colors. and such
Same counts for fancy heatsinks, cases and fans and stuff. its just personal. I have a damm ugly black/blue mobo in my current RED rig, which realy annoy´s me allot.
What's wrong with the EVO? :( I like it, and I look at it everyday.
IMO features trump colors any day.
well the board is basicly okay. i reached 4.8 GigaHurtz on the EVO..
But But... the crosshair V Formula Z doe.. still keeps attracking me.
However, i also wanne buy a 290TriX so maybe i´m going to grab a 290 first, before i swap my mobo. i do have some issues with the board, but this could also be windows 7 related, i still need to install windows 8.1 on a spare drive to sort that latency issue out. wenn it does come out as an Windows 7 issue, then i probably gonne keep the EVO.
Because i dont wanne pay €185 for just looks.
"Because i dont wanne pay €185 for just looks."
Solid thinking.
Even if it overclocks slightly better than the EVO, and let's say you reach 5.1 GHz, will the difference be more noticeable than going with an R9 290? I remember you saying that past 4.5 the difference in performance is minimal.
For consumer boards this maybe true. However server grade motherboards are in a different class of their own. Again like the consumer boards, there may not be much performance between them but big bucks can be spent if you want additional features such as IPMI, 3 dimms per channel on LGA 2011 etc.
indeed performance wise it does not make much sense beyond 4.6Ghz.
i allways try to think sollid lol ☺