motherboards - what to look for?

myIdea

I guess the price is always an indicator of the quality/specs of the components, but then again, that's probable just down to brand-names?

I know about socket types and ram, but that's it... so whats the main reason/s to choose one board over another?

the_syco

Do you plan to ever overclock it? Some motherboards have more BIOS options than others for overclocking.

Do you plan on gaming, or just want to use it to browse the web? Some have onboard graphics, some don't.

How big is your computer case? A friend got a great motherboard, only to find that his current (at the time) case was too small :P

myIdea

Not for gaming, but I will be using it for video/conversions - regardless of that though.

A board itself to me is just a tool to run my processor, hard-drive and graphics card.

For the life of me I can't think of anything special about boards unless I needed something specific.

I'll be running window 8 64bit... Ive never heard or read about anyone complaining about boards so I have nothing to watch out for when choosing one if you know what I mean...

Serephucus

Anything from a reputable brand with a decent warranty will be fine, really. If you're not running multiple GPUs or overclocking, there isn't much point in spending more than around €70-80 for a board. You can spend as little as €40-50 for a basic machine, and still be fine.

the_syco

myIdea wrote: »

Not for gaming, but I will be using it for video/conversions - regardless of that though.

A board itself to me is just a tool to run my processor, hard-drive and graphics card.

For the life of me I can't think of anything special about boards unless I needed something specific.

I'll be running window 8 64bit... Ive never heard or read about anyone complaining about boards so I have nothing to watch out for when choosing one if you know what I mean...

In that case, get a board that takes DDR3, and supports at least 32GB. Although RAM is expensive now, it should drop, and when it does you'll want a board that you can increase the RAM on. Not sure about video, but having 8GB's RAM for processing photographs is good, but you can never have enough.

I assume you'll be getting a decent sized SSD to do most of your work on?

Finally, check if the apps that you'll be using gain much from a good GPU or not. Some apps only use the CPU, but some also use the GPU.

Greenmachine

the_syco wrote: »

In that case, get a board that takes DDR3, and supports at least 32GB. Although RAM is expensive now, it should drop, and when it does you'll want a board that you can increase the RAM on. Not sure about video, but having 8GB's RAM for processing photographs is good, but you can never have enough.

I assume you'll be getting a decent sized SSD to do most of your work on?

Finally, check if the apps that you'll be using gain much from a good GPU or not. Some apps only use the CPU, but some also use the GPU.

Not done any self build so was suprised by one thing you said re support for a minimum of 32GB Of ram. Are there currently boards supporting 64GB or even 128GB.

Blitz17

Greenmachine wrote: »

Not done any self build so was suprised by one thing you said re support for a minimum of 32GB Of ram. Are there currently boards supporting 64GB or even 128GB.

Yeah the MSI X79A-GD45 mobo supports 8x16gb DDR3, think theres another few too.

the_syco

Greenmachine wrote: »

Not done any self build so was suprised by one thing you said re support for a minimum of 32GB Of ram. Are there currently boards supporting 64GB or even 128GB.

Yes. I say 32GB, as some of the cheaper boards only go up to 8GB, which is very limiting. The difference between 4GB and 8GB was amazing for photo editing, thus why I said a min of 32GB, as most boards have at least a max of 32GB's, but some boards to exceed this (more is not bad, but less is).

gctest50

myIdea wrote: »

Not for gaming, but I will be using it for video/conversions - regardless of that though.

Would a hardware device work for the conversions?



http://www.amazon.com/Canopus-ADVC-110-Advanced-Digital-Converter/dp/B000CDMYAE/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_6/187-8111332-3252365

Greenmachine

Cool thanks for the answer.

NowThatsCool

32gb of ram is huge. Really huge. Some other factors to consder...

Does it have onboard graphics. If you plan to use a graphics card then you prob don't need it.
How many sata ports does it have. I have a board with 2 - too few; and another with 6 - much better.
What about on board sound ? How many channels has it got and will you use 'em.
How many USB ports has it; you'd be surprised how you can fill them. I'd say 6 onboard is a minimum.
Manufacturer is important. One of my boards is by a bust company, so no more support :-(
Other obvious ones are intel vs. Amd, what socket, what bus speed, etc.

Just some non-ram considerations, hope this helps,

MovingOut

Sorry to add a question here but is wrong with wanting 32GB of RAM ??

It is the first place people think of to make a new PC run faster than the old one they have. It is the first thing in my head.

I have an Acer 9420 laptop and am really tired of its sluggishness of it.
IT is so slow and pages a lot of the time and it has the max ram.

I would like a new system to last as long as possible so building with the initial thought of 32GB of RAM cannot be too wrong.

But I have little idea about processor and motherboard. A little help I would appreciate. I have no preference AMD Intel or similar for the motherboard.

One reason I have that I would like 32 at least is that I would run VMs on it and also run old back up images. I would also like to do kernel compiling of linux. And a little bit of photo editing and would like to start a bit of video editing.

Your thoughts and comments appreciated, thanks,
Julian

yawhat!

16GB should be plenty I think, no point getting 32GB I'd say. Monitor the Ram usage and if you need more then buy more. No point buying 32GB if your only going to be utilizing half it. The Processor is the main part of the computer I'd be spending the most on to make a computer last. Probably would go down the Xeon route for around 200 or an i7 for around 280 if you were planning on overclocking

Drakar

MovingOut wrote: »

Sorry to add a question here but is wrong with wanting 32GB of RAM ??
...

For me, running world of tanks, eve online, hearthstone, some twitch streams and a number of browser tabs all at the same time uses less than 4gb total for me (depends on what you're doing in each of course). Extra memory only makes a difference if you have apps that want to use it. At the moment very few people would probably see much of an advantage in going from 8 to 16, but sometimes its cheap enough not to worry about the difference.

MovingOut

Ok, Thanks yawhat! and Draker

Ok, I would like a 32 max ram motherboard + processor recommendation ? Any ideas?

Why one and not the other ? I have seen lots of reasons such as get lots of usb etc

Anything else to think of ?