- It used to be that
choosing a Motherboard was a very stressful process
because choosing the wrong one could mean a serious impact
on your systems performance. But these days, it seems like
a common piece of advice, is to buy the cheapest thing
that has the CPU support and the ports that you want. But hold on, there is still a huge amount of variation in Motherboard pricing. It's not uncommon to see a
range from around 50 bucks to $500 on major retail sites. So what exactly are you getting
for all that extra money? First off, you may have
noticed that the more pricey Motherboards tend to
be girthier, heftier., and the huge reason for
this is that often times, the actual circuit board
that all the components are (mumbles) on top, is thicker. A think PCB has an obvious advantage. It makes the board more
durable and less likely to bend and flex when you are
installing it into your case or performing upgrades, which could damage the sensitive components
housed on the board. But there's also an
advantage you cannot see. Greater PCB thickness
means there's more room to embedded the electrical
traces that connect all the different components. Meaning, not only can a
thicker Motherboard contain thicker traces to carry more power, it can have more layers,
which can allow manufacturers to implement faster
technologies that require more complex trace designs. As we get newer standards
in the tech world that support high speeds,
they often have to be built, physically built, more stringently. Think about how moving data
at 10 gigabits per second over ethernet requires
a more complex cable, built to a tighter tolerances than moving just one gigabit per second, and Motherboards can be similar. For example, AMD announced in 2019, that the new PCI express
4.0 standard would not be supported by older chip sets. Not because it was impossible, but rather because many
of the Motherboards featuring those chip sets, weren't designed with the PCIe
Gen four data rates in mind. The rates people, the rates. Some boards might be
constructed robustly enough to handle those higher speeds but other, cheaper options
were barely good enough to carry a PCI 3.0 signal. A thick Motherboard also gives designers more room to separate different circuits, more effectively to cut
down on interference. This is especially true
for integrated audio, where putting more physical space between the audio components and the rest of the Motherboard, can often give you a cleaner
sounding final product. More expensive Motherboards,
very generally speaking, are also constructed
with features designed to increase their life span, and can be subjected to more rigorous quality assurance testing. Not only will the electrical
components like chokes and capacitors be made of
higher quality materials, but they'll also typically
have better cooling solutions for hot components like
voltage regulator modules, hence the beefy looking heat
sinks you often see sitting right above the CPU
socket on nicer models. Speaking of chokes,
price your Motherboards typically have more of them. Which usually means that the
power delivery to the CPU is spread out among more phases. This helps to stabilize power
delivery and provide more power to the processor that
a cheap board is able to. Now, this used to be very
important in achieving high overclocks, but
these days even lower cost Motherboards can deliver
some very good overclocks. If you're really trying to
push your CPU and squeeze every last megahertz you
can outta your silicone, a higher quality board
can still be helpful. But, not only because of the hardware. Luxury Motherboards
often offer more features that you can't see. Overclock or centric boards
will get extra attention to those features from
the former engineers and the list of little extra's
is actually quite long. Like having a backup BIOS, the ability to flash firmware,
without a CPU installed, diagnostic read outs, and more user configurable options, and a more powerful audio amplifier, reinforced expansion slots
and more parts and headers, RGB lighting, et cetera. Back to the original question though, is all this stuff worth it? Well, while a pricey
Motherboard might be built well enough to support additional features through the use of add on chips and give you slightly more
overclocking head room, we'd say that you really
need a pretty specific reason for venturing into the upper price tiers. If you're looking at a cheap Motherboard, it most likely is gonna
give you virtually the same raw performance as a more expensive one, as long as it's built to spec. So, check out reviews
and make sure above all, you're choosing something reliable. Then, if you have a
special need for something like a ton of fan headers, or if you're planning
to use the Motherboard for a really long time,
like more than five years, you can look at spending
extra in those cases, and we'd never judge you
if you're paying more just because, you're
really serious about having a vapor wave themed build. Who's to say? This video is brought to you by Blinkist. Blinkist takes the best
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