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today's video is part of a series that I'm bringing back from the dead called

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ultimate question and final answer where I take a question that I've been asked a

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million times so examples of previous segments include Intel versus AMD or

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air-cooling versus water-cooling and ARM you guys with the tools to answer it not

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only today but well into the future so what is the best choice for a computer

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motherboard let's answer it shall we

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the gtx 980ti VR edition from EVGA

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provides an industry-leading graphics experience as well as a five and a

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quarter inch bay with easy access inputs for your VR device learn more at the

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link in the video description there's a

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fundamental problem with the way that many people tackle choosing the best

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motherboard I mean we've all seen that forum post that's all like yo I just

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want a million dollars check out this sick build yo I'm gonna buy it

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ignoring that the poster is usually a teenager who just learned how to sort by

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price and through all the most expensive components many of which aren't even

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compatible half the time let alone optimal into a shopping cart the

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underlying issue here is that people are assuming that if they pay more they will

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end up with a better experience but that isn't always the case let's take these

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two products both of which that I have used as examples each of these

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motherboards sits in that top-of-the-line $600 price range but

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while this one is suitable for a general

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consumer and light workstation use you know we're talking gaming ripping

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blu-rays listening to music video editing this one is better suited for

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installation in a server that will do complex video or 3d rendering or run a

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large number of virtual machines or a demanding database or I mean with the

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horsepower that can be equipped with some combination of those things but

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this is where it gets kind of tricky as we demonstrated in this video

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aside from the hardware that can be

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plugged into a motherboard the board itself doesn't meaningfully impact raw

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performance anymore so unless you're looking at some kind of semi custom

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super computer hardware or like RISC

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architecture stuff any board that takes an Intel x86 processor can do all of

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those things that I listed before the difference then is in the features that

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the manufacturer has spent money developing and implementing and that

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therefore you will pay for that only benefit certain use cases not to mention

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that on top of ending up with if you don't need you're going to have

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to live without or pay extra to enable

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features that the manufacturer didn't bother to put on this server motherboard

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would make for a real downer of the gaming rig it doesn't have SLI or

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crossfire support from multiple graphics cards limiting your gaming performance

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to the best single card available forever it doesn't have onboard Wi-Fi or

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USB 3.1 or even onboard audio it lacks

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the capability to add a Thunderbolt card for prosumer external storage it doesn't

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have overclocking features and finally it has the kind of rear i/o that you'd

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expect to find on a $50.00 motherboard

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on a shelf at Best Buy six years ago four USB ports of which only two are USB

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3 even but and this is the first main

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point today get a product that's actually designed for your use case

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because there's a reason that this is still expensive even with all that stuff

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missing the server board has two CPU

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sockets with quadruple the memory slot count giving it the capability of

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supporting much more RAM and much more CPU horsepower something that consumers

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will be hard-pressed to benefit from since very few workloads can actually

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utilize up to 36 processing cores on their own the variant of this board that

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costs the same as this consumer one has got dual ten gigabit network ports only

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useful if you want to also drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on a 10 gigabit

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switch and other clients it's got onboard VGA which is a must since you

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won't necessarily be putting a graphics card in it and VGA is still very widely

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used more than you'd think in server level gear it's got and this is tied in

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to the VGA a dedicated network port for what's called IPMI remote management

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this was a must for me for my off-site

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backup server because it lets me monitor vital information like CPU temperatures

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install software off of virtual media and see what that VGA port sees over the

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network or even read or power the system on from a completely

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off state from hundreds of kilometers away and it's got other stuff that you

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might not even think would be useful like dedicated hardware jumper switches

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for things that consumers would normally prefer to be handled in a software

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switch within the UEFI BIOS so then for

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contrast let's take a look at the strengths of the consumer motherboard

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this is the Maximus 8 extreme assembly a very premium consumer board so

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surprisingly it actually has a 10 gigabit network card bundled but aside

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from that it's highlight features are very very different it's got a breakout

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fan controller module for intelligent and quiet system operation something

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that doesn't matter in a data center it's got thermal probes that you can

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place yourself for system monitoring it's got this rocking onboard audio with

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the front headphone jack something I can't imagine to many IT pros using in

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their server room designed to drive high-end audiophile headphones it's got

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an easy memory compatibility button support for multiple graphics cards full

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overclocking support including a liquid-nitrogen mode I mean all of that

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it's got our DB lighting for crying out loud all of that stuff is like yeah

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that's pretty cool for consumers and enthusiasts but would be completely

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meaningless in a server where they'd be like I'm sorry it supports only for

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processing course which leads us to the second main point don't buy stuff that

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you don't need once you're looking at the right category ask yourself do you

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really need liquid nitrogen mode or whatever because both of these examples

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are premium products and the reason for that is because it's easier to

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demonstrate the feature differences when both products are fully loaded so to

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speak but here are a couple of boards in

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the $200 price range where the main difference is still that the consumer

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gaming motherboard has more i/o and

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better audio and is better looking and

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the professional server motherboard has remote management and better networking

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leading us to the final point and that is that there is no single

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answer it's not that simple if you

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wanted to hear you know buy the most expensive Gigabyte board or ASUS rog is

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the best or Supermicro never-fail or whatever even that's not possible

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because any one of those companies can make a winner or a total dud from my

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experience so I always use consumer reviews usually from verified owners on

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Newegg or Amazon whenever possible for

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motherboards because it's my belief that it is simply impossible for a single

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person with a single test bench to adequately test the motherboard for all

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the different things that might be thrown at it in the real world

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so in summary determine the features that are meaningful to you understand

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that spending more doesn't necessarily yield any sort of benefit and make sure

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to get specific feedback on the models that you're comparing and on that

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subject mass drop mass drop is the online community where basically the

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community says hey we want to deal on like this thing and they've got on

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different stuff they take that to the manufacturer or an authorized

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distributor to make sure they're getting genuine product they go hey we've got a

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bunch of people who want to buy this what do you say the more people who

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agree to buy the lower the price goes sounds good sounds good and that's

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pretty much the way it works and right now they've got a mass drop exclusive

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product thus entrance and DAC port slim

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the slim builds on the success of the DAC port classic bringing the power of

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the classic into a two and a half ounce package it features a max output power

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of 450 milliwatts and output impedance of 1 ohm a 20 decibel gain switch

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between the minimum and the maximum it

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resolutions it features a dynamic range of 109 decibels and again it is mass

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drop exclusive and available for a very limited time and quantity with only 350

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units available at the time of filming this spot it's already reached its

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lowest drop price of $99.99 and there are over 80 orders so to check it out

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head over to draw dot slash LTT - centrist

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to learn well - check it out but I already that and if that's complicated there's a

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link in the video description just click it and go so thanks for watching guys if

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this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit

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that like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our

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affiliate code to shop at Amazon instructions for which for up there buying a cool shirt like this one or

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with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum which by the

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way is awesome you can get answers to your tech questions there it's linked in the video description now that you're

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done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch that so check out this recent video on channel

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super fun I guarantee you it will be fun and super and it will be on a channel

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yep it's all right in the name