What is the best choice for a motherboard? - The Final Answer
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,738 words · ~8 min read
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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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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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