Why Motherboard Shopping is CONFUSING
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
960 words · ~4 min read
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if you're getting ready to build your own pc selecting a motherboard might
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seem pretty straightforward you just pick something with a compatible socket
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that has the right aesthetic and you're ready to go right no
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not so fast even motherboards with the same CPU socket can be equipped with
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different chipsets that affect what features will be available to you
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the good news is that typically motherboard manufacturers will indicate
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the chipset right in the model name so that you'll know exactly what you're
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getting but the bad news is that unless you already know what they stand for the
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confusing mix of letters and numbers conveys about as much meaning as a piece
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of abstract modern art so let's demystify the men starting on the Intel
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side team blue assigns a letter to their
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chipsets h b q z or x along with a
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three-digit number the letter will tell you which general tier the chipset is in
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starting at the bottom h chipsets are lower end to mid-tier consumer grade
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chipsets while b chipsets are technically geared more towards
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businesses with that said the distinction between h and b has eroded
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significantly in recent years b chipsets
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used to provide more support for legacy features like conventional pci for
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businesses that needed to use older parts but these days there's no
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significant difference between them and either would be suitable for a budget to
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mid-range build q-chipsets have actually kind of turned into the step up for
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entry-level pcs and they support extra enterprise features such as remote
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management if you want something on the higher end you'll probably be more
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interested in the z and x chipsets which
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both feature full support for overclocking so if you bought an
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unlocked processor you'll want to choose either a z or x series motherboard with
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the latter found on Intel's upper tier high end desktop or hedt platform that
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supports cpus with more memory channels more pci express lanes and extra
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processing cores so that takes care of the letters now let's talk about the
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numbers the first digit tells us which generation of chipset we're dealing with
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and whether it will be compatible at all with your processor
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then beyond that higher numbers typically mean better features such as
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improved pci express connectivity more usb ports more memory slots or
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compatibility with optane memory which you can learn more about right up here
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but what if you're more of a team red person and you've got an AMD CPU well
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like Intel they combine both a letter and a number with newer chipsets for
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ryzen cpus using the letters a to indicate an entry level chipset b to
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mean mid-grade or mainstream and x for
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extreme i mean enthusiast
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so here's what this means in practical terms you'll need either a b or x series
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chipset to overclock an x chip set to use sli and either an x or a b 450 for
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crossfire you'll also find more SATA ports more usb headers and again more
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flexibility in the pci express implementation the further up the
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product stack you go now currently the number will either start with a three or
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a four with four indicating a second generation part that supports AMD store
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mi which caches your frequently used data from your hard drive to an SSD also
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of note is that currently all ryzen cpus
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will work with all zen chipsets though a
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second gen ryzen chip might need a BIOS update to work with a 300 series
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motherboard and as always make sure you've at least got the sockets lined up
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because a threadripper chip is technically ryzen threadripper but it
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won't work in a b450 board so hopefully this episode has cleared
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things up for you but if it hasn't and you're still super confused
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i get it this stuff is hard there's no shame in just buying a laptop and being
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