It is true that the motherboard does not bring significant gains in terms of performance. But the quality of its components is very important
Hardware & Technical Time to build second PC need advice
- Thread starter lysan
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Only if you are pushing your components via overclocking, or you need really "clean" sound circuitry or have some other power user type plan in mind, unless you buy a cheap Chinese knock off any of the budget offering from the reputable manufactures will do the job reliably enough.
Of course as the OP says he has no budget I would choose a higher end one for the build, based on high quality components rather than the boards feature list.
I chose mine based on support for M.2 drives, good power delivery stages for over clocking, SLI, isolated sound components and reinforced steel PCIE slots to help with the weight of giant GPUs, (and looks as it happens, I have a tempered glass panel so it had to look decent) it came with stuff i won't use but that's the way of things unfortunately.
I ended up with this one, probably better choices now but as I say, built mine a while back now.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z170X-Ultra-Gaming-rev-10#ov
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Good analysis here.
Good components allow normally to keep the motherboard in the long term (I change the motherboard and CPU after 8 years on average).
USB connections are important to me, the more the merrier, I got a lot of flightsim equipment that need to be connectedother than that I really don't need anything as i got most of it in spareparts including a good audio board.
Another thing worth thinking about is the connectivity on the case itself, My NZXT S340 has 4 USB sockets on the front (2 usb 3 and 2 usb 2), and an HDMI socket, means you don't have to scrabble round the back when you want to plug a VR headset in.
To my way of thinking (which is to build a stable system that does not require much in the way of re-working) there are three critical components. I have already covered the motherboard (and while I do not necessarily go for performance I ALWAYS go for reliability), and the other two peripherals are the case and the PSU. Everything else can be replaced easily (cost not withstanding), but a good case (with clean access) makes it a joy to work on the PC, while the PSU is the heart of the system, and needs to provide sufficient CLEAN power for the system to work stably. These three items (even if they are not major performance components) should provide stable foundations to build a good strong system on.
I have an Asus Maximus VII Ranger motherboard (it is now two years old), a Corsair RM850 PSU (it has happily powered two GTX970 cards, and is currently making a GTX1080 happy), and a twenty year old Freeway case. This case has done sterling service, and is made of brushed aluminium and stainless steel. Even now I have ALL of the original screws (nothing has stripped threads). To remove the motherboard (with all cards in place) you disconnect the cables, undo 6 thumb screws, and slide the assembly out. There is room for thirteen drives; four 5 1/4 front panel drives, two 3 1/2 front panel drives, and seven 3 1/2 internal drives, and there are a pair of 120mm fans (these had to be replaced a couple of years ago, as the original ones started to get very noisy).
I have, in the past, had to help people out with badly designed cases (unless the designer had a fetish for razor blades; then it was perfect!), weak power supplies, or unreliable motherboards. These have never been nice to work on. Get the foundations right and then everything else becomes simple to work with.
If you want to find (what I believe to be) a reliable source of tests I would suggest you look out for a magazine called PC Pro. They do honest reviews, and something they often do is to get a whole bunch of similar peripherals (such as graphics cards) and then put them through a series of identical tests. This is call the Labs tests (if my memory is correct). I remember one month where they tested 60 motherboards (split into two sections; Intel and AMD), and listed their costs and results.
http://www.dennis.co.uk/brands/technology/pc-pro/
I have an Asus Maximus VII Ranger motherboard (it is now two years old), a Corsair RM850 PSU (it has happily powered two GTX970 cards, and is currently making a GTX1080 happy), and a twenty year old Freeway case. This case has done sterling service, and is made of brushed aluminium and stainless steel. Even now I have ALL of the original screws (nothing has stripped threads). To remove the motherboard (with all cards in place) you disconnect the cables, undo 6 thumb screws, and slide the assembly out. There is room for thirteen drives; four 5 1/4 front panel drives, two 3 1/2 front panel drives, and seven 3 1/2 internal drives, and there are a pair of 120mm fans (these had to be replaced a couple of years ago, as the original ones started to get very noisy).
I have, in the past, had to help people out with badly designed cases (unless the designer had a fetish for razor blades; then it was perfect!), weak power supplies, or unreliable motherboards. These have never been nice to work on. Get the foundations right and then everything else becomes simple to work with.
If you want to find (what I believe to be) a reliable source of tests I would suggest you look out for a magazine called PC Pro. They do honest reviews, and something they often do is to get a whole bunch of similar peripherals (such as graphics cards) and then put them through a series of identical tests. This is call the Labs tests (if my memory is correct). I remember one month where they tested 60 motherboards (split into two sections; Intel and AMD), and listed their costs and results.
http://www.dennis.co.uk/brands/technology/pc-pro/
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Why not get the new Titan V from Nvidia? 15 frikkin TFLOPS on a single chip! All for just 2990 bucks.
And limited to 2 per customer with free shipping
I recently rebuilt the guts of my machine and it's now a beast:
Asus Prime X299-Deluxe Mobo
DDR4 2000 mhz 32 Gigs
i7-7820x CPU
Asus ROG Strix 11G 1080 ti gpu
It blazes. Every game in my library at max settings without breaking a sweat. The cpu is killer, and with the X299 mobo I have the foundation required to upgrade the cpu to one of the bigger, pricier models down the road if it becomes necessary.
Asus Prime X299-Deluxe Mobo
DDR4 2000 mhz 32 Gigs
i7-7820x CPU
Asus ROG Strix 11G 1080 ti gpu
It blazes. Every game in my library at max settings without breaking a sweat. The cpu is killer, and with the X299 mobo I have the foundation required to upgrade the cpu to one of the bigger, pricier models down the road if it becomes necessary.