Other than overclocking, why does a good motherboard matter?

O

oregon

Active Member
I'm becoming interested in building a computer, but I have lots of questions that I want to ask. First of all, what's the difference between a good motherboard and a shitty one? Don't motherboards just connect the other components, and not actually affect performance?

I also want to know if the following are universally compatible with all motherboards: RAM, hard drives, DVD drives, and bluetooth cards.
 
Im not sure about the differences between good and bad boards, but the saying "you get what you pay for" holds true i reckon...
Look at the m/board's chipset, and try to get the latest one you can afford.

As for parts being compatible:
if you have a SATA hard drive (or optical drive), you'll need a SATA plug on your m/board. same goes for PATA (IDE).
hard drives are mostly SATA now though, and SATA optical drives are making more of an appearance these days.

There are different types of RAM - DDR, DDR2 and DDR3, and within those types there are different speeds. You need to match your RAM to your motherboard.

Bluetooth cards i assume are PCI or USB, so yep they'll work no worries.

I hope that helps... if you want more info theres some pretty good stuff in 'sticky' posts at the top of each forum category.
 
Overclocking is one of the big differences between the cheapest and most expensive motherboards, but there is alot more to it then that. For instance, getting a motherboard with a newer, high-end chipset gives you better overall performance, usually offers more features and ports, such as a large number of SATA connectors, dual-NIC's, eSATA, optical out, 2 or 3 PCI-E x16 slots, SLI/CF ready, etc.

They also use higher end PCB, resistors, voltage regulators, etc for a more stable system.
 
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