Old high end motherboards

[Faisal A]

Does anybody know of old high end motherboard with good VRMs that are now cheap ? Something like LGA775, AMD, AM3, B250 e.t.c. I want something that looks nice with VRM heatsinks

[Zando Bob]

Why? 

[Fasauceome]

13 minutes ago, Faisal A said:

B250

Old?

[dizmo]

You're probably better off buying something newer if you're looking for performance.

[Damascus]

P55 had some crazy mobos that are all pretty cheap, like the entire upper end EVGA lineup.  X58 is another obvious example, but the boards have kept their value to an almost ridiculous extent.  I would just look at your local classified or a swapping subreddit (r/hardwareswap, for example) and punch in every generations high end chipset.  Start with P55, then go through z68, z87, z97, z170 etc.  If you have a higher budget, x58, x79 or even x99 are all still solid performers and generally look overbuilt and smexy

[Zando Bob]

20 hours ago, Damascus said:

 If you have a higher budget, x58, x79 or even x99 are all still solid performers and generally look overbuilt and smexy

+100 for older X chipsets. X58 gives you triple channel RAM and x79 does quad, both run DDR3. Meaning you can yoink cheap DDR3 kits and OC them, that + the extra channels will give you solid bandwidth compared to normal dual channel DDR4. Though given the price drops for DDR4 it's not as big of an advantage as it used to be. 
 

CPUs for these platforms are also very affordable and OC hella well. X56xx series Xeons on X58 can be had for $12-60 depending on the model, can take stupid voltages and keep kicking (most will do 4.5Ghz, higher if you have a decent bin and are willing to give them more voltage). For X79, the 3930Ks OC very well and are hella cheap. There's some OCable Xeons for that platform too. X99 has the 5820K/5930K as cheaper CPUs, and the 5960X and 6950X on the higher end. Wouldn't reccomend the 6000 series for OCing - the 6950X is there because it's best in socket (basically a 7900X, a bit faster in games IIRC) - on average they don't OC as well as the 5000 series.