Is it me or are the new AM4 motherboards really over the top ugly?

[GER_T4IGA]

I am well aware that this is a highly subjective topic but I just think that some basic principles of design seem to be violently brocken with these motherboard designs.
About my own taste: I am not against colour but I usually prefere something subtile and organized. It might come as a surprise but I don't acctually caer to much about the colour of my stuff. I have a MSI Z77-GD65 which is brown/blue with a mix of 2x Kingston HyperX RAM in blue and 2x Corsair Vengeance LPX with a Gainward GTX 1080 Phoenix (red ...) which I bought for performance and great cooler not the colour. In the back of my Fractal Design Define R4 sits a poop-brown Noctua NF-S12A and I bought windowed sidepanel after the fact. When it is dark I don't see it that much but i will be starring at my screens anway. Why do I care? -Idk, I just see a lot of people caring and despite the fact of not caring feel that i have a sense of what a well desinged board looks like. In the end I felt the need to ask some more people like you if feel the same way.

Additionally Jayztwocents recently made a video with a strawpol under it asking if we would rather buy neutral looking gear. I would if the performance wasn't a compromise but it usually is and feel like neutral doesn't meant whatever the hell some of these manufacturers do with their 'neutral' black/white/grey/silver boards.

I would like to know if you guys feel the same about these motherboard or is is just me?

CAUTION, spoiler below is huge.

 

 

ASRock AB350 Pro4 - this is more in the bearable range but would still deem this looking a little unorganized. You can't really tell what that stripe is supposed to underline ...

(https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll1280/13-157-761-V01.jpg?w=660&h=500)



 

MSI B350 TOMAHAWK ARCTIC -  Yes it is a nice white tone but this is where the stripe and flag madness starts. Why coulnd't they have gone with something more parallel to just anything on the board. It is still not terrible imo(!) because grey on white is rather subtile. (https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll1280/13-144-028-Z03.jpg?w=660&h=500)



Biostar B350GT5 / BIOSTAR X370GT5 - This is where the really terrible ones come in (imo). Now what were they thinking? (https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll1280/13-138-445-Z03.jpg?w=660&h=500)



Is this really still cool? I don't think we are living in 2005 anymore: (https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/nfs/images/5/56/NFSMWVinyls_RaceFlag7.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20151222225714&path-prefix=en)



ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac - Ok, call it 'Killer' of you want. I still highly doubt anyone is going to buy it for that reason but did you really need to slap on that huge 'K' on an otherwise pretty decent looking motherboard with black white and grey accents. It does not complement the line of the motherboard and generally looks placed comepletly random which is weird.(https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll1280/13-157-769-V07.jpg?w=660&h=500)



MSI X370 Krait Gaming Not only the terrible font on the I/O-shield but also the completely random pattern. The pattern spans across motherboard CPU VRM cooling and the I/O-Shield but they didn't think about matching it up with the black and white coloured PCIe slots ... Well done MSI, well done. Also why is the black 'scrathc' on the VRM cooler on the top going at a 90° angle compared to the others, why are the bottom pins framed white when all of the connectors are black, WTF? .... I have no words.  (https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll1280/13-144-023-V01.jpg?w=660&h=500)



Asus Prime X370-Pro - Just generally a bit messy design wise. It is defintely not amongst the worst (imo) but I would like to mentiopn it anyway. Although it mostly flows with the lines of the components and doesn't randomly flow through components like the most top right 'scratch' on the MSI that goes through the AM4 socket. I still feel like this is too many tones of colour: Yellow, different grey tones on the ram Slots, the PCIe slots the AM4 socket, components on the board, flashing silver on the VRM cooling, black on the board and black on the RAM slots. (https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImageCompressAll1280/13-132-964-V01.jpg?w=660&h=500)


 

 

 

If you are just here to simply the ask me why I care please do me a favor and just ignore this post and move on. I would really like to hear your opinion in this topic though.

[Ryujin2003]

I really do not think these boards are ugly. I think ugly boards are the cheap ones made of random colours, a if all of the plastic parts were scrounged together from spare parts and recycling.

 

 

Needless to say, I think we've come a long way.

[Technomancer__]

its just you

doesn't asus prime x370 look nice or hero 6

[Technomancer__]

3 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I really do not think these boards are ugly. I think ugly boards are the cheap ones made of random colours, a if all of the plastic parts were scrounged together from spare parts and recycling.

 

 

Needless to say, I think we've come a long way.

lol the first mobo looks like myne

[Squibbies18]

11 minutes ago, GER_T4IGA said:

I am well aware that this is a highly subjective topic but I just think that some basic principles of design seem to be violently brocken with these motherboard designs.
About my own taste: I am not against colour but I usually prefere something subtile and organized. It might come as a surprise but I don't acctually caer to much about the colour of my stuff. I have a MSI Z77-GD65 which is brown/blue with a mix of 2x Kingston HyperX RAM in blue and 2x Corsair Vengeance LPX with a Gainward GTX 1080 Phoenix (red ...) which I bought for performance and great cooler not the colour. In the back of my Fractal Design Define R4 sits a poop-brown Noctua NF-S12A and I bought windowed sidepanel after the fact. When it is dark I don't see it that much but i will be starring at my screens anway. Why do I care? -Idk, I just see a lot of people caring and despite the fact of not caring feel that i have a sense of what a well desinged board looks like. In the end I felt the need to ask some more people like you if feel the same way.

To be honest the only AM4 boards i like the look of are these: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON/dp/B06WWR533P/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492171660&sr=1-2&keywords=am4+motherboard

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WXX7DYK/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492171723&sr=1-3&keywords=am4+motherboard

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GIGABYTE-GA-AX370-Gaming-K5-Socket-Motherboard/dp/B06WWC7BFH/ref=sr_1_12?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492171723&sr=1-12&keywords=am4+motherboard

 

 

 

 

[Technomancer__]

3 hours ago, Squibbies18 said:

To be honest the only AM4 boards i like the look of are these: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON/dp/B06WWR533P/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492171660&sr=1-2&keywords=am4+motherboard

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WXX7DYK/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492171723&sr=1-3&keywords=am4+motherboard

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GIGABYTE-GA-AX370-Gaming-K5-Socket-Motherboard/dp/B06WWC7BFH/ref=sr_1_12?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1492171723&sr=1-12&keywords=am4+motherboard

 

 

 

 

then get one of these

i would get the hero

[papes]

The decent looking boards are the most expensive and I don't wanna drop extra cash when I don't require the features. I also whinged last night about how many of them are red.

[Droidbot]

Worthy of being in the 'shitlist' is the Gigabyte AORUS boards:

Looks like a fucking halloween decoration. RGB LEDs tacked on everywhere. A fucking RGB strip randomly on the side with a strange pattern??

 

Also the ASUS PRIME B350-PLUS:

What the fuck? Red traces, red PCH heatsink, red power delivery heatsinks, it's just fucking disgusting.

 

Not bad:

MSI PRO: 

MSI CARBON:

 

(besides the dog ugly  RGB, it's not bad looking if you have the basic stuff lit up) 

[iBabySlapper]

The AM4 boards are mostly cosmetically the same, aside from the socket, as the intel counterparts really.

Aside from some of ASUS's lower offerings, I think motherboards these days look great.

[stealth80]

7 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Worthy of being in the 'shitlist' is the Gigabyte AORUS boards:

Looks like a fucking halloween decoration. RGB LEDs tacked on everywhere. A fucking RGB strip randomly on the side with a strange pattern??

 

 

It's actually a decent looking board imo, I bought it sooo, but they did pick the worst colours to showcase the RGB ......

 

[Droidbot]

Just now, stealth80 said:

-snip-

All that bloody white + LEDs must hurt your eyes at night

 

Awesome looking build, they did really fuck up by putting orange for the RGB colour.. 

[stealth80]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

All that bloody white + LEDs must hurt your eyes at night

 

Awesome looking build, they did really fuck up by putting orange for the RGB colour.. 

Thanks, took longer to change to Ryzen than it did to do the original build (fucking sleeving )

 

But ye, wtf they picked a dirty orange. the zones can be lit independent as well so they could have done that to show... .RGB....not just shit orange

[WereCat]

6 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

All that bloody white + LEDs must hurt your eyes at night

 

Awesome looking build, they did really fuck up by putting orange for the RGB colour.. 

I actually like the orange.... I would probably changed it to purple if I had it.

[Ryujin2003]

My MSI X370 Carbon Pro. Haven't really messed with colors and it's lighting yet. A lot of the LED's on these boards get covered up by other components anyways.

[Ryujin2003]

4 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

Thanks, took longer to change to Ryzen than it did to do the original build (fucking sleeving )

Haha, took longer for my switch since I had to wait for the damned AM4 bracket from Corsair.

 

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

I actually like the orange.... I would probably changed it to purple if I had it.

Maybe they were trying to appease LTT?

[stealth80]

I also think the AsRock Taichi (I can see why some wouldn't like it), MSI gaming pro carbon and the MSI X370 titanium are amongst the best looking X370 boards. The Asrock gaming/fatality are kinda cool as well, but I've spent 3 years trying to get away from red/black, from my original build

 

 

 

no laughing!!

[Droidbot]

4 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

-red-

Red makes it go faster!

And you want a fast machine for gaming, riiight?

- every marketing team

 

I've just never liked the red, I like black/white for contrast. Current system has Black everything and white LEDs on GPU/AIO block. 

 

[Jito463]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the shrouds.  I think that's what looks ugly, not so much the RGB (even though I'm not a huge fan of RGB, either).

[Zusafek]

Personally I like the biostar boards. That's actually what I'm going to be purchasing for my next build. Plus it has a checkered flag which means more fps. Right?

[NumLock21]

Was hoping Ryzen will get their own design, instead it's a copy and paste job from their Intel boards. Asrock giant K for Killer nic looks ridiculous and MSI Krait. What's with the scratch marks?! Wasn't the Krait logo a snake? Since when does snake have claws? Okay fine snake have claws, so a alligator must have bunny ears, cow hooves, tails from a parrot, and they bark and pant like a dog.