Motherboard preferences

[Alex1966]

OK this may be an odd one, but I am getting to the time to replace my PC, but will wait until this years new CPU's are out.  What I am interested in is what to look for and avoid on a motherboard, things like the Lan chip, audio (would like coax spdif) and storage controllers. Ideally I want to fit a lot of storage in the machine, looking at an Nvme drive for OS and another for current work plus if possible 6 or more Sata drives, but a good solid board is more important and if need be Ill add Sata cards. Also are any makers more reliable than the others.

[BobVonBob]

If you can, only Intel networking. Others have gotten better over the years, but Intel's chips are still consistently great and have very low CPU usage.

 

Digital audio like spdif is identical between literally everything since the DAC and amplifier are going to be external.

 

Minimal if any difference between SATA storage controllers, everything is fast enough for your needs nowadays. But check your motherboard's manual since many boards will disable a secondary PCIe slot if you use an NVMe drive.

 

Watch out for the CPU VRM. Generally more VRM phases is better, but companies will lie about phase numbers all the time by combining memory, graphics, and CPU phases into one number, or try to fake phases by doubling components (often the inductors/FETs) to do the same thing. MSI seems particularly prone to doing this iirc.

[TH3R34P3R]

 

14 minutes ago, Alex1966 said:

Also are any makers more reliable than the others.

so for this: I would say Gigabyte and MSI are the best for intel right now. MSI made some very good AMD boards for ryzen, same with ASrock and gigabyte. 

 

Asus just is there. Overcharging for their parts as of late for the "ROG" branding. 

 

This is probably the best non ASUS board for X470 for AMD right now- and yes, its got the 6 sata ports for the drives. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3mm323/gigabyte-x470-aorus-gaming-7-wifi-atx-am4-motherboard-x470-aorus-gaming-7-wifi

 

There is this one with 8 SATA ports - https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LkWfrH/asrock-x470-taichi-ultimate-atx-am4-motherboard-x470-taichi-ultimate but it has a confusing bios. However it has 10gigabit ethernet on the board. 

 

This is the best z390 board. hands down: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/fyrmP6/gigabyte-z390-aorus-master-atx-lga1151-motherboard-z390-aorus-master

 

Z390 with 10gb ethernet: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Bj97YJ/asrock-z390-taichi-ultimate-atx-lga1151-motherboard-z390-taichi-ultimate (also 8 sata)

[TH3R34P3R]

1 minute ago, BobVonBob said:

try to fake phases by doubling components to do the same thing

ASUS Z390