I don't know much about motherboards, and i'm trying to upgrade my current pc piece by piece

[drakon beatbox]

I currently have the Gigabyte GA-H110M-A LGA1151 Intel H110 Micro ATX DDR4 Motherboard. I'm not sure what that means. I could really use some help in finding a good motherboard to upgrade from my current one. Any help will be appreciated.

[dizmo]

Why do you want to upgrade your motherboard? You very rarely get anything from it.

 

Welcome to the forum.

[LukeSavenije]

4 minutes ago, drakon beatbox said:

I currently have the Gigabyte GA-H110M-A LGA1151 Intel H110 Micro ATX DDR4 Motherboard. I'm not sure what that means. I could really use some help in finding a good motherboard to upgrade from my current one. Any help will be appreciated.

h series is about the most basic you could get. no overclocking, no extra functions. just basic for a basic price. if you plan on running a k series processor, get a z series mobo. with 6 or 7 series chips, get a z270 or z170 mobo from a company like asus, msi, asrock or gigabyte. but ryzen is a good choise too if you want to boost your performence and get some extra cores

[drakon beatbox]

9 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Why do you want to upgrade your motherboard? You very rarely get anything from it.

 

Welcome to the forum.

I want to upgrade it because this one isn't very good for what i'll eventually get everything else upgraded to. I thought i may as well get a good motherboard with decent stuff to match it first, rather than good stuff and a bad motherboard. I only have one gpu slot, 2 ram slots, and unused I/O i could that the space could be used for something else. Not to mention, i only have 2 usb 3.0 ports on the back, with 4 more usb 2.0 ports. 

[drakon beatbox]

6 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

h series is about the most basic you could get. no overclocking, no extra functions. just basic for a basic price. if you plan on running a k series processor, get a z series mobo. with 6 or 7 series chips, get a z270 or z170 mobo from a company like asus, msi, asrock or gigabyte. but ryzen is a good choise too if you want to boost your performence and get some extra cores

thanks for the suggestions. If you will, can you tell me what the listed information means in the name of those motherboards? it would help me get a better understanding of what is good and bad for motherboards.

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, drakon beatbox said:

I want to upgrade it because this one isn't very good for what i'll eventually get everything else upgraded to. I thought i may as well get a good motherboard with decent stuff to match it first, rather than good stuff and a bad motherboard. I only have one gpu slot, 2 ram slots, and unused I/O i could that the space could be used for something else. Not to mention, i only have 2 usb 3.0 ports on the back, with 4 more usb 2.0 ports. 

What do you plan to upgrade to? Honestly, it's not a very smart idea to pay much for older tech. Upgrading your motherboard without anything else still restricts you to 6th and 7th generation processors, when even the i5 from the 8th generation competes with the i7 from the 6th/7th gen.

• You probably don't need more than 2 RAM slots
• SLI isn't a smart investment when you're in the low end, so you don't really need more than one GPU slot
• If you need more USB ports, you can use a hub or an internal PCI card

TL;DR: Upgrading just your motherboard isn't a smart use of funds.

[drakon beatbox]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

What do you plan to upgrade to? Honestly, it's not a very smart idea to pay much for older tech. Upgrading your motherboard without anything else still restricts you to 6th and 7th generation processors, when even the i5 from the 8th generation competes with the i7 from the 6th/7th gen.

• You probably don't need more than 2 RAM slots
• SLI isn't a smart investment when you're in the low end, so you don't really need more than one GPU slot
• If you need more USB ports, you can use a hub or an internal PCI card

TL;DR: Upgrading just your motherboard isn't a smart use of funds.

I plan to upgrade to much better components like the i7, 1070 or 1080, and 16 gigs of DDR4 ram. I'm currently using the i3 7th gen, gtx 1050, and 8 gigs of DDR3 ram. I would still like to know much more about motherboards, even if i don't end up upgrading the mobo first. (also i think i should mention this isn't going to be a fast upgrade, probably stretched over the next 2 years or so. I might even just buy the parts for a better pc and keep them off to the side until i can put it all together.) and i don't need more usb ports, it's just i would rather have all usb 3 ports. my case is a bit older, and i would like to have a much more recent case

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, drakon beatbox said:

I plan to upgrade to much better components like the i7, 1070 or 1080, and 16 gigs of DDR4 ram. I'm currently using the i3 7th gen, gtx 1050, and 8 gigs of DDR3 ram. I would still like to know much more about motherboards, even if i don't end up upgrading the mobo first. (also i think i should mention this isn't going to be a fast upgrade, probably stretched over the next 2 years or so. I might even just buy the parts for a better pc and keep them off to the side until i can put it all together.) and i don't need more usb ports, it's just i would rather have all usb 3 ports. my case is a bit older, and i would like to have a much more recent case

The problem is that if you want a high end board that lets you keep your current cpu, you liimted to a quad core i7, the newer i5's would be faster and cheaper.

 

DDR4 vs ddr3 won't make a big difference.

 

Id just keep the board for a bit more, then get a board + cpu + mem upgrade.

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, drakon beatbox said:

I plan to upgrade to much better components like the i7, 1070 or 1080, and 16 gigs of DDR4 ram. I'm currently using the i3 7th gen, gtx 1050, and 8 gigs of DDR3 ram. I would still like to know much more about motherboards, even if i don't end up upgrading the mobo first. (also i think i should mention this isn't going to be a fast upgrade, probably stretched over the next 2 years or so. I might even just buy the parts for a better pc and keep them off to the side until i can put it all together.) and i don't need more usb ports, it's just i would rather have all usb 3 ports. my case is a bit older, and i would like to have a much more recent case

So you'd have to buy new RAM as well then. You might as well wait, and buy everything at once. Upgrading over time is a very poor decision. You should always build the PC all at once, otherwise you'll always have significantly outdated parts.

 

Just grab an expansion card for the USB ports. They're cheap. There isn't much point in upgrading to an older i7 when you can just grab a newer i5 and a cheaper motherboard.

 

If you want to know about motherboards, check this out:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/motherboard-buying-guide,5682.html

[drakon beatbox]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The problem is that if you want a high end board that lets you keep your current cpu, you liimted to a quad core i7, the newer i5's would be faster and cheaper.

 

DDR4 vs ddr3 won't make a big difference.

 

Id just keep the board for a bit more, then get a board + cpu + mem upgrade.

that's the thing. i want to upgrade to a really good pc. this isn't necessarily a super important thing for me to start right now, although i would still like to know what i'll be getting/ have an idea (since i'll hopefully know what i need to know about motherboards by then). 

 

I understand that DDR4 isn't a huge improvement over DDR3, but if i'm going to get more ram, i may as well get faster ram, too. 

 

i can easily upgrade them all at once, but i can also buy each part separately until i can put it all together if necessary. is it a good idea at all to upgrade my motherboard first? or should i try to upgrade some other components first and wait so my motherboard could keep up with the parts?

[drakon beatbox]

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

So you'd have to buy new RAM as well then. You might as well wait, and buy everything at once. Upgrading over time is a very poor decision. You should always build the PC all at once, otherwise you'll always have significantly outdated parts.

 

Just grab an expansion card for the USB ports. They're cheap. There isn't much point in upgrading to an older i7 when you can just grab a newer i5 and a cheaper motherboard.

 

If you want to know about motherboards, check this out:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/motherboard-buying-guide,5682.html

i'm not super worried about getting outdated parts, because i'm planning on keeping those parts for awhile. Although i understand why it is a poor decision. I'm not going to upgrade my cpu to an old i7, i would probably get a newer i7 because they are still pretty good. I'm not sure if you understand that i'm planning a large upgrade on my current pc. Like probably a $1500 to $2000 pc, as opposed to my current sub-$500 pc. I will gladly listen to anything you have to say, but i will also try to see if my plan will work at all.

[dizmo]

41 minutes ago, drakon beatbox said:

i'm not super worried about getting outdated parts, because i'm planning on keeping those parts for awhile. Although i understand why it is a poor decision. I'm not going to upgrade my cpu to an old i7, i would probably get a newer i7 because they are still pretty good. I'm not sure if you understand that i'm planning a large upgrade on my current pc. Like probably a $1500 to $2000 pc, as opposed to my current sub-$500 pc. I will gladly listen to anything you have to say, but i will also try to see if my plan will work at all.

If you're planning on keeping them for a while you should get the best you can when you build...

It doesn't make sense to buy an older i7 and spend the money on a motherboard when a newer i5 and a cheap motherboard will net you the same result performance wise for less money. Your plan is flawed. Don't try it.

[drakon beatbox]

On 11/4/2018 at 5:16 PM, dizmo said:

If you're planning on keeping them for a while you should get the best you can when you build...

It doesn't make sense to buy an older i7 and spend the money on a motherboard when a newer i5 and a cheap motherboard will net you the same result performance wise for less money. Your plan is flawed. Don't try it.

regardless of my plan being flawed or not, i came here asking for help on understanding more about motherboards not about getting bashed on my pc buying plan. 

[dizmo]

5 hours ago, drakon beatbox said:

regardless of my plan being flawed or not, i came here asking for help on understanding more about motherboards not about getting bashed on my pc buying plan. 

Yet, that's what you got. Surprise, you post things on a public forum and you'll get people's opinions.

Really, you should be thankful that people are willing to give you advice so you don't waste copious amounts of money.

[Dversity]

On 11/4/2018 at 10:21 PM, dizmo said:

You should always build the PC all at once, otherwise you'll always have significantly outdated parts.

Wow. You're the first person I see recommending that  Not saying you're wrong but I always say the opposite. 

 

Bought my 4790k with 980 4.5~ years ago, and I have just now upgraded my GPU to 2080. Now I get 130+ fps 1440p on all the games i I play on ultra or high graphics settings.

Upgrading my CPU wont  REALLY make that much of a difference. Buuut I guess you can only do that if you buy a high end components in the 1st place, like the OP havent done. 

[asand1]

Buying a motherboard that doesn't physically fit your current CPU and RAM is not really an upgrade yet though, is it?

 

You have been answered already. You need to decide what CPU you want first, then get an appropriate motherboard that will accommodate it.

[drakon beatbox]

On 11/7/2018 at 1:07 AM, dizmo said:

Yet, that's what you got. Surprise, you post things on a public forum and you'll get people's opinions.

Really, you should be thankful that people are willing to give you advice so you don't waste copious amounts of money.

so you're saying i should be thankful for getting any help at all on a forum that has thousands of members active everyday, looking for anybody to help out as much as they can?

you act like it's my fault other people came to me with their opinions and told me that my whole plan sucks all because of outdated parts. i think you fail to realize i don't care about outdated parts, i'm just looking to get something that could still be considered really good without having to be top of the line.

[drakon beatbox]

On 11/7/2018 at 1:42 PM, asand1 said:

Buying a motherboard that doesn't physically fit your current CPU and RAM is not really an upgrade yet though, is it?

 

You have been answered already. You need to decide what CPU you want first, then get an appropriate motherboard that will accommodate it.

if you had truly read all the comments you would have realized i'm not looking for upgrades after each purchase of parts, i'm looking to upgrade each part, then once i'm finished it will all be upgraded enough so the performance will have actually upgraded. the reason i came here was so i could learn about motherboards and figure out if upgrading a motherboard while still using old parts is possible without affecting the performance of my current pc.

[asand1]

Do you have a time frame for the collection of parts? It's not an easy question to answer.

[asand1]

You said in a post it's not super important right now, but you want an answer right now. The problem is in six months the answer could be different, so helping in a meaningful way would require more context. It seems maybe you don't know enough about PC's to ask the right questions? Idk?