All Time Best Motherboard ?

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OK, I want to know. The Motherboard I want has to have power, it has to have speed, it has to have a long life. I only want to really invest into this one so it has to be the one.

The rules are: no price limit, top of the line, personal preference, (not specifically for gaming) just supreme quality daily home/office use: GFX Artist-writing-Website Owner-Downloading- some gaming-music-video editing-etc/etc..

Code:
1.Best Motherboard and cost:

2.A 2nd quality Motherboard at a lower cost:


(There is a similar thread I posted to this one. They are the first items I will invest collectively onto this system at the most cost effective and highest quality first time around.)
 
This is the best board ever made as far as enthusiasts goes. The SR3 is the LGA2011 successor to that board (not released yet).

For single CPU, I would have to say the Rampage IV Extreme.
 
I would assume whenever Intel decides to launch the SB-E Xeons, which is probably in the next 2-3 months, quick google search points to either Q1 or Q2 2012. I doubt you can sell a dual-processor motherboard when dual-processor capable CPUs aren't even out yet.
 
Probably those socket 478/775 ASRock boards that had both DDR1/DDR2 and both AGP/PCI-E - now that's innovation.
 
Since the title is misleading... I am going to have to say that the All time best motherboard from back in the day was the ASUS P5A.

No other Super Socket 7 motherboard could match it for performance or overclocking.
 
Excellent replies. "All Time" is just in reference to 'latest and greatest'. I admit this will be my first build, but at the moment I have a good amount of money to start putting one together. I'm going to start with the Motherboard and the Power Supply. I want to purchase something at a good price, very high quality, and durability, the first time. Looks like I found the right place to go to for a good experience.
 
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe

wait, what exactly is the question?

If you are an enthusiast, you will NEVER outlive a motherboard. If you treat it right, you'll never break it. If you buy the most expensive, you'll have to deal with "quirks".

As for the here and now ~ the really expensive boards are aimed at heavy overclockers. If no overclocking or mild tweaking is all you want, then you can pay half as much and get features that are something you can actually use. Your initial post lacks enough information to offer a reasonable suggestion.

You just listed things a computer can do. What are you actually going to be using it for and for how long?
 
If you go back a few years, almost everybody had a DFI Lanparty N4F Ultra-D. Like... everybody.
 
Another vote for the A7N8X-Deluxe.

Abit BP-6 was nice as well.

P4P800-Deluxe was rock solid back in the day too.
 
No nForce chipset can be on the 'greatest' list. Those things were filled with a ton of bugs throughout their entire lifespan. People (and me) only bought them so we could do SLI. Other then that, they were complete shit.
 
No nForce chipset can be on the 'greatest' list. Those things were filled with a ton of bugs throughout their entire lifespan. People (and me) only bought them so we could do SLI. Other then that, they were complete shit.

A7N8X-Deluxe had an nForce2 chipset that was probably one of the best boards to overclock with pushing FSB passed 225 was a challenge in itself.

DFI release the Lanparty Ultra SLi-Dr Expert that pushed the opterons to 3 ghz+.

All this was before intel took the speed crown with the C2D. All chipsets weren't without problems but calling an entire line up complete shiet is uncalled for.
 
This is the best board ever made as far as enthusiasts goes. The SR3 is the LGA2011 successor to that board (not released yet).

If you can't get OCing records on that thing, you're holding it wrong.
 
socket 754 MSI Neo FS2R. Forget the features, the number of AGP slots (!) or the fact that is has a VIA chipset. When it comes to motherboards, you go with the one that lasts 8+ years.

bwmsia64.jpg


Behold! Revel in all its fruity glory.

It's still running my AMD64 3000+ chip and geil ram. Incredible, really. It sits and collects clothes now, but I do fire it up every now and again. Went thru 3 Nvidia graphics cards, 2 PSUs, a case and it still runs beautifully.

If Captain Planet could build a PC that would be the motherboard he'd use.
 
No nForce chipset can be on the 'greatest' list. Those things were filled with a ton of bugs throughout their entire lifespan. People (and me) only bought them so we could do SLI. Other then that, they were complete shit.

nforce4 was a bad ass chipset. when it was out it was the fastest thing on the market.
 
A7N8X-Deluxe had an nForce2 chipset that was probably one of the best boards to overclock with pushing FSB passed 225 was a challenge in itself.

DFI release the Lanparty Ultra SLi-Dr Expert that pushed the opterons to 3 ghz+.

All this was before intel took the speed crown with the C2D. All chipsets weren't without problems but calling an entire line up complete shiet is uncalled for.

They were complete shit. I owned a nForce board from every generation and I regretted it every time. Each generation of that chipset had remarkable issues / bugs that were never resolved.
 
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe

wait, what exactly is the question?

If you are an enthusiast, you will NEVER outlive a motherboard. If you treat it right, you'll never break it. If you buy the most expensive, you'll have to deal with "quirks".

As for the here and now ~ the really expensive boards are aimed at heavy overclockers. If no overclocking or mild tweaking is all you want, then you can pay half as much and get features that are something you can actually use. Your initial post lacks enough information to offer a reasonable suggestion.

You just listed things a computer can do. What are you actually going to be using it for and for how long?

i'll have to agree - but probably only cause that was my last motherboard hehe
 
They were complete shit. I owned a nForce board from every generation and I regretted it every time. Each generation of that chipset had remarkable issues / bugs that were never resolved.

but apparently not shitty enough for the majority of enthusiants to give a shit :rolleyes:


If they were that bad, every kid on the block and their grandmother wouldn't have bought one.
 
Nforce2 complete shit? Oh come on now, some companies versions were better than others, and the chipset certainly had quirks when trying to OC the crap out of em (bricked cmos chips ((but removable and hotflashable if you had another nforce2 board!)) ...I recall some stange IRQ assignment and lan problems as well....but 400+ fsb , onboard hardware AC-3 / dolby digital encoding and (I cant think of another mobo that has had that since) a huge fanbase and army of custom bios makers.... damn! It was the beginning of the significant overclocking era!
 
Abit NF7-S

Soundstorm! That was so sweet. And damn did that board overclock like mad.
 
lol.... reflowing the solder there I see......

yub the NF7-S was a good version of that chipset also. Still got one one sitting around.
 
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme-Z for Z68, Rampage IV Extreme for X79, probably, if we're talking current platforms. If not it gets much more complicated as others have said.
 
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Abit BP-6 was absolute best ever. Crunched many a S@h work unit using the same setup mentioned previously (cell 366's). For single proc, the BX6 was cool and all (loved mine), but for the best OC'ing of the day you needed the BE6-II r.2. First board I was able to break 1GHz on - took a 700e to just shy of 1200MHz on that board, 3 times in a row (after melting the NB and RMA'ing the boards). Ahhh, the good ole days. :D I think I still have my GeForce GPU keyring stashed away somewhere from that time frame. I think it was from Kyle that I stole the idea of turning a dead GPU (in his case, AMD CPU) into a geek trinket.
 
Notice how much Abit is being called out here. A damn shame they went kaput.
 
Isn't it? Even once I replace the rig I'm using now I'll keep it going JUST because of my love for that company. I used their boards almost exclusively since '99 until their demise. I am still trying to figure out what company to use for my next one.
 
Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R (3 PCI, 3 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
 
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