Should you pay considerably more for High end Motherboards

Spyhawk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
Messages
400
So Ive been wondering....Ive always payed a premium for enthusiast pinged motherboards but Ive also tended to target stuff that has been stable and had good driver support but recently with the huge price increase in everything pc related, Ive been looking at bargains that dont break stability and perf. Is it still possible to get top notch perf and stability without breaking the bank ?

Is the huge price increases for high end motherboards primarely based on overclockabilty and if so is the couple of added FPS worth it? I mean Ive been overclocking cpus, memory and gpus for 25 years and mostly what you get is extremely limited perceptible improvements. Most of the the time I go back to stock clocks to improve longevity.
 
Last edited:
So Ive been wondering....Ive always payed a premium for enthusiast pinged motherboards but Ive also tended to target stuff that has been stable and had good driver support but recently with the huge price increase in everything pc related, Ive been looking at bargains that dont break stability and perf. Is it still possible to get top notch perf and stability without breaking the bank ?

Is the huge price increases for high end motherboards primarely based on overclockabilty and if so is the couple of added FPS worth it? I mean Ive been overclocking cpus, memory and gpus for 25 years and mostly what you get is extremely limited perceptible improvements. Most of the the time I go back to stock clocks to improve longevity.
$300-$400 range is what I mostly stay in these days. I did splurge and buy an ASUS Maximus Hero board for my 9900K back a few years ago.
 
I almost exclusively avoid "high end" boards, usually have a bunch of features I dont really need and cost 2-3x the price. Ive been a fan of $100-150 Asrock boards for like a decade and they havent let me down. Some people just seem to want to buy "the best" for the sake of having "the best", like bragging rights or something... Im not about that life.
 
I don't think I have ever spent over $200 on a motherboard, just no need to. My sweet spot is $150-$200 and I usually have more than enough "features".
 
700 is basically my limit and that's only for xoc oriented boards since they're always going to be expensive, the dark was 800 and I didn't get one same with the aqua oc. Especially for AMD pricey boards don't really make much of a difference IME, on Intel as long as they have same memory trace as the pricier boards the cheap ones should be fine too.
 
I was always buying $100-150 boards for my personal builds, but in 2014 I splurged and bought an Asus Sabertooth Z97 for $237 which was the most I had ever spent on a motherboard.
In 2020 when I decided to upgrade I went with the Asus Crossshair Hero VIII for $400 and the Asus Crosshair VIII Dark Hero for $400 but ended up paying around $440 when it shipped nearly 6 months after I ordered it.
Those were the 2 most expensive boards I have bought, and I think that is my price limit.
 
The added value versus adding those dollars in the CPU or an high capacity nice ssd drive seem to quickly make it make just sense for people that already max out all the other parts (has the system with $150 less on the motheboard put on the CPU instead seem quite better usually), which I imagine his mostly who are paying those kinds of numbers.

Someone that would have needed the 10 gig nic anyway and so on could make sense, but you rebuy it everytime versus a network card, I would say it is nice to have it build in too.
 
I’ve paid no more than 250 for a motherboard in the last 20 years or so. No need for me to. Those high end boards have so many gimmicks and “features” that most people will never touch or understand.

The overclocking days are long gone. I paid extra when it made a difference. IE with the 300a, Barton core 2500+, Opteron 165, etc all those cpu’s did better with “high end” boards and had excellent overclocking headroom.

So you pay $600+ now to overclock a cpu a few hundred mhz (tiny percent compared to previously mentioned CPU’s). I’m glad I’m from an era that got it’s money worth from computer hardware. Mid to late 90’s- 2015 or so. Just my .02
 
I’ve paid no more than 250 for a motherboard in the last 20 years or so. No need for me to. Those high end boards have so many gimmicks and “features” that most people will never touch or understand.

The overclocking days are long gone. I paid extra when it made a difference. IE with the 300a, Barton core 2500+, Opteron 165, etc all those cpu’s did better with “high end” boards and had excellent overclocking headroom.

So you pay $600+ now to overclock a cpu a few hundred mhz (tiny percent compared to previously mentioned CPU’s). I’m glad I’m from an era that got it’s money worth from computer hardware. Mid to late 90’s- 2015 or so. Just my .02
I did buy an Asus Dual Pentium Slot 1 motherboard back in the day when I was going to use those Celeron 266mhz that can run at 400Mhz with an FSB change from 66 to 100 or 133, can't remember.
But I didn't know you had to mod the Celerons by soldering on jumper wires to get them to work in a dual system and I wasn't comfortable soldering on a new CPU. Ended up selling the second CPU and just ran 1 in the board.
I honestly can't recall how much I paid for the CPU's or the motherboard.

I did trade a SCSI case for a dual setup from a member here almost 20 years ago and I think it might have been the same model Asus board.
dual_procs.jpg
 
I think with the boost behavior of modern CPUs that even budget boards need to be "overclocking" capable and have beefier power delivery than was required in the past. That, combined with the increasing complexity of advancing PCIe and DDR generations, is a big factor in rising motherboard prices. One example is the higher prices of X570 boards when they came out, compared to X470. X570 added PCIe 4 and the "basic" VRMs were stronger.

The upside is that budget and midrange boards are better than they used to be. The downside is they cost what higher tier boards used to. Current high end boards pack on features to justify the price, but the applications of those features are fairly narrow. Thunderbolt is more practical on a mobile device than a full sized board (or even ITX) that has room for the multiple connections that TB can replace. I'd love to have 10Gb networking but the cost of 10Gb switches is still too damn high. HDMI on the GPU cuts into the need for high end onboard audio.

The problem with high end boards is that they are still held back by the CPU and chipset. A $1000 Z790 board has the same PCIe lane limitations as a $250 Z790 board. More expensive boards might be able to run faster RAM, but there is a point of diminishing returns there. You might get a better all-core OC, but the designed boost is usually just as good, if not faster.

Unless the high end board has some killer feature you need, it's very hard to justify the cost. It makes more sense to get a less expensive board and a faster GPU.
 
Has more and more the CPU is in charge of things, the least it matter.

When you compare the performance of a 5800x3d on a ROG 7 extreeme x570 and a tomahawk B450 or a budget B350:


Even when people go with the 16 core version a B450 Tomahawk was pretty much the same performance as the Xtreme x570 boards:


I am sure if people look at the VRM temperature there would be huge swing between the entry b450 and the $600 x570, but does it matter, or they are made and work well at 90-115c like a cpu would ?

I know less Intel side of things, but on AMD with the CPU in charge of a lot of the ram control and other things, it seem to be that you look for options more than significant by dollar change in your performance, a 5950x on a MSI tomahawk b450 will probably easily beat trying to save any money on the cpu to get a better board performance wise.
 
Last edited:
I just treated myself to a wonderful $500 Aorus Master Z790 board. I had previously used a z690 MSI wifi edge which was $280 and I hated how stripped down it was and got rid of it. Prices have risen for boards now a days. I keep my boards for a long time if they are nice at least 5 years easy so It's worth it to me to spend a little more for a premium board on my main rig. I could never use a budget board. Midrange to upper premium mid range is what I like now. 5 or more years ago that was 300, now it takes close to 500 to make me happy. It's a luxury item for me. Not a necessity.
A fully decked out E ATX board makes me feel some type of way lol in a good way haha
 
MB prices have gotten out of control. But someone must be buying them. Not me. My sig MB was my biggest splurge ever.
I miss the good ol'OC'ing days where everyone knew the few models to buy.
 
I did splurge this time around, but try to stay within the $400 range or less. I got my EVGA Z690 Classified board when it was on sale for $300 which I was lucky to get. I probably wouldn't have looked at it for the normal retail price due to its feature set being more than I need.
 
I'll be going with a cheaper board this time around. I can't justify the extra cost of mbs that bring nothing more to the table than a cool name and rgb lighting. For the first time in my life I am sick of reading mb reviews. That is if you can even find written reviews. Who wants to watch tweedle dee or tweedle dum bray on for half an hour?! heehaw! hee haw! Noooosiree.

Yep, when everything mb has gone full on stupid, its time to slowly step away. 😂

And just buy a microcenter CPU/mb bundle for 4 bills. Free mb here I come!
 
The chipset on a $1000 flagship will become obsolete just as quickly as a $100 -DS3H (or some such), so I just buy the level of features that I need
(doubly so when some lower/mid-tier models have the same VRM as higher-tier ones)
 
The chipset on a $1000 flagship will become obsolete just as quickly as a $100 -DS3H (or some such), so I just buy the level of features that I need
(doubly so when some lower/mid-tier models have the same VRM as higher-tier ones)
Pretty much, the jacked up prices have really been a bit ridiculous. Lots of people have been pretty smart though and bought the B variants which have a lot of features for the price.
 
My experience is that expensive boards give me more trouble. Trouble with BIOS updates, they die earlier versus the cheap boards that still run etc.

Currently I am buying Asus' Prime brand, which I think is their second cheapest.

In addition I found RMAing mainboards to be so troublesome that I prefer not to bother. Obviously the losses from this are lower if you buy cheaper boards.
 
Unless you do some extreme overclocking it should not matter.
I have gone the Asus PRIME route too but mostly because I do not need/want WiFi on my motherboard and all the more expensive options all had WiFi.
 
Over the summer, I built a PC for some kids. It has an Asus B660m wifi Plus D4 and a 12600k. I got the motherboard open box from Amazon, for $120. all accessories. It looked untouched. New, it would have been like $170. Which is still fairly low cost, for a modern motherboard.
Easiest build I have done in the past 3 years. Zero problems.

Previous builds in the past 3 years were Intel 10th gen, 11th gen, Zen 3, Zen 2, and Intel 12th gen (in that order).
 
Today, expensive high-end boards are typically loaded with useless features and add-on cards. A true high end board like the EVGA X299 DARK could be had for < $300. Quality and OC wise, it was the best of the best. Older no-nonsense high-end boards like the Rampage IV Formula were also in that price range.
 
im in the same boat as many here, high end boards generally have a lot more features that you'll never use. i have purchased high end boards in the past and it didn't do me any good. decide what features you need and go from there. maybe having RAID or multiple M2 slots is important to you, but i wouldn't get anything extra.

other considerations are any (worthwhile) performance difference between chipsets and overclocking capability if that's your bag. i recently bought an MSI Z690 board (alder lake build) only for the better overclocking support - it was also the cheapest Z690 board i could get. under $200 CAD.
 
There is absolutely a difference even in stock turbo boosting capability. Just setting the power limit to 200 W allows a Ryzen 7950X to boost to 5.4 GHz all-core which you cannot do on a board with a weaker power stage.
 
True, I'm gonna juice up my 12700kf as high as it can go as soon as I have some time. On my 10 pound Aorus Master Z790 plus 3 radiators I think it's the right tool for the job lol.
 
building a lot of htpcs with $50 mobos and seeing what they could do depending on what you bought made me never spend more than ~$100 - ~$200 on a main system board

specificly needed features and brand-quality/materials/support matter more in picking out a board IMO

I always need a crap load of SATA
 
For that, normally not. But it also depends on the chipset that the motherboard has.

And obviously, you would not want an H610 motherboard for anything that remotely approaches even an i5-12600K CPU in power since such cheapie boards also cut corners on the VRM quality as well. Those boards are barely suitable for even an i5-12400, let alone an i9-13900K.
 
This was my mistake when I first started building PCs - spending too much on the mobo.
 
I think the last two or three boards I bought were budget basement Amazon returns or refurbs.

The reality is this $130 B660M Mortar I have now is going to boost my 13700k at "stock" speeds identically to a $300+ board because it has beefy VRMs. I get Wifi 6, 2.5G LAN and overall a decent feature set. I can set the boost to use unlimited power for an unlimited duration. I can use XMP with the memory. The only thing I can't do is change the multiplier, but at what point is there diminishing returns by doing so with the added power and heat draw?
 
I think a lot of this depends on what someone considers a low end, mid range and high end motherboard. When I built my current AM4 system, the motherboard used I would consider mid range. It is an x570 chipset board which is technically the high end chipset for AM4 but the overall features are far from the high end but what it does have is far from being low end and at the time of purchase cost $270 which was by far the most I ever spent on a motherboard.

To me a high end motherboard is the top chipset with every bell and whistle added to the motherboard. They tend to be way overbuilt and obviously cost way more than any other motherboards. Unless these boards have a feature that you need, they are typically massive overkill. The VRMs are likely overbuilt to the point that you couldn't stress them outside of suicide LN2 runs. In my opinion that's a bad value since there is a point of diminishing returns an the high end motherboards pass that point and leave it in the dust at times.

This is why I stick to what I consider mid range boards. Typically mid range boards meet all my feature needs, have good power delivery and are built well enough that they will likely last years with little or no trouble. At the same time I try to keep with the highest end chipset if feasible since support tends to be better and the build quality of the board overall tends to be better.

Anyone telling you that the high end halo type motherboards are inherently better should be questioned. While those boards may technically be better, does it even matter for your use case. If your use case can't even challenge the VRMs on a mid range board, is a high end board with beefier VRMs actually better? I'd say no.
 
I agree, overclocking at this point is pointless. You used to save hundreds of dollars by buying a cpu and overclocking it to flagship speeds, but the OEM boost levels are soo dialed in now, its hard to gain more then 5-7% and stay stable. I would pay extra for stability and extra PCI-E lanes for multiple NVME drives. I see no need for crossfire / sli anymore either.

My current board has two NVME slots, but i cant get them both to work at the same time on my X470 board. I hate using sata ports for storage.
 
I agree, overclocking at this point is pointless. You used to save hundreds of dollars by buying a cpu and overclocking it to flagship speeds, but the OEM boost levels are soo dialed in now, its hard to gain more then 5-7% and stay stable. I would pay extra for stability and extra PCI-E lanes for multiple NVME drives. I see no need for crossfire / sli anymore either.

My current board has two NVME slots, but i cant get them both to work at the same time on my X470 board. I hate using sata ports for storage.
Check if one of your NVMe slots shares PCIe lanes with some of your SATA ports. If so, they can't both be used at the same time.
 
I agree, overclocking at this point is pointless. You used to save hundreds of dollars by buying a cpu and overclocking it to flagship speeds, but the OEM boost levels are soo dialed in now, its hard to gain more then 5-7% and stay stable. I would pay extra for stability and extra PCI-E lanes for multiple NVME drives. I see no need for crossfire / sli anymore either.

My current board has two NVME slots, but i cant get them both to work at the same time on my X470 board. I hate using sata ports for storage.
Overclocking is also increasing power limits and boost settings even if you don't increase the peak clock speed. That still provides a performance boost without requiring stability testing. You need a high-end board for that.
 
I agree, overclocking at this point is pointless. You used to save hundreds of dollars by buying a cpu and overclocking it to flagship speeds, but the OEM boost levels are soo dialed in now, its hard to gain more then 5-7% and stay stable. I would pay extra for stability and extra PCI-E lanes for multiple NVME drives. I see no need for crossfire / sli anymore either.

My current board has two NVME slots, but i cant get them both to work at the same time on my X470 board. I hate using sata ports for storage.
Ya, I paid extra for the faster pci e gen 5 lanes on the Aorus Master Z790. I'm going to wait 2 years for the 5000 series to drop and when it does, I'll be ready with pci e 5 at full x16 bandwidth for the graphics card and still have my 2 nvme pcie 4 m.2 drives running at full speed along with ddr5 8000 I mean you pay more but get more also It's not a waste It's a beastly board.
 
I agree, overclocking at this point is pointless. You used to save hundreds of dollars by buying a cpu and overclocking it to flagship speeds, but the OEM boost levels are soo dialed in now, its hard to gain more then 5-7% and stay stable. I would pay extra for stability and extra PCI-E lanes for multiple NVME drives. I see no need for crossfire / sli anymore either.

The thing I'd pay up for is a PLX chip. In other words a PCI-e switch chip. I don't build gaming rigs. I build programming workstations and stuff a vid card in them so I can game too, and I'm an RPG/strategy gamer. Not into e-sports or fast paced FPS stuff. I've been building HEDT rigs for years and before that had dual socket setups, but at this point all I really need is more slots to put stuff in. Need a vid card, server NIC (so 8X), slots for a half dozen or more NVMe drives, and wouldn't mind having an 8X slot available for a RAID controller. The thing is I don't need 48+ lanes working all at once. If I'm gaming it's just the vid card and one drive. Ok maybe a little traffic on the NIC, but that's hardly anything if you're gaming online. Then with the programming stuff I need the NIC and a few drives going full speed, but not all of them at once and you can pretty much ignore the vid card for what I do. So gimme an i9 or Ryzen 9 and a board with a PLX and a ton of slots and I'll be happy. And yeah, I just might pay $1000 for a board like that... unless Xeon or EPYC looks like a better deal.
 
I was (and still would be) willing to pay more for a HEDT motherboard - I've noticed that my HEDT systems from my old x58 to the x79 to TRX40 today hold up extremely well over time, and I attribute at least part of that to (a) gobs of bandwidth (b) relatively modern/cutting edge I/O and (c) high quality components running stable firmware. Last night I dusted off my old X79 system (i7-4930k) to test it out before tearing it down to reuse the case for a new PC, and I was impressed how well it's holding up - I'd forgotten I'd put a 960 Pro M.2 in there and the decade-old X79 platform not only supported NVMe but CrystalDiskMark was pulling a solid 3.5GB/sec off the thing.

I'm less willing to spend heavily for consumer platforms. The higher end boards often provide only limited I/O improvements, no more nor better slot configurations, token upgrades (2.5GbE? "isolated sound?") that cost a couple of dollars at most to add, and a crap ton of RGB hiding behind fancy machined shrouds that look great but have little functional value. The reason I'm tearing down the above PC is to free up the Define R6 case it was hiding in for a new i9-13900k build for my wife, and we opted for the Asus Prime A Z790 which itself seemed like a bit of a splurge at $300.
 
The only problem with the above post is that prices of motherboards of a relative quality that's comparable to a $150 motherboard of a decade ago have crept significantly upwards. You see, today's mainstream CPUs are much, much harder on a motherboard's VRMs than a six-core HEDT CPU of a decade ago ever was. One would really, really need to spend $220 just for a motherboard that matches yesteryear's $120 motherboard in relative quality.

This is exactly why my most recent motherboards cost nearly $300. But while the motherboard in my previous AMD system had RGB LEDs on the I/O enclosure cover, my current system's Intel motherboard has no onboard RGB LEDs but will accommodate RGB memory DIMMs and RGB fans.
 
Always went for the lower-middle-end mobos, regretted it every single time.
This time around it's a Gigabyte A520 Aorus Elite that reboots my system in random times when core boost is on and all RAM slots are populated.

During my s754 days I went ahead and installed a Q9550 on a P35-S3G, only to replace it a few months later because the board got brownish and warped around the VRMs.

On the other hand, got a nice Asus CUV4X-DLS for my dual P3s... and damn, I could populate the RAM slots with like envelopes and random crap - posted every damn time, rock stable.
 
Hmm... thought about this a few minutes.

Most of my purchasing has centered around chipset, SATA, and USB capabilities- this really seemed to matter after 2005 or so.

So, high/low end doesn't really dictate much to me. But my buying decisions tend to put me in the mid/low mid range of boards.

The things I don't skimp on are power supplies/RAM/storage.
 
Back
Top