Rant: Why do gamers buy expensive motherboards?

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, Fluxmaven said:

It was Skylake (6th gen) and it was 2133 on B150. B250 moved the needle to 2400. B360 was 2666. B460 gave us 2666 for i5 and below and 2933 for i7 and above. 

 

During that entire time, Ryzen was here with higher core counts and support for faster memory. Early Ryzen's had a hard time running RAM higher than 3000, but at least it wasn't locked away. 

I didn't realize they locked ram to even lower speeds on the even cheaper chipsets. Such a lame thing to do. 

 

Intel 6th gen was 2015, ryzen wasn't until 2017. I'd guess 2017 is when Intel stopped locking down ram speeds. 

[Andrew]

You don't really have a choice anymore.

 

Back in 2013 when I bought a Crosshair V, I bought it because I wanted to do some overclocking beyond what cheap motherboards could handle. I paid £180 (£243 adjusted for inflation) new for it and it was pretty high end at the time/

 

These days, if you want four RAM slots and two m.2 slots, you pretty much have to go high end because the cheaper motherboards that are perfectly fine for gamers in theory, only have two RAM slots and maybe one m.2 slot. A mid-range motherboard these days is around £180-£220. The closest equivalent to a modern Crosshair V has a RRP of £385 and it's selling for £300.

[Fluxmaven]

29 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

I didn't realize they locked ram to even lower speeds on the even cheaper chipsets. Such a lame thing to do. 

 

Intel 6th gen was 2015, ryzen wasn't until 2017. I'd guess 2017 is when Intel stopped locking down ram speeds. 

We are just splitting hairs at this point, but Kaby lake desktop CPUs launched in 2017 which would have been B250 which were still locked down. They didn't stop until B560 which was Rocket Lake (11th gen).

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, Andrew said:

You don't really have a choice anymore.

 

Back in 2013 when I bought a Crosshair V, I bought it because I wanted to do some overclocking beyond what cheap motherboards could handle. I paid £180 (£243 adjusted for inflation) new for it and it was pretty high end at the time/

 

These days, if you want four RAM slots and two m.2 slots, you pretty much have to go high end because the cheaper motherboards that are perfectly fine for gamers in theory, only have two RAM slots and maybe one m.2 slot. A mid-range motherboard these days is around £180-£220. The closest equivalent to a modern Crosshair V has a RRP of £385 and it's selling for £300.

True that 4 ram slots and multiple m.2 slots make a board more costly to a degree that seems out of touch with the actual difference in the board, but it's also true that the need for extra ram slots is not as high as it used to be. Been a long time since I used more than 2 sticks. And more m.2 slots can be added via a cheap pcie card. My board has 2 m.2 slots and it wasn't very expensive. 

Edited June 18, 2024 by UltraMega

[Sir Beregond]

6 hours ago, UltraMega said:

True that 4 ram slots and multiple m.2 slots make a board more costly to a degree that seems out of touch with the actual difference in the board, but it's also true that the need for extra ram slots is not as high as it used to be. Been a long time since I used more than 2 sticks. And more m.2 slots can be added via a cheap pcie card. My board has 2 m.2 slots and it wasn't very expensive. 

Anymore, anyone who wants to do high speed DDR5 overclocking with tweaking specifically wants 2 DIMM boards which as far as I know only exist at the enthusiast high end tier of motherboards.

[alex1092]

You are absolutely right-overclocking just doesn't carry the same weight it used to, especially with how efficient and capable modern CPUs are out of the box. I have been leaning toward that ~$120–$150 motherboard sweet spot myself, unless I need specific features like extra M.2 slots or better VRMs for long-term reliability. For gaming-focused builds, I’d much rather invest that extra cash in a better GPU or faster DDR5 RAM than chase marginal CPU gains with premium boards and high-end cooling. AMD especially makes that decision easier since their recent chips have very little OC headroom. These days, my priority usually goes: GPU > CPU > RAM > mobo > cooling-unless I'm building for a niche use case like workstation loads or small form factor. Overclocking is still fun, but from a value perspective, it's hard to justify going all in unless you're doing it purely for the hobby.

Edited July 23 by alex1092

[alex1092]

You are absolutely right-overclocking just isn’t as meaningful as it once was, especially with how capable modern CPUs are out of the box. These days, when I buy motherboard components, I stick to the $120–$150 range unless I need features like extra M.2 slots or strong VRMs. For gaming builds, I’d rather invest in a better GPU or faster DDR5 RAM than spend extra on premium boards and cooling. AMD makes that easier too, with minimal OC headroom. My priority now is GPU > CPU > RAM > motherboard > cooling—unless it's a niche build. Overclocking is still fun, but not worth it from a value perspective unless it’s for the hobby.

Edited July 23 by alex1092

[Alex]

I just bought mine because I liked the look of it and I keep my systems for awhile 

[Mr. Fox]

On 17/06/2024 at 23:44, Sir Beregond said:

Anymore, anyone who wants to do high speed DDR5 overclocking with tweaking specifically wants 2 DIMM boards which as far as I know only exist at the enthusiast high end tier of motherboards.

This is exactly correct. The best memory overclocking motherboards have only two RAM slots. The rarity of them is sad and has an undesirable effect on the pricing of the almost non-existent options. Most of the options available are crappy 4-DIMM boards at all price points.

[neurotix]

The sad thing is, if you want a good 2 DIMM board, you need to go Mini-ITX or possibly Micro ATX and these boards usually don't have as quality VRMs/chokes/MOSFETs as full size boards. The BIOS usually has lesser options as well.

 

It's not DDR5, but I have a B450-I mini ITX AM4 board with 2 DIMM slots. I used it for benchmarking, now it's retired and it's permanent place is in a Mini-ITX Silverstone case that is my mom's light gaming rig.

 

I remember people getting the Crosshair VIII Gene and so forth for high memory overclocks.

 

In my experience, it's usually the smaller, lower end boards that only have 2 DIMM slots.

Edited August 2 by neurotix

[Mr. Fox]

21 minutes ago, neurotix said:

The sad thing is, if you want a good 2 DIMM board, you need to go Mini-ITX or possibly Micro ATX and these boards usually don't have as quality VRMs/chokes/MOSFETs as full size boards. The BIOS usually has lesser options as well.

 

It's not DDR5, but I have a B450-I mini ITX AM4 board with 2 DIMM slots. I used it for benchmarking, now it's retired and it's permanent place is in a Mini-ITX Silverstone case that is my mom's light gaming rig.

 

I remember people getting the Crosshair VIII Gene and so forth for high memory overclocks.

 

In my experience, it's usually the smaller, lower end boards that only have 2 DIMM slots.

Now that EVGA is no longer making the Dark motherboards, or anything else pretty much, options are limited to equally expensive Apex and the unicorn Tachyon motherboards if you want a proper ATX/E-ATX overclocking enthusiast motherboard. It is very unfortunate and shows how out of touch with reality (and their customers) all of the motherboard manufacturers are. If there were good options available I would never buy a 4-DIMM board. But there are not and we have to settle for inferior overpriced gamer crap.

[damric]

Been looking at that B850 ASrock mini-itx

 

I have the HDV/m.2, which is fine for benching, but it really sucks ass when I put it in my main rig. The onboard sound is especially terrible. 

 

Yeah modern motherboard choices suck