subject: Primer For Selecting Gaming Motherboards [print this page] Buying gaming motherboards is not just about the board, but how it fits into the other part choices. Thing is, a gaming machine is usually a custom-built affair, with every part chosen for its high performance capabilities. What the board needs to do is be compatible with each of these parts.
What gamers really look for is extreme speed and stunning detail. A monitor has the capacity for high resolution display, but it needs a powerful graphics adaptor for this. In turn, a powerful adaptor needs a motherboard which has enough capacity to handle the card and transfer data quickly enough between the display card and other parts. This means the right form factor (size), heavy-duty chipsets and an efficient bus system.
The same criteria apply to every other part, including LAN cards, HDD, the memory sticks, power supply and the cooling fans. For the individual parts and the system to live up to their potential, the motherboard must be fast and rugged enough to keep up with each part. The bottomline is that compatibility is not enough for gaming motherboards. It has to be extreme compatibility.
Another important difference is the need for built-in cards. Ordinarily, motherboards come with all the cards built-in, such as LAN, display and sound cards. But these cards are mostly useless, as far as gaming is concerned. The point here is that the motherboard would be better off with more space for add-on cards, extra memory and so on, instead of the onboard cards.
If and after a motherboard has passed these compatibility tests, the next thing to look for would be benchmarking test results. Manufacturers provide gaming sites and hardware review sites with access to parts in advance of the market launch. This means the reviews are already available when the board hits the market. Don't buy a board unless shows positive results for gaming in benchmark tests.
After all this has been taken care of, there still remains the question of over clocking and upgrades. Over clocking is where the settings for a part are modified to make it run faster than manufacturer specs. Motherboard over clocking is critical because if it doesn't work properly, it can fry not only the board, but every other part as well.
A logical question would be why fool around with something so critical. The answer lies in the competitive nature of the gaming world. When everybody has roughly the same parts and talent, the one who wins is the one who manages to extract the most out of the machine by overclocking it. Right or wrong, the point here is that gaming motherboards should have quite a bit of hidden capacity which kicks in when over clocked.
There's also the question of upgrades. Every part in gaming has a window of between 6-12 months, after which it becomes obsolete. This is because new games released every year can be played only on the latest parts. They just don't work on old configurations. So the motherboard needs to have the capability to survive these biannual part upgrades.
In summary, gaming motherboards are an entirely different breed from the ordinary board that comes in an ordinary computer. These boards are compatible with high-performance parts and have an inherent capacity for allowing excess performance. Don't buy a board if doesn't clearly say that it is a gaming motherboard.
