Bear in mind these important gaming motherboard features

This isn’t such a bad thing as gamers seldom have the storage needs of enthusiasts.
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I'm confused, to me gamers ARE PC enthusiasts.

Gamers are like gearheads, they want to know what's under the hood. Sure you get some that don't really care as long as it runs 'their' game but I think that's the minority not the overwhelming majority like you are suggesting.

I don't recall ever meeting someone with a super powerful rig that wasn't a gamer.

The motherboard is probably the most important purchase you will make as a gamer
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Disagree there, you can buy the absolute cheapest MOBO you can find and still make a decent gaming rig as long as all your other components, especially the gfx card.

Making sure you have a board that is compatible with current generation RAM, future generation CPUs and as many graphics cards as you’re likely to use will mean a lower cost next time you plan on upgrading.
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In my experience trying to future proof your electronics purchases is a waste of time. CPUs are the worst, their rate of change is normally much quicker than your average upgrade cycle and considering the relative performance gain you get from CPU upgrades you can normally afford to keep a mid-range CPU for quite a while.
 
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Disagree there, you can buy the absolute cheapest MOBO you can find and still make a decent gaming rig as long as all your other components, especially the gfx card.
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I understand what you mean but you will be limiting your hardware. What if you bought an i7 and your motherboard has a poor Bus speed?
 
I've been playing games for years, and never had the latest greatest hardware either.
The motherboard plays its part, but I agree, "Gamers don’t need all of the features found on high end motherboards".
A good graphics card is a plus. The rest is just for bling!!!
If I had the money, I'd also buy the latest greatest hardware as well.
 
the whole Dual gigabit LAN not being necessary i kinda disagree with ... i have seen some guy in ut3 benefit from Dual gigabit LAN because it literally lowered his ping ... you can probably duplicate the scenario as well with a gigabit lan card and onboard lan but ya ... beside not all high end mobos offer Dual gigabit LAN anyhow
 
I don't necessarily agree with the article in terms of the generalization it makes
One thing to keep in mind is that although you do not absolutely need the latest high end motherboard, that the motherboard forms the foundation of your entire system, determining the life span, future upgradability and component features of your system.
It is also important to remember that although the machine may be used primarily for gaming, it may also be used for menial everyday tasks or as a primary system for ALL online and offline activity
This includes uses such as Media Storage (Something that hinges on the amount of SATA connectors you have available in terms of HDD's that can be added to the system) or Data and Online Information Relay (Gigabit LAN x 2 )

If the machine was ONLY going to be used for playing online I would agree that not all the features are necessary, but it is worth while spending more on your motherboard from the onset of the system's life span to maximize the usage potential of the overall system as a machine with multiple functions

In regards to buying a GFX Card with money saved on a motherboard, no use in having a "current" GFX card with no upgrade possibilities within 12 Months due to the Motherboard limiting "future" options
 
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i always buy a decent sized mobo for upgradeability

by future proofing as much as possible i cut down on upgrade costs which keeps pc gaming very affordable for me
 
In regards to buying a GFX Card with money saved on a motherboard, no use in having a "current" GFX card with no upgrade possibilities within 12 Months due to the Motherboard limiting "future" options
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I don't understand, PCIe has been around for a long time and it will still be around for a number of years so what exactly could your motherboard do to limit your future options?

I'm not saying you should get a crap mobo, I'm just saying you could make it work and if you had to choose between getting a slightly worse mobo (up to a limit) for a slightly better gfx card.

For me there are only 2 real performance upgrade paths for a PC, RAM and Gfx. As long as your mobo has a 16x PCIe slot (don't they all?) then you are good for the foreseeable future since there has been nothing to suggest this will change. That leaves RAM as you major concern and those issue were correctly highlight in the article. :)

I don't consider your CPU as upgradeable as I've mentioned before, in fact the last time I can even remember upgrading my CPU was when I went from a P3 333MHz to a 500MHz model (iirc). I just always find by the time your CPU needs upgrading the technology has changed and you need a new mobo/cpu/ram anyway.
 
Monk, there are numerous uses for PCI-E slots in a PC
High Fidelity sound Cards (Requires PCI-E)
Phys X (Requires Secondary Card that Runs as Physics Processor on PCI-E)
Having the SLI or Crossifre option etc

All of these options requires additional PCI-E slots over and above that of the "current" GFX Card that you purchase
Therefore if you only have one singular slot, you are limiting your options

Practical Example - I bought the Roccat Kave Headset, unable to use it with the onboard soundcard that is installed on the Motherboard I could not use the Headset to its full potential, so I upgraded to a Xonar PCI-E High Fidelity Soundcard, issue resolved

In your case you state that when the time comes to upgrade the CPU you purchase a completely new system including Motherboard, ever thought of what would happen if you started buying your Motherboards specifically to facilitate later upgrades?
You would be spending less every time you upgrade along with your CPU, only replacing necessary components
Get what I'm saying >?
 
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In your case you state that when the time comes to upgrade the CPU you purchase a completely new system including Motherboard, ever thought of what would happen if you started buying your Motherboards specifically to facilitate later upgrades?
You would be spending less every time you upgrade along with your CPU, only replacing necessary components
Get what I'm saying >?
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You can't purchase what doesn't exist.

I currently have an i7, before that was Athlon 64 X2, before that was an Athlon, before that was a P3. In each case the CPU I upgraded to wasn't around when I bought the previous and each time the pinouts and chipsets were different.

You just have to look at all the different cpu socket configurations to see what a pointless task it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket

Just looking at Intel Desktop CPUs for the last 3 years by the end of the year there will have been 4 different socket types. AMD is the same story 3 different socket configs in 2 years. I don't know about you but I find a good CPU generally last about 4-5 years, maybe even longer. Even if you were to say purchase a new CPU tech the moment it hit market and then upgrade your CPU 3yrs later with the last range of CPUs supporting your old tech, why drop all that cash on old tech when you could and more likely will buy the new tech that's hitting the market.

High Fidelity sound Cards (Requires PCI-E)
Phys X (Requires Secondary Card that Runs as Physics Processor on PCI-E)
Having the SLI or Crossifre option etc
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Sorry I forgot about the sound card, but those only need 1x PCIe. :) Stand alone PhysX card no longer exist, they are integrated into nvidia cards. As for crossfire/sli, I've personally never used such a setup I find it's normally cheaper and easier just to upgrade your card than to purchase a duplicate of your old card. I suppose if you go second hand that might be a worthwhile option but generally whenever I see an SLI setup it's from someone who spent a boat load of cash on two of the top of the line cards.
 
I also think that pc enthusiast and gamer fall in the same category and the outsider as such would be the over-clockers. They look for boards with multi-phase power, solid capacitors, no cold boot issues, dual bios and on board reset / power switches to name a few.

As a gamer / software developer all I really want is stability and solid performance, and that is obtainable even with a basic board with a good CPU.
 
MOnk said:
I don't understand, PCIe has been around for a long time and it will still be around for a number of years so what exactly could your motherboard do to limit your future options?

I'm not saying you should get a crap mobo, I'm just saying you could make it work and if you had to choose between getting a slightly worse mobo (up to a limit) for a slightly better gfx card.

For me there are only 2 real performance upgrade paths for a PC, RAM and Gfx. As long as your mobo has a 16x PCIe slot (don't they all?) then you are good for the foreseeable future since there has been nothing to suggest this will change. That leaves RAM as you major concern and those issue were correctly highlight in the article. :)

I don't consider your CPU as upgradeable as I've mentioned before, in fact the last time I can even remember upgrading my CPU was when I went from a P3 333MHz to a 500MHz model (iirc). I just always find by the time your CPU needs upgrading the technology has changed and you need a new mobo/cpu/ram anyway.
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ya but if you are limited to PCIe v1 and your new card need v3 to work to the max then you have problems
 
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