A few tips on how to buy a motherboard

But before I provide these tips, please note that these tips are for regular people who probably don’t have many spare computer parts to test different parts to quickly find faulty components.

Tip #1

Always buy a motherboard with some kind of debug indicators. They will not increase the cost of the motherboard by any meaningful amount but they will save a lot of time if you will have any issues.

Tip #2

If you buy a motherboard for AMD CPU then always with BIOS flashback unless you know that this platform will not receive any new CPUs. For example, there is not much point in buying a motherboard with a BIOS flashback for the 5000 series. Any new AMD CPUs will not work on this platform anyway. But for any other series, I would highly recommend it.

For example, right now my PC has AMD Ryzen 2600X. Imagine that my CPU will die. There is no point in buying 2600X because I can buy any 5000 series CPU to replace it and it will be just a little bit more expensive and much faster.

But to run the new Ryzen 5000 CPU, I will need a new BIOS version. But to upgrade BIOS I need a working CPU and I don’t have one. But my motherboard has BIOS flashback and I know that I’m safe in any case. And again, it will not increase the cost much.

Tip #3

Buy a motherboard with enough USB ports. My current motherboard has only 5 ports and 2 ports in my case. It is simply not enough if you use wired devices. 2 ports for the mouse and keyboard. One for a webcam and one for charging my phone. And last port is USB-C and I don’t have many devices with this interface yet. So I have no spare USB ports in my motherboard.

And USB ports in my case are occupied by an iPad and a USB flash drive. As you can see all ports are occupied by some device. Sure I can unplug some if I need to plug something else. Or I can plug my monitor into one USB port and it has 2 USB ports as well. But all of that is inconvenient. So I think I need around 6-7 ports on the motherboard. But your mileage may vary. Just think about it before buying and make sure you will have free ports after you plug everything else.

Tip #4

Unless you have a very limited budget I would not recommend buying a very cheap motherboard. Usually, a modern motherboard will last at least 5 years, and spending an extra $50 is just an extra $10 per year. And typically extra $50 will allow you to buy a motherboard of the higher class.

Tip #5

I recommend not buying a motherboard with built-in Wifi. Very often built-in Wifi will perform very poorly even on decent motherboards. Plus you will not be able to upgrade it. And for the difference between a motherboard with Wifi and without it, you can usually buy quite a decent external USB Wifi module. Just buy one with the external antenna so you can move it away from the PC because the metal case usually badly affects the Wifi signal.

Tip #6

I typically recommend buying a full ATX motherboard. It will have 4 memory slots and a lot of different ports like USB and M2. Also, they can typically support quite power-hungry CPUs and in general they will provide more stable power.

Tip #7

Don’t buy noname motherboards or from a company that you never heard of. I would say stick to Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS, and if you are on a budget then you buy ASRock. Usually, I stick to the first 2 because ASUS usually much more expensive and their reputation recently took quite a hit. And ASRock is pretty much a lottery. Could be very good or very bad.

I hope it helps someone.