ASRock Wants the Best Mobo Ideas in the World

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.) naming conventions
Most boards have very cryptic names like 89RTF0M, that isn't user friendly. Divide them into groups, and use clear and understandable names. Just take a look at memory manufacturers. For example. G.E.I.L has a Value, EVO, Ultra and Black Dragon series and they ALL look slightly different, which makes them easy to find on those long lists with pictures. You only have to look at one of each type to quickly narrow it down. And then you just have to browse through one type to find one that suits you.

For MBs the names usually tell nothing and even the detail page with all features never tells anything about stuff like overclocking features, integrated graphics&tv tuner (for htpcs). Which means you HAVE TO read reviews, which are mostly very brief or non existant. If MB manufacturers would develop clear lines of products then it would be easy to tell that socketA/B hardcoreOC.1-5 have a similar feature set.

.) Front panel connections
Make the manual entry more clear. I always get at least one of them wrong. Seriously some have black/white wires others black/red, some leds have 2 pins others 3 with a gap. Then there is stuff written on them..should it go to the center of the board, the center of the panel or the outside..at least the manual should state that black usually means ground/-.

The space in most cases is very limited that makes it very difficult to plug all these small connectors in, even more because your hand is in the way and you can't see anything. A 'riser' would be nice..plug all FPCs into it and then the riser onto to board or maybe even better a breakout cable.

Finally get motherboard/case manufacturers together and form a standard for these things. Almost every connection inside a PC is fail-safe, you can't plug them into the wrong place or in the wrong way. Why can't these things be fixed..even front panel audio and HD-audio/USB/Firewire are standardized.

.) BIOS woes..
Again make the manual more clear. For example 'Memory Hole Remapping' - "Allows remapping of memory around the memory hole" Great..now I feel really smart. What's the recommended setting for stuff, when should it be on or why should it be off. At least explain anything that affects performance. I'm not a engineer and if I'm inside the BIOS I can't google it up.

Make default values visible. My current BIOS displays 'auto' for many entries..which is really bad. How should I verify if my memory is running at the right clock rate or if it correctly recognizes 6-6-6-12 or runs at wrong 9-9-9-24 timings. Same for other overclocking settings, it's great that my NB core voltage is 'auto'. The next value is 1.15v is that default or undervoltage? How should I know?

Instead of writing auto add * after the default 1.20v* or even better color code it..same color as field name => default/auto, if that is white then..yellow could mean user settings and red very dangerous stuff.

BIOS updates are always risky and I never feel good while doing one..add a backup BIOS for safety, or add a recovery tool to the driver cd and construct the board in a way that it can boot to cd-access even with a corrupted BIOS or weld a USB-stick directly onto the board, that could contain the BIOS backup, drivers, tools the manual and other nifty stuff..that way you wouldn't even need to burn a driver cd and small usb-sticks are already very cheap. Just make sure that there is a bios setting or support tool to unmount it when you don't need to access it from your OS.

.) Delayed overclocking
What?! My current crappy MB is only slightly overclocked, yet the settings heavily interferes with early boot stages. There is a 50/50 chance that the system will cold boot and if it doesn't display anything I have to reset once/twice to get it up..after that everything is 100% stable and I'm pretty sure there would be even more room for overclocking if the FSB increase would be delayed to the point where BIOS hands over to OS boot loader.

Even if there wouldn't be more room, delaying would still be good, because most tools that allow overclocking from inside the OS are really crappy and don't work properly or don't have enough functionality. BIOS overclocking is better, but if it fails to initialize you have to reboot 3-5 times until the fail-safe kicks in and resets overclocking settings to default. With delayed overclocking the BIOS would always initialize and always be accessible..no crazy rebooting..no CMOS reset just because one setting was wrong.

.) Legacy support
Please keep at least one IDE channel alive. I still have old HDD that work fine..I still have my monster DVD+-RW that eats anything without complaints.

Keep 1-2 PCI slots on full-atx boards too. I have a high quality Soundcard that I don't want to loose and surprisingly my almost pre2k oldschool TV-card still works.

There is just no reason to upgrade these things right now and full-atx boards should have enough space for them. I mean most boards had floppy connectors years after CD/DVD and USB had absolutely destroyed them capacity-wise..PCI&IDE still have a good share of lifetime left, maybe not on uATX, but who wants to use them in a full-atx case? They just don't look manly enough. 😛

.) MB features
I rememeber a old board with 8xAGP AND PCIe slot..it wasn't that fast but it was really good for a budget upgrade. The AM2+/3 plattform was great..I just wish there would've been a board that supports DDR2 and DDR3 (not at the same time), because switching a MB,CPU and RAM is always so expensive, even though the performance increase between 800,1066&1333 is very low, because of the increased timing. It might not be important right now, but who knows what new 'crap', engineers will cook up next. Probably new cpu sockets, DDR4. There will always be guys like me that have to spread out upgrades over several years and a MB that allows to keep some stuff even with a bit performance loss helps a lot.

And finally I want a dedicated 'budget' overclocking mainboard. If you look at the price lists there are these insane godlike OC-boards with SLI/Xfire, good cooling, power phasing and oc encouraging BIOS-settings at around 200-220$. Then absolutely nothing. At 100$ you'll find some with decent power phasing, oc-settings and well at least a cooler, but they still have a crippled 8x/4x PCIe slot that nobody really needs. (If you can afford 2 graphiccards then you can afford a high class MB too)

Where is the MB with encouraging OC-settings (maybe even ACC), power phasing and at least some cooling with one 16xPCIe, 2-3 1xPCIe, 1-2 PCI and single channel IDE controller for the average guy that still wants to squeeze every drop of performance out of the only stuff he can afford?

I just can't find them. There are these 'ghetto SLI boards' around 100-120$, but that price tag still 'hurts' and if I look at the 50-80$ range, most of them are 'cute' uATX boards for girls (paint them pink with glitter please 😛) and they usually have very odd slot combinations or a complete lack of legacy support, not to mention that they seem to be hit/miss for overclocking.

There just isn't one that screams "budget overclocker §$%$ yeah!" or there is a serious lack of information from hardware news sites/magazines that just don't give it enough credit, because it got drowned in the mass of uATX boards.

And as more or less silly idea for the future a customizable mainboard program. There are websites to print your own T-shirts, to mix your own chocolate or breakfast cereals..why not make a project for the hardcore case-modding scene.

You spent 100h in your garage working on your case?
You searched for months online to find parts that fit your style?
You rearranged your LED arrays 5 times until your tower cooler with chrome finish had the right shine?
..but all your friends laugh at you. because you have that one high performance MB and it's pink!
Don-t fear! Call paint-a-mobo now! And you will get a custom made MB of your choice delivered in 4 weeks. Here you will finally get that black PCB with gold highlighted lines, slots, yellow leds and gun metal black rear panel!

On a side note I just don't like the color schemes of most manufacturers and if I had a case with a window I wouldn't want to choose a board just by color for that perfect look. (How hard can it be to make a badass black/dark red color scheme..I HATE blue LEDs 😛)

But seriously it shouldn't be too hard to make pleasant looking boards. There is no reason to have 5 different and very bright colors, when 2 or 3 matching colors would achieve the same.

I had a pink MB for years (true) and even though I don't have a window, just knowing that it's there, seeing it laughing at me through the case fans, illuminated by a few leds..lowered my E-peen and I've lost many games because of the bad mojo it caused. Don't make me go through that ever again! I could've been a ProGamer for sure xD
 
Most MB's I have bought over the years have been great boards full of all kinda of fancy features... That I dont use. Design a modular motherboard that a guy like me can buy what I want and pop in the universal module for the port I want. Obviously there need to be fixed components such as proc/memory/pcix slots.
 
Add 2 more memory slots to make 8 total so that people can have more memory (example 16 Gb) using cheaper 2 gig modules. The price for 4 GB modules is cost prohibitive for many users who like to use large virtual machines at home.

Make it easy for users to have a high resolution custom image at post instead of the black text. also with the image, the possibility of having some kind of animated gif that the customer can create and place where they like to indicate it is posting and not hung (like a progress bar).
Get rid of PCI slots in favor of PCIE, with the abundance of the IO on the motherboard PCI slots are not needed much anymore, as well as almost all PCI add in cards have a PCIE variant now days.

Many people have found a way to use OS X on their motherboards and gigabyte sells quite a few boards to these enthusiasts. How about the option to boot into EFI as well as BIOS and skip the EFI software emulation.

I also wish to run Windows from an external usb drive, but windows will not boot. Is it possible to treat some or all usb ports (firewire as well) so that they are seen as native sata ? that would allow people to have portable windows installations on the cheaper usb drives. With USB 3 and firewire coming along, it would be nice .

No more 1394a, 1394b only please. More than 2 USB 3 ports for the future.

A mini PCI-E slot on motherboards so that a wifi card can be added and kept parallel to the board and super low profile.

Include with each motherboard a momentary push switch on a long cable to clear the CMOS. Something that can be mounted where the customer has easy access. Either that or a bios that resets when it gets really screwed up (worst cases possible) thereby eliminating having to manually reset.

As others before me said, no more PS/2 or floppy drive connectors.

The ability to use onboard video and a video card always for virtual machines.

Onboard audio that doesn't squeal or whine when I scroll my mouse wheel or use my wireless router.
 
-No IDE
-No Serial
-No PS2
-4 or more connectors for fan
-Onboard flash or ssd for os

If you could make that the mother board is flush to the computer case so that when you put ram stick it doesnt bend, or just reinforce the mother board around these part. This would be my fav mother board features.
 
I want a small ONBOARD hard drive (either flash or SSD) for storing sensitive data and drivers so if I want to blow away my hard drive(s) for a new RAID set or in case there is a crash, I can reload them quickly and not have to go searching for the drivers or lose my important files. I believe this is something that should be essential. Maybe 4-10gb. You could also load a small O/S onto the on board hard drive to possibly remove files from a crashed drive???? Flash ram is cheap and the lower end SSD's are coming down in price. This is very do-able and it would become essential going forward. Like Larry the Cable Guy says, Git R Done.
 
SSDs are the future. Can I please have native SSD recognition and auto config for best performance? That's not a big ask.
I agree with the strip it mentality. The time has come to take a BIG SHOVEL to a steaming great pile of legacy dinosaur techshit.
The more I think about it.. the more I think it's time for a new standard for board layout. Asrock can be a standard setting leader. Just keep it cool, in every respect. :)
 
The Dream Motherboard
1. Motherboard with 2 processing systems on the SAME Board
2. 1 for lower power system for HTPC & 1 for performance system. The motherboard would share common systems such as power supply, audio/video connections, onboard audio/video, full HDMI with the latest audio codec, memory (if possible); but can also use laptop memory for HTPC system; 1 or 2 slots of 4GB notebook memory for HTPC; onboard connection for video could be dedicated to HTPC; only use HDMI; high performance system requires video card for video
3. The high performance system should be able to handle minimum Xfire or SLI, minimum 2 PCIe, 16x each or 2 by 8x each lane.
4. Only one system can work at a time if resources shared; or both can run at the same time if separate system are built
5. Ability to turn either one or both on/off by flipping a switch (e.g., 3 way switch, HTPC, HiPerformance, or both)
6. power consumption for HTPC max 40Watts
7. Strip down OS could be pre-installed on HTPC system
8. No Legacy support; it's time to move forward; use space saved at I/O connection to install CMOS battery, accessible from IO plate; CMOS reset button at I/O Plate
 
My suggestion isn't for a single motherboard, but rather use different models to target different audiences, better than done so now. First, and most importantly, is a "go-to" board for system builders. I want a legacy free mATX board with everything onboard, that is thoroughly tested so that needing a BIOS flash after deployment is extremely unlikely. It also needs to have guaranteed availability for at least 3 years, so that failures can be addressed quickly. Of course, it needs to be affordable enough too. Next, both Intel and AMD should each have a legacy board, that each support a wide range of CPUs (Asrock has already made a name for themselves for this). Again, 3 year availability would be nice. Then, a few motherboards addressing enthusiasts. The volume won't be as great, both up front, and in the need for exact replacements later on, so updating the lineup each year (or twice a year) is not a big deal. Legacy free is the way to go. Also, on the midrange enthusiast ATX board, I suggest the following 7 slot layout: PCI-e 1x, PCI-e 16x, blank, PCI-e 1x, PCI-e 16x, PCI-e 1x, PCI-e 1x. The reason for the blank space is that it is a safe assumption that an enthusiast will be using a dual-slot video card (even a number of mid-range cards using 1 external bracket have a dual-slot cooler). Even if it's a single slot cooler, the smaller fans are often placed closer to the back of the case, where a PCI-e 1x card that wouldn't block the fan on a dual-slot cooler, just may on a single-slot model.
 
I would like to see front USB, audio, firewire, etc. ports that connect to the front side of the motherboard instead of having the wires travel from the bottom or back of the board, for cable management. Others have already stated that the main power connectors and CPU power connectors needs to be turned on edge and placed at the top of the board already and I second that. In addition to that thought, I would also like to see some on board PCI-E connectors so the add-on video cards can be connected with a short connector instead of long power supply lines running across the board. This could be done by putting the PCI-E power connectors by the main power connector at the top of the board and you can run them around the edge of the board (or along the back of the board with heat shielding) to eliminate heat in the middle of the board. Enthusiasts love to tweak and change parts. Getting the wires out of the way will make this a more attractive build, less obstructive for better air flow, and also make it easier to make changes, meaning more guys will be willing to make those tweaks which equals more dollars in sales.
 
I want a motherboard with :

1) Offline, or some sort of standby, ipod support. Like let me hook my ipod and recognize it as such and let me play music through my board and pc speakers without having to log on any OS

2) an advanced diagnostics system, wich would have a small LCD that can load some basic bios settings so i could hook and test my board without a monitor, and perform stress tests on hardware, it could have tiny leds next to each ram slot and the cpu and etc that would light indicating hardware problems
 
You want the Best ? Let's see first what are the main ingredients for the term "BEST", when it comes to motherboards.. yes, of course, here they are: Performance and Quality !

So, if you want to have the BEST, just focus on great Overclock capabilities and features and, for the love of God, use only high-quality components (especially capacitors and voltage regulators). I know the costs would be somewhat higher, but it's totally worth it!

It's simple, all you have to do is build a very capable overclocking board and very durable, because the main reason for a product to gain confidence from consumers is to score good in benchmarks and get recommended by reviews. On the other hand, what makes a product go down from user's choice is not having the worst performance but to have high rates of failure, and that's what happens when you don't use that 5% extra in production costs by using higher quality components.

And now, if you combine that two, it's impossible not to make the BEST board. Plain and simple, build quality and excellent overclocking. Because overclocking is the key-factor in this segment, and stability is the "minimum requirement".

Forget about fancy designs, weird lay-outs and other stuff I've read here, they won't make it the best. The key is not to invent, but to perfect.

So yes, i want to buy a board that overclocks like hell and stay relaxed knowing that what i've bought is not gonna need service soon.

I know that what i'm saying is not by far original and that i'm definitely not gonna win, but you all know that i'm right.

All the best, john v.
 
I want it to have a super stealth mode to leave it downloading files all night with low power consumption. Integrated router on it, and use it similar to NAS. 7.1 Sound card and Tv tuner to record in HD. And a database of overclocking profiles per CPU, updatabled by flashing the BIOS to new versions.
Lifetime Warraty as well.
 
Hehe, how about some kind of a mini-projector that would project system infos like temperatures to the side panel and users can see them if they got a side panel window.

And I just want to say that I absolutely love how all the x58 boards from asrock have double wide pci-e slots, i wish more vendors had that feature on their boards. 😀
 
I would like to see a flexible motherboard which would chase crazy 3d mark score and also provide grate expansion slots not all motherboard has that
pcie x16 slot 1
pcie x16 slot 2(either on nf200 or lane sharing)
pcie x1/ pci slot 3 (audio card after market)
pcie x16 slot 4
pci slot 5
pcie x16 slot 6 (either on nf200 or lane sharing)
pcie x4 slot 7 (physx card)
 
Make a mini-ITX gaming mobo. hauling big pc's into LAN parties are a thing of the past. a mini-ITX designed with all the capabilities of ATX mobos but without the extra fluffs would definitely be a hit. Imagine carrying a textbook sized PC to LAN and have it perform on par with full towers. Follow intel's Tick/Tock policy and start shrinking everything. it helps to take out legacy ports and stick with the newest.

modular mobos - the 'create your own' mobo where the core mobo (ITX or mATX sized) can be augmented by special modular pieces. if you decide you want to sli or crossfire later down the year, snatch another PCI express 2.0 slot. if you decide you need legacy ports, buy the modular VGA add-on or ps2 add-on. got old files on that ide; grab an ide add-on. Ideally, people will not have to settle for a board without features they wanted, or buy a higher tiered board with extra features they wont use.
 
How about a small amount of Bootable built in flash (1 gig or so) with something like a stripped down version of Ubuntu on it or some linux with built in tools like formatting/partition utilities and a simple drive clone recovery tool. This would benefit the people who run a lot of hard disks and multi partition setups. If we lost our disk or an unstable overclock wrecks the partition table, we could boot from the recovery flash onboard and fix it.
Or just include a blank high speed BOOTABLE flash slot on the mb for whatever the user wants.

I lose track of my flash drive all the time 😉
 
I am *not* a gaming enthusiast. As a software developer, what I want to see in a mainboard is:
1) more ram slots
2) more cpu cores per dollar
3) ecc ram slots
4) light peak
5) usb 3
6) *LOTS* of sata ports with independent buses so software raid works well (I use RAID 10 mostly), and 2 esata ports w/ port multiplier ability
7) stable drivers
8) DVI/HDMI onboard able to do Aero, and ideally with dedicated RAM so it won't need system ram
9) PCI-e 8x/16x able to receive a raid card and listed as a supported configuration
10) quality looking build
11) perhaps a modular memory expansion via light peak
12) remote ip-kvm/power (even if paid extra or through a module)
13) CPU/memory daughter boards
14) high quality network ports which max out gig-e links (2-4)

These days I don't really care about IDE/FDD ports anymore
 
I think that an integrated cooling system on a overclocker friendly board would be interesting. You could have a heat sink underneath the processor as another commenter has mentioned but pump that heat somewhere else.
A Peltier effect cooler(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling) could easily be installed on the back of the board. Connect it to the case in some way to get the heat out of the case easily.
If the Peltier cooler on the back of the motherboard is powerful enough you could do away with fans and have a very quiet htpc.
 
Wants:
1. 90 Degree power connectors (24pin, 8pin, 6pin)
2. Power connector need to be along the "top" edge of the board
3. at least 6 "3/4" pin case fan headers (3 in front and 3 in back evenly space out)
4. 2 "4" pin CPU fan headers
5. 2-4 SATA3 connectors at the top front for optical drives (90 degree)
6. Enough clearance around the CPU socket to accommodate large CPU coolers with a push/pull fan setup
7. At least 2 slots between any PCIE 16x slots
8. Easy to access CMOS reset switch
9. Hi-C capacitors
10. 4-6 SATA6 connectors
11. Better quality onboard sound (X-Fi, ASUS, C-Media) (can be an add on card but needs to have a dedicated connector)
12. Rear Panel: 6-8 USB2/3, Firewire (Standard or mini), 2 ESATA, Audio (Coax, Optical, 1/8" surround)
13. Onboard power switch
14. Onboard Reset switch
15. Pin block for PWR/RST/SPKR/HDD for easy connection to board
16. PCB base Crossfire and SLI bridges
17. ATX form factor
18. Heat sinks should be screwed onto the board
19. Better CPU back plate to reduce stress on the socket and the boards PCB when using large coolers
20. Comes with air-cooling and water cooling options for chipsets and capacitors (as an addition accessory would be fine)
21. The appropriate cable for every port or connector on the board (if you have 6 SATA6 ports the board should come with 6 SATA6 cables (preferably 90 degree))

Do not want:
1. Legacy Connections (floppy, PATA, Serial, PS2, Parallel)
2. Molex connectors on the board
3. No plastic retention clips for heat sinks
 
If it is possible, I think it would be nice to have cable based adapters to the available slots. The cards could be located farther from the board or aligned differently. This would allow some really creative Box Mods or even alternative cooling solutions to peripherals.
 
I think a rail system for the expansion cards would be cool. This way, expansion cards slide into the system from outside the case and lock in place. This would eliminate having to open the case, remove the expansion slot cover, install the card, install the screw to hold it in place, pop the cover back on.......

Kind of like sliding a CD case into an open slot on a shelf that already has CDs on it. All expansion cards would be fully protected in a plastic or aluminum casing and would be free of possible damage from static electricity.
 
Mobo for SMB and even enterprise level
I know those IT Dep. will not go for some thing without 3 year support, but the world is changing and with right marketing and most important the right futures those Mobo will sell like ibad 😀

What we (IT Dep.) need - BTW I am one of them- is

1- Very simple, what run (Windows 7, M$ office 2010 and IE9)
2- Very small form like the size of new macmini (no CD, FireWire, external SATA nor legacy or interneal connecters) (only USB, WiFi, BT, Ethernet)
2- Robust hardware (so they don't have to have 3 year support contract)
3- Include all the software they need (Linux OS, Open office, FireFox, Skype, Google App.)
4- HA in network (two ethernet ports, Wifi and 3G) and storage (two HD RAID 0).
5- Internal UPS
6- Security aware mobo (Hard Disk Drive Security Lock, smart phone to authenticate, GPS for finding stollen one etc...)
7- New level of Green.the mobo has no power plug it powered over Ethernet (30 Watts is enough) and there is two of them. (you can even power Smart monitor)
8- Integrated with employee smart phone and BT ear plug
9-ASRack can bosh it by providing IT Dep with solution not only mobo (shipped boxex not mobo with even Back End severs for managing those boxes and their users, those servers boxes have to be even simpler and more robust.)
10- Cloud management solution for the same reason above.
 
i would suggest a motherboard with a black PCB & all other elements in black & gray color.. (it's a nice color theme, isn't it?)

then, it's PCB should have 2x copper for better durability & strength to withstand the bending & shearing stresses from big, heavy & bulky CPU coolers.. and it should adopt the All Solid Capacitor design & should have efficient power management..

i would also want it to have a nice SATA port orientation.. at least 6 SATA ports with 4 of those ports in the lower right corner of the board facing to the right and the 2 other ports facing forward..
i would also want the HDD IDE port & floppy IDE port facing to the right and is beside each other..

then, the motherboard should have support for at least 2 PCI-Express slots and have enough space between so their is enough space for installing two or more double-slot form factor graphics cards.. it should also have at least 1 PCI-E x1 slot & at least 2 PCI slots which should be positioned belowed the last PCI-E slot..

then, it should have the best chipset, depending on the platform of course.. it should be very "overclock-friendly" and should have a great & very user-friendly BIOS.. if possible, it should have a crash-free BIOS or dual BIOS for additional safety..

then, the northbridge & southbridge heatsinks should be nice.. for better looks & better cooling.. but should not be too big to avoid getting in the way of other hardwares to be installed especially CPU coolers & graphics cards.

and lastly, it should be "nicely priced" so many PC lovers could enjoy this marvelous motherboard.. and by the way, the motherboard should have a nice name too.. :)
 
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