ASRock Wants the Best Mobo Ideas in the World

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The Best Mobo for me:

1. A more efficient and effective Power Phase Design. (Like 22+2, haha!)
2. PCI-E, 2 lanes at x16.
3. Better heat pipe design.
4. 90 degrees power connectors
5. Blue and dark gray PCB color combination.
6. WiFi capability.
7. More USB 3.0 headers
8. Intelligent Power Management Technology.
9. Integrating CPU+GPU Power (not power as in wattage).
10. Intelligent Firewall.
11. More Effective OC.
12. High-Quality Components.
13. More reliable AI for System Management.
14. Better Green Technology.
15. HDMI and a better integrated graphics.
 
Dream Motherboard Scenario #2
-My first dream motherboard consists of 2 systems in 1...but what if there's no room on the MB? Well...here is another possibility.
-Motherboard with integrated graphics good enough to handle HTPC functionality
-includes at least 2 PCIe x8 or x16
-capability to turn high performance graphics on/off on the fly to save power or when needed for high performance; ability to switch between integrated graphics or PCIe graphics on the fly
-Max power consumption of HTPC system should be as low as reasonably achievable without causing CPU to crash; maybe max power consumption 60-80watts.
 
A module attachment that could diagnose any problems on the motherboard from bad connections, to faulty drivers or even low volts or non compatible hardware. They have them for Cars, why not motherboards? why are we still stuck in the 1970's? with beeps and crap who really knows what the beeps mean anyway? you lose the manual and your screwed. Unless you have 2 computers or are well versed in computer repair.
 
What I would like to see in a new motherboard is, some sort of port, that requires little or no end user setup, that allows you to simply plug 2 of the same motherboards together and have them act in tandem. This would simplify many peoples lives that use their pc for tasks that require large amounts of computing power on a regular basis.

It would be a god send for rendering in 3d modeling.
 
Mini/micro ITX, Sata3 port facing up not aside, single PCI-X 2.0 X16, 2 front panel USB3, 4 rear panel USB3, all solid capacitor, heat pipe on board cooler, Triple channel DDR3, 890GX with turbo UCC, H55 with Turbo100. my much love is instantBOOT. Overclock is good but HTPC form factor need that less. Phenom 2 X6 or Core i5 750 un-OC-ed is powerfull enough for all mainstream gamer which is the biggest part of PC user,like me
 
1) I want a motherboard with 8+2 power phases for an AMD cpu.
2) I want a motherboard with an auto-undervolt tuning program in the BIOS.
3) I want a motherboard with the front panel connectors placed on the side of the board, facing outward, and the USB connectors placed closer to the front panel, and one by the RAM so it's near the top of the case... because that's where I'll be connecting USB ports.
4) A motherboard that can disable all but one core on-the-fly, while Windows is running. If my quad-core is just idling all day while I'm at work, I don't need all cores to be running.
5) motherboards with MORE color schemes. So many people pick a motherboard just because it has a certain color scheme... the Crosshairs for example go great with black/red cases. Gigabyte's motherboards do not, so make one for people who want that look with the same features as your current series.
6) built-in wireless with a built-in antenna that goes around the motherboard (like how in laptops the antenna is built around the screen), or a connector to hook up a better antenna that can be attached within the case but is easy to hide.
7) ability to enable and disable LED's on the mobo
8) modular chipset setup we can change or upgrade with fans if we want
9) super energy efficient. Better quality chokes, and some of us know that silver is a better conductor than these gimmick metals like gold
 
i would like to have all connections down one side of the board, lose the ide and floppy ports i would also like to see the pcie ports usable even in crossfire etc situations, i want no onboard sound enthusiasts tend to buy soundcards and i want fan headers all in a row for neatness with an access hole built into the board for connections from the rear, any other middle of the board connections should have the same so wires can be routed under the board , i think the name of the board should be picked out in leds too
 
I would like to see a board with integrated blowers (Like laptop fans), that force air through the heatsinks on the board and exhaust out the vent present in the rear of most cases above the MB.

Keeping the chipset isolated by a casing and cooling it independently would be a minor thing, but it would look nice (large spaces for good looking designs on the casings), it would protect components from being manhandled/damaged, and could even prevent shorts from things like cooling loop leaks. It goes without saying that the ability to screw off or snap out the parts would be essential, so it should be put together in sections that overlap 1/4th of a inch.

 
[citation][nom]suven[/nom]A motherboard that has an upgradeable cpu socket, ideally to either Intel or AMD processors.[/citation]

Actually, Asrock did that on a couple of their older Socket 939 boards. You could slide an addon card that would let you install a socket AM2 CPU and DDR2 Ram and it would completely bypass the old S939 cpu and DDR1 ram. I thought it was a neat idea. Not perfect, but it was definitely a plus for those that like to upgrade often or at least wanted the option available down the line without having to completely scrap most of your system in the process.
 
- A front panel display that shows all relevant information like temps/fanspeeds etc and adds the possibillity to adjust fanspeeds.
- Explanation of all settings in the BIOS (make the help in the BIOS usefull). Some options are really obscure :)
- A connection cable for connecting the different wires (HD LED/RESET etc) next to the motherboard
- Fixed amount of pre-installed working memory. Why buying seperately and getting memory problems?
 
I want a Mainboard with no onboard video, audio, or lan of anykind. I also dont want any serial or paralell ports. I like the design of the sata connectors turn on their side for better cable management. Would also like to have a bit more clearance around the CPU socket to accomadate bigger than normal heatsinks and fans, plus at least 3 additional connections for case fans in addition to the CPU fan connector.
 
i would like to see,
amd3+ (compatible with amd3)
3way sli, crossfire
10 sata ports(6 sata 6Gb/s,4 sata 3Gb/s)
8 usb 3.0
Robust raid chip 0/1/0+1/5/10
Dual channel/ triple channel (optional) ddr3 2000(OC)/1800/1600/1333
8 channel audio
No onboard graphics, no IDE, floppy slots
Onboard sata power connector
Need to fit in standard case
Memory need to be a little further away from the CPU for big
Aftermarket CPU to fit without sacrificing memory slots
Able to move heat way from the CPU and graphics cards
Easy to use bois for overclockers and advance setting for the enthusiast that loves to go to the limit
Latest bios update


Intel
3 and 4 way sli, crossfire
10 sata ports (6 sata 6 GB/s, 4 sata 3 GB/s)
8 usb 3.0
Robust raid chip 0/1/0+1/5/10
Triple channel (optional) ddr3 2000(oc)/1800/1600/1333
8 channel audio
No onboard graphics, no ide, floppy slots
Able to move heat way from the CPU and graphics cards
Easy to use bios for overclockers and advance setting for the enthusiast that love to go to the limit
latest bios update


 
My biggest pet peeve with motherboard is the pci and pciexpess slot spacing. Graphics cards are huge and cover up improperly spaced slots. Leave extra space around the pcie x16_1 slot! And don't have any motherboard heatsinks around there, its already hot enough around the gpu. the gpu needs room to breathe. Also it would be nice if all the power connectors were on the outside of the board, wire clutter is a hassle. A built in wireless adapter would also be a nice addition, bluetooth if possible for a media remote. Also dealing with jumpers and other small parts like screws really sucks if you have large hands like I do. That would save me a lot of time if there was an easier way.
 
Make the CPU vertically connected to the motherboard so it can be cooled on three sides by three fans, three water cooling elements, or a surrounding air or water chamber.
 
1.) Cone/narrowing-square shaped guides on the included backplate so the user doesn't need to tear apart everything to try to plug in a mic/speaker/ethernet/usb cable. Have you ever tried plugging an 1/8" jack into the back of a PC you can't see? The guide doesn't need to be bulky or huge, but trying to reach behind a PC under your desk to plug in anything is a nightmare when you can't see what you're doing. Which brings me to...

2.) Include a *powered* remote USB/eSata hub! Isn't it about time that we don't need to desk-dive or buy additional accessories to plug something in? I'd gladly pay a bit extra to have my mobo ship with a well-designed multi-port hub that is powered directly from the mobo (via an extra cable from the power supply, if necessary!). Include a strip of 2-sided tape, in case I want to mount it on my case/desk/whatever. Cheap to manufacture, and a necessity for anyone with more than 1-2 USB devices. Sure, an on-board USB header for front-connections is nice too, but not all case designs have them. Take it a step further - maybe in a "Premium" package, include digital readout for chip temps, fan speed, manual fan control, etc. Yeah, there's software for that stuff, but if I want to crank up/down a fan mid-game (or mid-business call), a knob is intuitive - hunting in software isn't.

3.) Lights on the mobo - ok, gimmicky, UNLESS they are practical! You have a 2-digit LED for diagnostics - how about another (3 digit?) for bios/app/button-on-mobo selectable CPU temp/Voltage/multiplier? or a small, backlit lcd with some scrolling info? An overclocker squeezing performance out of a mobo on a test bench would be grateful! Also - allow the diag one to be switched to northbridge/zone temps. Diag is only helpful when something is wrong... otherwise, who cares that the current runstate is 3F?

4.) ACCESSORIES!! Overclockers are geeks (ok, well, I am), and geeks like geeky (and practical) accessories. Some examples:
- small rubber grommets for the mounting holes to isolate the mobo from the mounting pegs - protect the mobo, and isolate fan vibration from transfer to the case.
- zip ties/clips for cable management. Everyone has their own preference, but a few extra zip ties never hurt anyone.
- USB powered white LED - useful for build, useful after build.
- Stickers, keychains, bottle openers, whatever!
- One-time application of Arctic Silver for the CPU!!
- Other geeky stuff...?

5.) Include a (reusable) USB drive loaded with some utilities (like, maybe a barebones bootloader that lets you adjust voltage/clock/multiplier, and runs CPU/GPU/RAM/bus stress tests. How nice it would be to get through that before moving/building the rest (DVD/BD/CD/HD), or doing an OS install.

5.) Best for last - STABILITY and SUPPORT. Board should be stable for intended use - that's a given. But if it isn't, keep the consumers updated on a fix status, whether it's an RMA, firmware update, bios update, etc. It's bad when things don't work right, but it's much worse when the company doesn't seem to care.

Figuring out what a user wants in a premium motherboard is easy - Pack in as much of the latest everything as possible, strip out the old junk, and you're done. It's the little conveniences (or lack of inconveniences) that sets apart any product. If you can make me feel like a 6-year-old on my birthday when I open the box, people are going to hear about it.
 
Future MOBOs: Focus on the largely ignored underside of the Motherboard while making improvements at connectors on the topside of the board. There is so much room under that bottom of the board that can be utilized without adding much height to the overall structure of the motherboard itself.

The top side of the board is micromanaged under intense scrutiny, while opportunities to improve the motherboard are missed by not looking at what can be added or changed to the bottom of the board.

“Water board or the more PC sensitive Surf Board”

Example #1 Working with the entire underside of the board: add liquid cooling chambers, a radiator, and cooling pump to circulate and cool the liquid to sit directly on the underside of the board. Then add better conductors to pci, memory, and cpu slots. Tubes would come up through from the bottom of the mobo one carrying cooled coolant and one coming out and back down carrying heated coolant. These tubes would be connected to thin flat coolant containers that rest on the bottom surface area of an added video card or DDR. These can be adjusted depending on the size and type of hardware they are to surround.

Example #2 Or put liquid cooling under the mobo (simply as part of the board or as an add on product) and connections where adjustable connection ports where liquid elements can be later connected and placed over cpu, pci slots and ddr as part of add on options either initially with the board or added later.

Example #3 A cheaper easier way to start developing the undersides of mobos with cooling is by adding cooled liquid chambers to encompass the entire underside of the board that simply cool the above components by ‘Radiant Cooling’. ‘Radiant heat (water warmed tubes that warm up the conductive concrete or wood layers of a floor) has been used in homes with great success for years. Overlooked is the extent of how well ‘Radiant cooling’ works (cooled water tubes that warm up the conductive concrete or wood layers of a floor) running cold water through these tubes helps cool a home in the summer time placing less work on fans and air conditioners. People feel the benefit of radiant cooling less than the benefits of radiant heat because of the heat raises effect, but our pets (who exist much closer to the cooling element of the floor due to their lack of height) gain more of the cooling benefits. They also lie on the floor and spread as much surface area from their bodies directly to the cooled conductive material. In this example, the entire motherboard will be cooled and the components attached and sitting directly on and projecting just inches above the cooled floor of the board will benefit from the cooling. Connections could also be made to increase the contacted surface area of the slots to the hardware.


 
Looking at my ASRock x58 Extreme motherboard through my window on my chasis the motherboad is saying... i'm shy. The northbridge which looks cool out of the box, but not in the chassis as it is darks is something that would look cool if it lit up. Now the northbridge is to help cool it, so how can we light it.

Take a street light outside and shrink it down to the size of half your little finger. Have the light a white led and why presto you have a motherboard light that can direct light at the northbridge.

You should give these with the motherboard and have sockets to plug them in. Lots of sockets and ligths would be great as we could customize. Just make sure the motherboard can power them.

Finally on the light issue, could we have a glowing edge to the motherboard that we can interchange the colours from windows.

Any why is the motherboard always square... oh I know most people have small chassis, but if you have an ATX board why not have attachable sides on the right hand side to make the board look less square. Lots of cool ideas for the shapes you could use and with the glowing edge is would look sweet in the gamers chassis!
 
I want a motherboard that has a 7 year warranty, and also a motherboard that will still be capable and upgradable enough that in seven years I can still use it for more than just a kid computer. This means support for more than 2 usb 3.0, sata ports for at least 8 hard drives, and bus speeds that are the fastest available( for faster future processors, video cards ect). and more than the warranty, I want it built with such quality that I never have to even think about needing to rma for a warranty claim.
 
[citation][nom]goalguy876[/nom]Replace screwing the motherboards in with some kind of locking mechanism. This would require the case to be compatible too though. It would make it a lot easier to install new heatsinks/video cards/processors etc.[/citation]

not a bad idea dude. if i could thumbs up 2x i would!

and it wouldn't require the case to be modded. it would just have to come with a bracket that makes use of the screws that the mobo slots in to.

i know it won't happen but i'd like to see the entire industry take the idea behind BTX and update the ancient ATX form factor. seems like something so obvious and simple that would help ALL PC's.
 
Here is the short list of what a real man's motherboard would consist of:
-Modular install -> Tired of screws, a special locking mechanism of some sort perhaps?

-Physical
--40% stop putting the memory slots so close to the processor slot.
--5% Get rid of the old PCI slots, anyone who uses those things anymore has hardware they must have bought 8 years ago
--10% Write the instructions in plain "insert_locale_here", and stop including software that nobody uses....honestly, would you install all the crap that comes with your motherboard?
--10% make the silkscreened letters on the PCB show up more than 9000% better, that writing is way too tiny, and does not stand out at all
--15% More PWM fan pinheaders, and put them all together. Some of us like to run many larger fans and dont want to mess with stupid knobs to adjust noise levels
--25% Cert of Authenticity and Guarantee of Workmanship. You guys work in a Motherboard Factory--I have to wait 2 weeks for an RMA, capice?

And yes, 105% is what I expect of my motherboard ;-)

-BIOS
--One with a point/click GUI instead of the eye-raping bleached out blue-white-yellow you usually see (protip: its 2010 already)
--Clear indication of what sensors go to what frakin piece of hardware (how about the ability to canonically name them in BIOS so they show up labeled as such in programs like SpeedFan--vs1, vs2, vs3, vs4 do not tell me anything)
--Instant start media player that can read more than bone-stock NTFS/FAT, there's dozens of other commonly used filesystems
--Customizable status lights (ASUS Crosshair series almost has this right) -- and a built in digital diagnostic readout, drop the speaker (chasing down hardware errors is a PITA)

-Specifications:
--Drop the Windows specificity. We all know its going to work anyway with Windows. Dropping abilities/functions (Im looking at you Logitech with your 1/5th powered USB port on the G110) to get that stupid sticker on the outside. To be honest, if I saw a motherboard that said, "This Product works with ALL Modern Operating Systems designed for XYZ Architechture" I would be more prone to purchasing it. Work with us Linux/BSD/UNIX/Apple/ETC/ETC guys instead of the other way around. Either that or provide the required Operating System with the board that it is designed to run.
--Stop putting fakeraid on motherboard, either work out a subsidy with a vendor that can provide REAL HARDWARE raid, or stop wasting space on the board (how about dual backup bios, included TPM, remote start keyfob, etc). Software RAID is just as easy to set up in Win/Linux than to use some hacked together Intel/Promise firmware that still relies on the processor anyway

Freebies:
--These boards are chosen out of labors of love by some us system builders. If you are going to include a game with it to persuade us to buy it, please check out some review sites before you do. "The Witcher" is not a substitute for awesome.
--You can show off an Anodized Aluminum Keychains way better than a sticker
 
I would like to see a motherboard that is truly unique and hi-tech. Here is my sugestions:

1) USB 3.0 on all USB ports

2) 3 or 4 non-CPU PWM fan headers @ minimum 1A per header

3) Lose the legacy items (PCI, PS2, IDE, Serial) that slow down the entire system.

4) Pre-installed water-cooling blocks on the Northbridge and MOSFETS (in a sealed enclosure?)

5) Add a 'Test Mode' in the BIOS which would allow overclocking 'auto-tuning' software to rebot the board if it froze. Create your own AOD typr utility to facilitate. This would give even novices the ability to get max speed by setting BIOS for 'test mode' then set utility off running and come back in a few hours and you have the best results for your given hardware.

6) Put 20+4 connector sideways at the top or bottom of the board to reduce cluter and increase airflow

7) Add Bluetooth and WiFi N (in an upgradable midule)

8) Add on-board 32GB uber-fast 'ReadyBoost' chip similar to the old days so Windows can use it as dedicated. Tie in to USB 3.0 lanes??

9) As a nod to cost savings, enthusiest boards have 3 - x16 PCIe the water blocks as above and a real Soundblaster chip while mainstream boards can have only 1 x16 PCIe and a current Realtek sound chip.

10) Add to BIOS - ability to assign a given partition to a specific 'F' key - F3, F4, F6 etc (F5 and F8 are for Windows). This way multiple partitions can be created with older OS's and you boot into it by the given 'F' key rather than a disk-based boot manager.


Just my .02 worth but I can say something like the above would be 'THE' item to have - period!
 



if you think that's a good idea go buy a mac theyre screwless.

if you like btx you should look at my design earlier in these posts.
 
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