ASRock Wants the Best Mobo Ideas in the World

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I would like to see motherboards with built in SSD for boot!

I would also like to see more motherboards with high end audio card built into the board itself.

And a motherboard that allows you to remote into it to view and setup the BIOS remotely from another machine.

External overclocking gizmo

More dual processor boards at lower prices!

USB3 and SATA6Gbs as standard

Something really off the wall would be a motherboard with its own liquid cooling solution, not just a water block, but an entire setup with ultra low profile water pump, fan and radiator!! I WOULD BUY 2!!
 
1.: Universal soundcard socket on the motherboard, with the possibility to change to better or other producer of soundchips in the future, and if new contact points for audio is needed, the PCIe X1 and X2 slot's is excellent.
The slot need's to be at a set size, possible over sized with possible future "unused now" futures, or perhaps with a small part of the motherboard possible to get detached so you can add a new "soundmotherboard" to the system, with perhaps better hi-fi capabilities, or another board, more directed towards music production.

2.: possibility to change the chipset, with extra contact points on the motherboards back, to perhaps add extra futures, or speed, if like hypertransport is updated, you add extra "bridge" on the back between the chipset and CPU on the back on the motherboard.

3.: revolutionize the motherboard design.
unlike now, all components is placed on a single side of the motherboard, why not raise the motherboard to stand on it's edge, then add components to both sides.
you can add alot more components, or even create a supercompact desktop.
example: CPU, chipset, soundcard and memory slot's on one side, and on the other side, you add all the PCIe, SATA, eSata and all the other contact points.
Imagine a "superserver", compace motherboard, with a possible 8 CPU solution, loads of memory and loads of PCIe and SATA contact points - all this in a real compact case, you will have a REAL workhorse "Ferrari" of a graphics design PC or what ever you like to do with it.
 
Here my take asrock always was good brand I own a socket a board of theres so I know they great board What I like see from them.
1: offer diff version of same board like they do but more versions reasons (1 only 1 lan port versions for lite boards cause most top model now have 2 or more but thats just start ya even have strip down model have no onboard sound has 2 lan maybe extra pci-e for those have actual sound card) well get point on that.

cloest board i found for my needs from gigbtybe and ecs which is each missing something.

1: have optical in and out gigbtbe has that
2:ecs has 32 gig version
3:asrock has pic-e thing cover for me
4:easy hookup cable ect... like q connect on asus but go all out
5 if you do lite board and top level model I ok with 4 drives but have one with as many as chipset can handle.
6:keep stable setup asrock is know for K7S41GX was stable for me.
7:kill off those things windows 7/xp don't support.
8 full bios control of its self flashing all done tho bios no need for anything. 1 should be boot rigth in bios add new firmware no need flash drive or os. this make it so no worries to tho of us.This could be let say 12 meg chip to be added i don't know of any updates be that big that chip so ya can keep old setting just incase.

sorry for my bad english i am disable..
 
Prefer 100% Linux Compatibility and a Tux Logo on the Packaging with the text "Linux Compatible."

Coreboot instead of crippled BIOS. May be Splashtop or something similar.

Apart from that support for USB3, built-in 802.11n, a decent 3D accelerated GPU with HDMI would be nice.
 
[citation][nom]drsjlazar[/nom]most importantly, hardware with good Linux support.[/citation]

I agree on the Linux support thing(also on the rest of the post).
 
First, I would like to say that ASRock is capable of getting ideas and it's a good way to start with gathering data from the community(which is great!).

To me, COLOR COMBINATION is important. Adobe Kuler is the way to go!

Second, is ERGONOMICS, this means the right placement of components in the MOBO like putting a space for SLI/XFIRE setup.

With most people doing OCing, they also want their systems portable. A nice x58 mATX board would be great.

You can also have 4 categories of MOBO. Gaming/OCing, Business/School, Workstation and HTPC.This makes people determine what they need instead of pick just for the "MORE FEATURES" and not be able to maximize its potential.

The best feature that you can add in your MOBOs are Better Reliability, Stability and Better Value for the consumers.

 
I would like a small display on the motherboard that displays POST information on boot up, and once the motherboard has passed the post tests for it to then display the CPU and chipset temperatures.
A small additional thing I would like to see the motherboards model number and revision prominently displayed on the motherboard PCB and for it to be shown when the computer boots up and or to be shown in the BIOS. All too often it can be a challenge to find this information on some motherboards.
 
Don't skimp on the capacitors. Every motherboard i've owned that's had a hardware failure-the cause? cheapo capacitors that can't take prolonged heat.
 
My perfect motherboard would have the following features;

Support for Intel Core i7 9xx CPU's
6x Memory Slots (Colour coded for set 1 and set 2)
7x PCIe v2 16x slots (All with 16 channels)
2x HD (Hardware) 7.1 Audio processors with Optical out for each
12x SATA 6Gb/s ports (2 with Hardware RAID for SDD's)
6x High power USB 3 ports
Spare USB 3 header/s onboard for front of case access
2x Firewire ports (Little and large)
2x Gigabit LAN ports with Teaming function and Jumbo Frame support
Onboard Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons
Colour coded removable block for case power, reset, PC Speaker, etc
Sensible layout of silent north/south bridge cooling to allow powerful Heatsink and fan.
Dual BIOS with HDD Backup function
Backup function that allows partition on ACHI HDD to store system image
High Quality Components
Thicker copper circuits
GUI BIOS (Mouse Driven)
User customisable full colour boot screen that switches directly to OS loading screen (No BIOS view at all)
No floppy port
No IDE ports
No Legacy PS2 ports
No PCI slots

I would use this Motherboard in my HTPC. I currently use a Gigabyte X58 UD5 but I am fast running out of SATA ports (using 8 now but will have another 2x Samsung 2TB drives in the next month or so)

I hate PCI slots (using up space that should be used for PCIe, seriously, who spends £200 on a motherboard then uses a PCI anything?

Floppy and IDE ports are a waste of time if using Windows 7 as USB device can be used (Thank you microsoft)

Legacy PS2 ports are a waste of time these days too, who uses PS2 mice or keyboards that spend this sort of money on a PC?

A nice GUI BIOS with mouse support would simplify setup and configuring the BIOS and would allow for better help than the usual Enabled or Disabled message.

I could be persuaded to opt for PCIe 3 just for the upgrade potential it would offer although I'd much prefer getting rid of PCI and having the flexibility of all full length slots to allow me to use almost any PCIe card in almost any slot.

I would like more PCIe channels than standard boards to allow all 7 slots to be 16 channels and not have some revert to 8, 4 or 2 channels just because I've got 2 video cards installed.

I am currently displaying my HTPC on my 40" Samsung 1080P TV in my living room but I have plans to have another screen in my bedroom hence the 2x Audio Processors and 2x Optical outputs. I use J River Media Center 15 which supports multiple Zones (using multiple sound cards) and would like to be able to independently output to 2 rooms with digital surround sound in both.

If I ever found this motherboard I would buy it instantly! When deciding on a motherboard I usually have to prioritize and compromise on features to get a suitable board (10x SATA 3Gb/s ports but no SATA 6GB/s, 2x Gigabit LAN ports but not enough PCIe slots or the PCIe slots are useless due to their positions next to the Graphics Cards etc, etc...)
 
Get rid of BIOS. It's been around since the beginning and has been tweaked but still remains largely the same as it was in 1980. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface is the way to go. I know that you arent in charge of it but working with them might help it get adopted faster

Stop supporting PS/2 ports and put 10 usb ports on the back with ONE front usb header (not 3 like on the current P55 boards)

Jumperfree config. Or at least short jumpers so you dont bend a critical jumper because it's near the corner of the board and you hit it with your atx power plug and now the board is b0rked.

Move the atx power plug to the top of the board so its in the most convenient place and closest to the power supply.

Add a little space between the cpu/ram slots and the top Pci-e slot. Its a pain in the ass having to take out the top video card to get to the ram slots to install more ram. This could be accomplished by moving the cpu socket and ram slots up 1/8"

Leave a pci slot at the bottom so I dont have to put my sound blaster or some other card between my video cards.

Design a new mobo spec that fits in the atx cases but isnt a stock atx mobo (sort of like extended atx) so you can have board above where the back plate items are and wider than the standard atx specs. a bigger board is going to be required if you want to cram all this new stuff like multiple pci-e 16x slots, multiple pci-e 1x slots, multiple Pci slots, multiple ram slots, a southbridge, a butt load of sata ports, onboard audio, onboard network, onboard raid and of course power connectors on there. Adding an extra couple of inches to the width of the board and an extra inch or even 1/2" to the top would fix quite a few of these problems...

Possibly move the sata connectors up and the CPU down to where the sata connectors are now. Then you could have the pci-e slots connect to the southbridge which would sit between the slots and the cpu. That would also move the cpu to right next to the front intake fan where the air is the coolest. That would also allow you to rotate the ram 90deg and put it where the cpu is currently which would allow the power connectors to be moved up to the top and out of the way of the rest of the system.

More robust info on the power consumption, temps, and fan speeds, available via a software program that comes with the board.


I posted a second post later on with a link to a pic I did in MSpaint of a rough layout concept. It even has room to put an SSD ON the motherboard... yes ON as in directly connected to the board (not integrated, attached, sort of like ram is with a clip on the far end and the sata connectors on the other).

The first version could be via standard sata connectors but subsequent versions could be a specially designed interconnect that would eliminate the need for sata (a limiting factor soon) entirely and write directly from the cpu through the southbridge and to the memory chips on the drive. The best part is it will use off the shelf SSD's so you not only get to make a kick a$$ motherboard with the ability to attach an ssd then take it out and upgrade later if you want... but you also get to effect change to the entire PC market in the form of first adopting the onboard ssd connection then by dropping sata for SSD's entirely! You could be responsible for DDR3 like performance in SSDs! Plus because SSDs dont generate a lot of heat, are 2.5"x3.9", and made of ram chips so they are very light (about 95grams), they can easily fit on my layout design and not heat up or weigh down the system.
 
I like to see suport for wireless components without a 3rd part equipament. Suport for power up connectors for 2 PSU (for best upgrade on full tower).
LED indicators for expansion slots, I/O connectors and case connectors.
Better alocation of components and expansion slot, sometimes they stay so closer and that screw up some upgrades.
Show the voltage of each expansion slot, incluing SATA and Sound.
Bios that rum sistem check, sistem stress, memory test, hard drive test.
Better bios screen, i'm tired of the same DOS low resolution look.
Bios that explain what each option does, not every user know everything.
Ethernet check and configuration on bios.
Support for 4/3G, wi-fi and ethernet 2x onboard.
Better cooling sistem of NB and SB whit support for water cooling sistems.
Try to use colors that look dark and expansion slot whit sexy colors, but not pink, white colors.
Better auto OC engine that pushes your sistem to better cool and fast OC.
Better ways to upgrade your bios whitout need to backup the old bios, just save it in a chip forever and uses another chip for upgrades.

I'm from Brazil and here we are quite few users that understand most of the components of motherboard, a better manual with Brazilian Portuguese support will be quite welcome. You've been see that our market is growing quite fast and so few motherboard manufactures have a decent support for us. I'd like to see a office in here too, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have so many companies and quite a lot of techinician in this area but don't have one whit global market.
 
The strip it idea was excellent as well as the mini SSD for the operating system.
One thing i would like to see is that you dont put any connectors under the PCIx16 slots. Im tired of modding cables on certain mother boards because my two slot video cards are right over top of the Sata connectors. I dont want to worry about the size of the card and running into anything ridiculous. Also make the area around the cpu socket large enough that any of the big air coolers are a throw and go situation or if your running LN2 make it so you have plenty of space for insulation.
 
PART 2

I already post some ideas but need to give this also. An universal auto recognizable dual socket Motherboard, if you put a 6 core AMD it adjusts, if it is 1366 it adjusts or even 1156 or 1155, you name it. Future proof of course. Given so a Motherboard could have universal socket support, and intel couldn't, make us suffer every new release. The dual socket is meant for AMD and INTEL intercommunication, i would love to have the best of the two worlds, both cpus running together. I could have a cheap AMD for web, mail and low profile pc.
And Intel combined with AMD for intensive tasks like editing video.

But the prize would go for this guy who said, that i could add all the options needed in MSI website, and then get my Motherboard tailored for my needs, that would just be outer world.

FOR THIS I WOULD DIVIDE MOTHERBOARD IN 5 PARTS making a future proof MOTHERBOARD with replacing parts

1- Chipset Cpu and Ram part that could be easily and cheap to upgrade when intel release a new socket, or if new memory standard comes out.

2- Expansion ports part, this one could last longer, but we all know that pcie 3 is on the way, and would be nice that this would also be changeable.

3- Hard Drives and Internal SSD part, available with option for Normal cheap options like nowadays (just communicating with chipset like ICH10R) or with highly advanced RAID Hardware controller capable of SAS, with 8 ports 5 Internal 3 eSATA. A long with internal SSD for OS and bios configurations, also with optional size.

4- Expansion ports part, This is USB3, FIREWIRE 400/800, etc. With the correspondent chips.

5- All power inputs and cables, lithium battery, connector led for the case, power and reset switches, jumpers you name it.

Apart you should sell as option:

AUDIO CARD
(don't use the Audio chip in the Motherboard please, that`s synonymous of low quality).

The WIFI / BLUETOOTH CARD (Also apart).

And all the addons people ask for a Motherboard.


I`m available for working
And what a nice and Cheap way to evolve congratulations.
 
new aesthetic
Like trasparent pcb or Bi-color pcb or something different to black blue and green.
simple sign, symbol printed on the board ( like intel skull ) or in the heatsink.
A way to personalize the board or part of it with a cover made by plastic ( like plexiglass ) or metal ( like alluminium )
 
the best thing that u could do is to place a high speed memory about 8gb on the motherboard (like the intel turbo boost) inbuilt. provide a radio button (like the ones on the mp3 systems to increase the audio) so that the users can overclock their processors without restarting the system (with upper limit and lower limit (downclock or overclock)) as well. built in usb 3.0 controller will do good. provide esata ports at the front pannel. one old pci port will be better...
 
1. I would not waste the resources to get 4 PCI-E slots, as Tom's has shown many times now, we have yet to be limited by PCI-E 2.0, even in the fastest of setups. Still, I would want 4 PCI-E 2.0 slots at 16x bandwidth that support both Crossfire and SLI.
2. Get 6 USB 3.0 connections with a BIOS setup that allow one to create bootable drives.
3. Liquid-cooled north and south bridges. Actually, if you included a cooling block for the CPU as well (with different common-sized adapters) it would be a first in the industry (for a mobo maker).
4. Include an led display that would either have text or numbers that correspond to different errors. In this way, if the system does not start, it would allow one to diagnose what's wrong without having to switch out parts.
5. Real-time power monitoring via software would be super cool too! It could even take up a CD drive slot so it could display it on the case itself.
 


add-on to boards ?

my ideas : onboard ssd slot for a FullHD PC

must have the lastest atom, at least 2 memory slots
can go up to 4 gb ram, feature USB3 - Sata3 ( no need to work at the same time

other idea,
a bittorrent client / browser / e-mail reader / decent video player
( ideally customizable and compatible with html5 )
which is embeded in the board without needing to fully boot.
alternative power button or switch to triger it

if the CPU isn't atom, it absolutely need a pci-e 16X for gamer enabler upgrade
then, socket could be an AM3


no need to be mini-ITX,
and please, build using good quality capacitators
 
On motherboards with onboard RAID. It would be nice to have a LED next to each sata socket. When a RAID drive fails it is a real hassle to find which drive failed. These LED's will help show you what drive is bad.
 
Some cases have a spaghetti mess of wires for ,speaker, power, reset, chassi intrusion, etc. It would be nice to have a block that is labeled nicely and matches the pins on the motherboard that can be removed. This would make it much easier to plug the wires from the case into the block and then plug the block(with all the cables already attached) on the motherboard.
 
1. Boards that embrace new technology only.
a. no IDE/Floppy connectors
b. No serial, VGA/D-sub, firewire, PCI, PS2 ports.
c. yes to USB 3 and SATA 6
d. yes to good SSD support for raid features (the future)
e. Yes to EFI
f. Yes to on board Intel light peak for north-south bridge cpu ram connectivity
2. Board Simplicity
a. two PCI express 2.0 16x and 3 PCI 2.0 1x
b. 2 right side facing SATA ports on top right for DVD/CD Drives
c. SATA ports should face off the right of the board
d. Power supply connector to be right side facing for enthusiasts with cable management goals
e. light up sockets for failing hardware awareness, and on board display for hardware error codes
3. hardware based network firewall and antivirus
 
There are some great ideas here, First asrock I would like to get rid of the legacy iteas as well. No floppy, or ide on the board. second let make get a better location for the atx power, It always interfears with the dvd drive. With today technolgy on memory and prices of laptop memory being the about the same as desktop. Let get rid of desktop memory and user laptop size memory on the boards. This will still be fast and user can overclock it as well. This will save room on the board and lower clutter and heat. The big change would be some kind of open boot system, the bios is outdated, I know intel is working on the same design as mac but I want something to control better than a bios, Look at openboot, and make it better.
Also a modler chipset, with today technolgy, why cant we have the ability to change the chipset buy removing the chip and putting in a new one.
I know its a large task. But that would be cool.
I know what it takes to design something for general use, you have to be neutral, but I would like a system or even maybe and added attachment so we can hot swap drives out, with out paying 4-5 hundred dollars for a raid setup.
Back to powers How about a small under layer on the board, copper. you cand place the power on the layer and put the board on top of that and this would supply the current needed, Hard to explain but a engineer should get the idea. plug the powers's atx on the case and have the thing layered pice under the board where contacts are there to power the system. and let get power over sata. we have had POE for years. POS would be great. Power over Sata.
there you go.
 
Looking at the 1st page there are some really neat ideas, but few are really innovative.

I figured as my desktop computer is usually just handling simple tasks, such as running SSH and NFS servers, a low-power built in CPU would be really neat.

We're already doing GPU switching in laptops (think nVidia Optimus), why not CPU-switching on a desktop?

The pain will be in instruction-matching the CPUs, suddenly loosing SSSE4.1 won't be fun, or maybe that's how you will detect when to switch CPU, as I would imagine very few servers applications actually make use of SSSE4.1?

Another painful part would be the number of CPUs exposed to the OS, an i7 can provide up to 8 cores and as far as I know, no Atom can do that. The only solution would be to disable cores in the main CPU or somehow emulate cores, which I doubt would be efficient.

Maybe Intel knows how to do it.

Then again, this is just what I want; most people would probably want GPU switching...

I'd still buy described mobo though :)
 
The first idea is mostly for the high volume business and mainstream market. If only one of these ideas counts in the contest, I'd like it to be the first one.

1. I'd like to see at least one power-only USB header, for use in secure environments where accidentally plugging in your cellphone for charging into a standard USB port results in an immediate IP ban of your system.

2. Many system builders (and all enthusiasts) use after-market coolers. Include a back plate on all enthusiast-level mobos to provide better, integrated support for CPU coolers. This eliminates the need to remove the mobo to replace the cooler, but more important eliminates the potential to damage or short the mobo when installing someone else's back plate.

3. Have four system fan headers (rear+top+side+front=4) on all enthusiast-level products, and at least two on all others.

4. Add a molex power OUTPUT to the mobo, to plug in (and control) fans that don't have pin headers. Make sure it's near a mounting hole for maximum support.

5. Add indicators for vital internal metrics like temperature; simple yes/no LEDs on mainstream parts to digital displays on enthusiast parts.

6. One of the best prior ideas I saw here was a setting to UNDERclock a mostly idle system; 200W[+GPU(s)] is fine when playing a game, but let it be cranked down to 25W when typing a grocery list. This might be a keystroke combo on mainstream parts, or a circuit that senses relative GPU load for the enthusiast segment.

7. Throw in this add-on: a LED on a 6"-8" flexible stalk that plugs into a USB header for use during work inside the case.

8. All front-panel connectors, including audio, should be at or near the front edge of the board, not way in the back. Consider putting the mobo and CPU power connectors at right angles on the UNDERSIDE of the board. Other connectors could be there too, also at right angles. If this creates a manufacturing nightmare, use an edge connector for a "connector block module," possibly with a ribbon cable so it can be positioned under the board.

9. If you keep an IDE port, put it on the right/top edge nearest to where an optical drive would be installed.
 
a mini itx board that uses the back of the MB to implement a 4+1 or 5+ phase design that can support LGA 1366 high end CPUs (with enough headroom for at least a 4.0 Ghz OC and thus allows for good after market CPU clearance) with 1 PCIE 16 and USB 3 and SATA 6. Make this the ultimate mini itx board for the absolute enthusiast, use as many layers of PCB as needed for the traces.

Keep the areas near the CPU clean for large aftermarket coolers by moving components to the back and raise the MB off the back with spacers.


 
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