Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014 (Archive)

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I would like to see more affordable options too. These motherboards look good, but most people aren't going to purchase a $200 motherboard. Id like to see an affordable/best for the $ options too. Maybe even best bang for the buck Pentium 3258 OC friendly motherboards too.
 
A few observations/opinions:

Full-sized ATX for Z97 is overkill (unless you have a boatload of non-GPU add-in cards). The sweet spot for Z97 should be uATX. Z97 can do SLI or XFire on a uATX board. If one wants or needs triple or quad GPU horsepower, you should really move on up to X-series chipsets where full-ATX or larger makes more sense.

Onboard wifi (and/or Bluetooth) may be convenient, but it's not doing anything that a dongle can't do and is generally NOT upgradeable when wifi standards inevitably change. Plus, some implementations may not provide flexibility in the placement of antennas for optimal signal strength. As uATX will address the add-in card needs of the majority of gamers (1 dual-slot GPU + 2 miscellaneous add-ins), then onboard wifi is a waste of precious board area better used to implement other features pertinent to the board form factor and target audience such as improved audio or cutting-edge device support.

Thunderbolt is very unlikely to make inroads on non-Apple PCs at this point, so I can't understand why the manufacturers keep including the headers for it, unless they somehow are contractually obligated to do so.

Can we just agree that enthusiasts (who the Z97 chipset is targeted at) will have at least one discrete GPU, so providing lots of display connectivity options in the board IO area is (again) likely wasted space and materials that will infrequently (at best) be used. Manufacturers should be sparing in their use of such parts on enthusiast-oriented boards.
 
Where are the uATX and mITX boards? Come on Tom's, my customers are asking for small builds. They don't want big boxes anymore, and your own articles have demonstrated that a decent build does not need a full size board.
 
still don't understand the point in this. This is not a "for the money" list, and apparently, now, the cheaper chipsets aren't even being considered. Z97 and X99? The majority of builds are out of the picture. As Flying-Q put it, there are no small boards either.
 
Article suffers the same issues as previous one - a perfect example is the fm2+ boards. All 3 of them were full-ATX, and all 3 of them were over $100. Although I do note that this article doesn't include "for the money" in the title, I suppose it's generally expected that price is a factor when considering buying stuff.
 
Yeah I agree with many of the comments. It's great what you guys are doing here but I'm really not in the market for SLI or Crossfire motherboards, especially because I keep reading on Tom's that the performance gains are not great. Where are the smaller, cheaper boards?
 
Each card you add almost doubles in frames.. Whoever says sli n crossfire don't work need to check into a psychological ward. Literally, maybe in 2005 it wasn't ideal. But come on now its 2014, get real. Performance numbers do not lie. h.
 
More affordable options please. This article is useless for those in the budget to mid market. Nobody wants to spend twice the cost of a processor for a mobo.
Your SSD, processor, and graphics card articles are all broken down by price range. Why not motherboards?
 
for people whining about prices and sizes read the title of the article again and again until comprehension sinks in:
Best Motherboards

look at the difference:
Best Gaming CPUs For The Money
Best Motherboards

best GAMING cpu's FOR THE MONEY

BEST MOTHERBOARDS
everything else is over priced or under optioned. this MAX EVERYTHING boards. not smallest size for the best overclock for the lowest price for the most options BEST MOTHERBOARDS THAT SMOKE ALL OTHER MOTHERBOARDS
" . "
 


The title of the thread is Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014 though.
Still it's inconsistent with their other two articles out this month, that cover a range of prices and needs. Here they just showed off 10 expensive motherboards that don't really help you choose what's the best motherboard for your price range and need.
 
There should be stuff like best H81 motherboards. I myself am looking forward to build a budget box for myself. Used Asus H81M-D for my friends build and it works very nice.

Seriously, there are people who just need the best build quality and stability at a low price, say, 60$.
 
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