[SOLVED] My next 15 year motherboard…

[aewhistory]

I am looking for a motherboard to last me a VERY long time. Here is my philosophy…..

So around 15 years ago I bought an Asus p5wdg2 ws pro motherboard, largely because I wanted all the features, some future protection, and the PCI-X slots to use my SCSI drives. I still have this board (two actually) and it will become a server soon. But now I need my next big jump. I (obviously) don’t like to upgrade every year, or even every five years. I don’t mind slipping in a better CPU or some RAM, but I put a lot of effort into tailoring my systems when I build them and I don’t want to do this a lot, nor do I need to since the most advanced games I play are series like Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, etc. I could probably even make my Asus last quite a bit longer, but seeing as I already had to partially take my PC apart I figure this is as good a time as any to move forward. So I am open to suggestions.

I am leaning toward a socket 1200 or 2066 since they are the newest their respective lines. It seems to me that whatever money I save now on an older socketed MB is more than offset by the greater potential longevity. Other than the socket I am a bit lost. MBs are far more expensive than they were 15 years ago. When I bought my p5wdg2 pro it was something like $300 or less and was one of the best MBs money could buy. Today i see MBs for $2k!! For that price it better clean my house. So knowing that longevity and future proofing are my greatest concerns, what would you do?

Many thanks folks!
Aaron

EDIT: forgot to mention budget, which is quite important, eh? budget is not a primary constraint. I will gladly pay $500 for a MB that will last as long as my current ASUS if I must. OTOH, if I can spend $50 and get that then I would be thrilled. That said, more than $500 is a no go for me. I am simply not willing to pay more on principal…. The principal that I don’t have that much money!

 

[drea.drechsler]

Most of the 15 years you've had your current motherboard passed with AMD way off target and Intel deeply mired in Ground Hog Day Syndrome and unimaginatively respinning the same-old, same-old all over again. In the past 5 years AMD's found the mark and only just recently Intel woke up with something half way original and creative. That lack of forward momentum in the industry made your motherboard seem a lot more relevant than it should have for as long as it did.

But based on recent events things are going to be exciting. AM4 is soon being replaced by AM5, and who's to say how long the new socket Intel just sprang on us will last. Also, DDR5 and PCIe 5 are just now happening and not worthy of recommending until things have settled down. I can see a lot of change and upheaval in the future, not sure anyone should try to predict where it goes nor suggest there's any 'future proof' motherboard that's available to help you weather it.

I'd just buy what works now, what you can afford and enjoy it while it works for you.

 

[aewhistory]

Most of the 15 years you've had your current motherboard passed with AMD way off target and Intel deeply mired in Ground Hog Day Syndrome and unimaginatively respinning the same-old, same-old all over again. In the past 5 years AMD's found the mark and only just recently Intel woke up with something half way original and creative. That lack of forward momentum in the industry made your motherboard seem a lot more relevant than it should have for as long as it did.

But based on recent events things are going to be exciting. AM4 is soon being replaced by AM5, and who's to say how long the new socket Intel just sprang on us will last. Also, DDR5 and PCIe 5 are just now happening and not worthy of recommending until things have settled down. I can see a lot of change and upheaval in the future, not sure anyone should try to predict where it goes nor suggest there's any 'future proof' motherboard that's available to help you weather it.

I'd just buy what works now, what you can afford and enjoy it while it works for you.

I get what you’re saying, I do, but I don‘t see what will change to alter this appreciably. Sure, more focused development from AMD will force Intel forward as well. However, I don’t see anyone surpassing the 4-4.5ghz limitation of CPUs, right? Multithreading has started to come along, but that requires far more complex programming than the “old days” in the ‘70s through the early ‘00s when you could just program for a single CPU. To put it another way, I could just as easily see the rapid advances that I grew up with, and the rapid obsolescence that accompanied this, as the oddity and the new normal will be a world where changes don’t render the previous CPUs quite as obsolete as in the last.

Perhaps if you could point more to what exactly would be the great upheaval that would change the current direction? To be honest I don’t know what recent events you’re talking about, but I’m interested to learn.

 

[lvt]

Why not?

My Thinkpad laptop is 15 year old this year (bought in 2006), it's still running fine on Windows XP SP3.

 

[drea.drechsler]

....
Perhaps if you could point more to what exactly would be the great upheaval that would change the current direction? To be honest I don’t know what recent events you’re talking about, but I’m interested to learn.

I think it's going to be energy efficiency. Even Intel's most current Alder Lake designs are electrical furnaces with their top processors consuming upwards of 300W in highest performance modes. AMD's designs are way more efficient and they are promising even better with Zen 4 and 5.

Most owners don't care but energy efficiency is the wave of the future. BECAUSE owners don't care it's becoming, if it hasn't already, the focus of government attention for most all appliances. There's no reason not to expect the same for personal desktop computers. But as for me right now, I'd like to not have to keep an eye on my electric bill just because I want to fly around in FS2020 or kill a few outlaws in RDR2. And especially not if I want to contribute unused compute cycles to a worthy distributed computing project, e.g., Folding@Home as it worked to characterize protein molecules in the search for a cure to Covid.

What do you do with your system? What applications do you use and what OS will you run? Do you intend to do other things in the future? Do you intend to play more modern games?

On pure conjecture: IF your current useage is e-mail, web browsing and the light gaming indicated, especially browser based gaming, is going to remain unchanged then the BEST choice that can be readily upgraded would be an AMD B550 motherboard coupled with a 5600G or 5700G APU. An AMD APU has an internal GPU that's vastly more capable than Intel internal GPU's. This approach is more economical as discrete GPU's are currently massively overpriced due to various factors and the motherboard is perfectly capable of running high-speed DDR4 memory, the most economical currently.

I'm not familiar with the games you play but I believe the Vega GPU in the 5600G should play them quite well enough since they seem to be circa 2013-2014 games. It will also let you play far more demanding modern games at lowered settings and resolutions. Of course, the GPU can be upgraded simply by adding a discrete GPU to the system once prices become reasonable again. If ever they do

The right B550 motherboard can be readily upgraded in processor should that be necessary with no need to consider anything even close to $500. One good choice: MSI B550 Gaming Plus which is suitable being upgraded all the way to a Ryzen 9-5950X should you find 16 cores/32 threads of compute performance necessary. .

Future proofing is a bad term and others are certainly gonna see it differently but that's about as close to what I think it means: the ability to get into a system cheaply and then add/change parts that significantly improves performance as funds allow.

Because economy seems to be your primary concern (the only criteria explicitly mentioned aside from 'future proofing') I'd avoid the current Intel Alder Lake Motherboards unless looking at DDR4 memory. DDR5 memory, which would future-proof the system to an extent, is way more expensive currently. It should come down in time though. I do not know if there are any boards available that work with both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. Nor if they'd be economical if there are any nor how they'd compromise ultimate performance.

 

[aewhistory]

I’d like to write some more, but for the moment I wanted to follow up with a single question: given that finding ddr5 seems to be akin to finding the holy grail at the moment—unless you’re a French knight in England in which case you already got one —would this change your outlook on what to get?