PC building - Starting with a motherboard - suggestions needed

[rafaelpastrano]

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen,

I will be building my first desktop!

My current budget is between $600 - $700 and I want this computer so my wife and I can do generic work (Microsoft office, Itunes, web surfing, video streaming, Adobe pdf editing, among others). However, I want to eventually (when I save up a bit ) upgrade its components so I can turn it into a gaming beast.

All of these things in consideration, I want to keep this desktop for a few years and upgrade it as my budget allows and technology evolves but without changing the motherboard every time. This brings me to my main question:

Which motherboard should I base my system on that will allow for plenty upgrades (CPU, GPU, RAM, etc) for the years to come?

I don't mind starting with generic graphics and low ram, I just want to be able to one day upgrade it to something that will render current games silky smooth with not problems.

Thank you!

 

[Wolfshadw]

Best you can do is go with the latest (socket 1151) and hope for the best. It may be viable for the next few CPU generations/refreshes. It may be a dead socket in a year.

-Wolf sends

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Currently, AMD motherboards are all at the end of life stage, and Intel motherboards only last for two generations lately. So no matter what board you go with, you will likely have to change it when you upgrade the processor. On a system meant for simple office work, though, this is likely to be just fine, since it will be quite a while before you need to upgrade.

I would also recommend an Intel LG1151 motherboard. The B150 and H170 have plenty of modern features and support current Intel CPU's. No need to go with anything more expensive for a simple office PC. You can also get a CPU with an integrated GPU, meaning you don't have to buy a graphics card.

The AMD APU's will generally give you a bit more graphics power if you want to do some slight gaming on the side, and they are also generally cheaper. But the motherboards are definitely less modern, and the FM2 socket they use is all but officially dead.

 

[rafaelpastrano]

Currently, AMD motherboards are all at the end of life stage, and Intel motherboards only last for two generations lately. So no matter what board you go with, you will likely have to change it when you upgrade the processor. On a system meant for simple office work, though, this is likely to be just fine, since it will be quite a while before you need to upgrade.

I would also recommend an Intel LG1151 motherboard. The B150 and H170 have plenty of modern features and support current Intel CPU's. No need to go with anything more expensive for a simple office PC. You can also get a CPU with an integrated GPU, meaning you don't have to buy a graphics card.

The AMD APU's will generally give you a bit more graphics power if you want to do some slight gaming on the side, and they are also generally cheaper. But the motherboards are definitely less modern, and the FM2 socket they use is all but officially dead.

Thank you for this valuable information. I really like the H170 and the options it offers for such affordable price. However, could I eventually upgrade the H170 to make it a very good gaming pc? meaning i could run anything i wanted on it at mid to high settings? If not, then I am looking for something that will allow that, but that i can start as a low set up just to do office work at the moment.

Thank you

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

The biggest sacrifice you are making with H170 is official SLI and overclocking. If you want to overclock, Intel locks out most options to the Z170,although there is some overclocking you can still do on H170, it's just more difficult. Nvidia SLI is also restricted to Z170 officially, from what I remember, although there are some H170 boards that do allow for SLI, and I think Crossfire works just fine on plenty of H170 boards.

Other than that, the H170 will perform about as well as a higher end board. Your single core performance will be a bit lower due to the lack of overclocking, but you can still put up to a 6700K on it to get a lot of multi-threading. And as long as you stick to single-GPU systems like most people, the SLI shouldn't be an issue. If anything, you are more likely to run into issues with the reduced number of USB/SATA ports, although even then H170 has plenty for most users.

 

[rafaelpastrano]

The biggest sacrifice you are making with H170 is official SLI and overclocking. If you want to overclock, Intel locks out most options to the Z170,although there is some overclocking you can still do on H170, it's just more difficult. Nvidia SLI is also restricted to Z170 officially, from what I remember, although there are some H170 boards that do allow for SLI, and I think Crossfire works just fine on plenty of H170 boards.

Other than that, the H170 will perform about as well as a higher end board. Your single core performance will be a bit lower due to the lack of overclocking, but you can still put up to a 6700K on it to get a lot of multi-threading. And as long as you stick to single-GPU systems like most people, the SLI shouldn't be an issue. If anything, you are more likely to run into issues with the reduced number of USB/SATA ports, although even then H170 has plenty for most users.

Thank you. This helps me understand motherboards a bit more. I don't believe I will be overclocking the system although I am interested on the concept of hyper-threading and I do plan to utilize Intel so it is still is an option for me. as far as SLI concerns, I don't think I will find myself using multiple nvidia cards so I don't see it as an issue for my personal usage.

It looks to me like I am going for the H170 for the moment. One last question tho:

Which manufacturer should I choose? I've been looking at ASUS and their H170 looks incredible Altho Gigabyte's one is also appealing. I dont know if the manufacturer matters if it is the same board?

thanks

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Different manufacturers have differing reputations, and sometimes it really depends on personal experiences. ASUS is generally very well regarded, with Gigabyte and MSI having a similar reputation. It's really hard to say exactly how reliable they are, though; not a lot of comprehensive data is available on that.

Personally, I'd look more at the exact features the motherboards offer more than the manufacturer. One motherboard may have an M.2 slot for next-generation SSD's, while another may have sacrificed that for more USB 3.1 ports. Find the motherboard that suits your specifications, and then look at reviews for that motherboard, regardless of the manufacturer.