What should I look for in a motherboard?

[Vicaris]

Aside from the socket, of course. If one's to build a gaming PC, things like pci-e slots, sata entrances, usb 3.0, all of that is a given. But what other things should I look for in a mobo? For an instance, I used to think picking a PSU was just a matter of good brand + power need, but with some research I found out there's a whole lot more to it.

So, any helpful tips for mobos, anything at all from sandy bridge bugs to heatsink placement, what should I, and anybody else really, have in mind when selecting a mobo?

edit: btw I don't plan on overclocking, but if you have any tips regarding that feel free.

 

[TheBigTroll]

if you are not overclocking on a intel platform go grab something with a h77 chipset.

when you look for motherboards, you tend to look at what ports you need. the odds are that you cannot use most of them, therefore there isnt much reason to pick that board over something cheaper

the second thing that you look for is power delivery quality. there are motherboards with analog pwms and digital pwms. digital pwms tend to be better given they can supply a steadier voltage to the CPU. its not necessarily that analog is worse than digital but it tends to be the case. asus and gigabyte use digital pwms on all their newer boards. asrock and msi tend to use the older analog pwms.

id get my boards from asus or gigabyte. not so much asrock and msi

and yes, buying a good psu tends to be from a good brand such as antec, corsair, enermax, pc power and cooling, seasonic, silverstone, and xfx. but there are exceptions such as the rosewell capstone, hive, fortress, and tachyon series where they are pretty top notch.

as for corsair, the low quality units are the cx series. id avoid them

 

[Vicaris]

Best answer selected by Vicaris.