What do you look for in a good Motherboard?

Question

Is the Bus speed important? Is memory speed important? Are you better of going for an expensive machine or do you think you are wiser to get cheaper parts?

Answer 1

the motherboard is the backbone of your p.c so in my opunion you are better getting a mid range motherboard,as the upgrading you can do depends on the specs of your motherboard
for example,if your a keen gamer you would be wise to go for a s.l.i(scalable link interface) so you can add a second sli compatible card later on and get faster graphics
also you want to look for at least 3 pci slots for expansion and sata slots if you want to use r.a.i.d. formation with hard disks
never buy cheap with any p.c components,stick to well known manufacturers,such as nvidia for graphics,creative for audio and the best motherboard manufacturers are asrock,abit,gigabyte and m.s.i
good luck

Answer 2

I would aim for an AM2 mainboard with PCI-E graphics or if the opportunity arose dual pci-e. The reason is simple you want a futureproof board thats not going to change in a couple of months..it needs to support high end and low end CPU's so as you don't have to buy the latest CPU which will cost you the earth. Do steer clear of asrock boards tho.Low end low spec low cost. If you can look for a board with NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI Chipset, ATX, Socket AM2, FSB: 1000 MHz, Max RAM: 8 GB, DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra) x 1, Serial ATA II x 6, Ethernet... i recommend ASUS M2N-E Motherboard £60 or so good all rounder and not that expensive.

Answer 3

It depend on what you are going to use on your motherboard, what CPU, graphics and memory you want, best advice, go min range, try not to get the cheapest one you can find, also think about future upgrades, faster components etc etc.