When you build a PC, your budget is always limited, so you need to allocate it carefully. Unfortunately, a common belief, typical of our technical culture, is that you can actually cut the cost of a motherboard. Here, I will show you why this is a bad move, particularly if you are interested in a CPU socket that will be supported for a long time.
A better motherboard = a better future
As I already mentioned, choosing a better motherboard gives you lots of benefits. The first of these is that the higher price often goes with more powerful VRM section and with more ports. These two enable you to replace your CPU in the future with a much more powerful device, and to find the right place for all the peripherals you might need.
To avoid empty talk, I have prepared a resource in which I tested the most powerful consumer CPU from AMD (Ryzen 9 3950X) on a motherboard dating back to early 2017. MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM was then priced at >1300 PLN and it used to be the most expensive design available for a certain time.
Together with AMD Ryzen 1800X, that motherboard opened a new chapter in the history of the Red team, leading them today to the top vendor lists worldwide.
You can see it clearly on this video that a motherboard with a more powerful VRM section can pay for itself, as long as you give it enough thought beforehand.
Even though the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is sort of an extreme example, yet you can clearly see from the previous piece on MSI B450 that most users should go for verified mid-priced units.
Why is that? Because you can buy a VRM section for >500 PLN that will easily handle even 12 cores in 7nm lithography process, delivering the full potential of the CPU.
Yet there is one bad apple in this barrel. Unfortunately, CPU sockets can change with time, and then you will need a new motherboard for an upgraded CPU. Intel is renowned for this less than friendly approach; notwithstanding some minor modifications from generation to generation, he can at times present a new LGA without any actual difference in pin layout.
We are already aware today that new CPUs from the Blue team are still stuck on 14nm lithography process, yet this generation will arrive on the market accompanied by LGA 1200 socket. Hence, with series 10, we will have to consider some extra cost, while AMD still supports the AM4, even for 16-core, 32-thread CPUs.
Summary
It is reasonable to buy a higher rated motherboard when a new generation arrives on the market with a wide range of CPUs to choose from. Then the path to upgrading is really pleasant because a boost in cores produces a noticeable boost in performance, whether in games or in utilities.
It is important to pick benchmarked components with high performing CPU power arrangements, because those determine the potential for supporting a more powerful CPU in the future. If you are already sure today that you will stick to the mid-priced range, you can as well pick a MOBO under PLN 500.
But if you have some more advanced plans for the future, it is reasonable to invest some more at the outset, to avoid the risk of buying a powerful CPU to which you will still need a motherboard to match its ratings.
