How Much Does Your Motherboard Affect Performance?

Thanks to Micro Center for sponsoring this video!

We took one 11900K and benchmarked it across TEN different motherboards to see just how much of a difference they can make when it comes to both gaming and CPU-intensive workloads.

AFFILIATES & REFERRALS
---------------------------------------------------

FOLLOW US ELSEWHERE
---------------------------------------------------

FOLLOW OUR OTHER CHANNELS
---------------------------------------------------

MUSIC CREDIT
---------------------------------------------------
Title: Laszlo - Supernova

CHAPTERS
---------------------------------------------------
0:00 Intro
1:05 The Process
3:35 Results
4:47 Store Callout
5:01 Outliers
6:44 Losers
8:04 Bottom Boards
10:05 Conclusion
11:01 Outro

[jamogable]

I really loved how Brian the electrician earned so much cred to have his own boss theme song and recurring gigs at LTT..

[brainyj]

The geek in me loves these videos. I only recently got into gaming pcs after being a console pleb for all my life(cost was my excuse). Now I've undertook the task of building my daughter her own rig because she deserves it, never gave me any problems, got good grades, graduated with honors, etc.. In the past I was too poor to have considered this but always wished I could. I appreciate these videos because they are teaching me about stuff I had no clue how they work or what is just hype. Thank you Anthony and Alex and Linus for sure for showing me I don't just have to throw all the money at it to have a great system.

[jorno]

TLDR: As long as the VRM isn't thermal throttling, it doesn't really matter.

[pintelaurentiu]

An AMD version of the same tests would be greatly appreciated especially if we are going to get new ryzen 6000 boards

[hoodio]

this sponsor/video theme combination is great, you can easily advertise without it changing what the video tries to bring across👏

[FoolRegnant]

One of the most Canadian things ever is Anthony talking about miles per hour, but using a kilometers per hour speedometer limit, and the graphic also using a kph set up.

[Hobbles_]

I've been wondering this for years, and if anyone were to be trusted, it's Anthony!

[ultravires]

Just gotta love this dude. He's so freaking relaxing to listen and watch to. Anthony could easily narrate documentaries about stoves for 10 hours and I'd watch it.

[jameslewis]

When buying a new motherboard the best things to question are:

1) Does it have all the ports and internal connections I need?
2) Can it handle the power requirements for the CPU's I want to use (including what you might upgrade to)?
3) Does it fit into the case that I want to use?

If the answer to all of these is yes, it's just a question of balancing ease of use features, visuals and overall perceived quality against the cost.

[Heathensauce]

I have the MSI Z590 got it from amazon and it was after studying motherboards extensively. This pretty much confirms my studies. I am very happy to see that the money I spent was well spent. I also use good tower cooling and I just set it to water cooling to boost the PLM. I do sometimes get up to 75c but this is due to my case having terrible airflow. A few things about the MSI mobo he failed to mention:

It supports 2 M.2 Gen 3 and the casings to it's some of the best to keep temps low and they are accompanied by a thick plated thermal pad. A good case will drastically reduce your M.2 temps.

It supports up to 6 SATA AND 2 M.2 making it one of the few cases where you can have up to 8 different storage units without experiencing speed reduction. I use all but 1 of the storage and I can confirm it all works extremely well.

Another perk of the MSI Z590 is it has a built-in surround system, which lets you connect a surround system to its many audio ports on the back. It has a built-in USB C Thunderbolt 3 port that allows you to connect either 4 more USB 3.1 ports, 2 more SSDs, or use an external GPU is you happen to have one. It has tons of uses and few mobos have this built into them.

The main reason people buy a good mobo isn't for the performance boost but for these two things. To be able to use as many storage units as possible and to be able to use NVME without it getting too hot. (NVME are especially susceptible to dying when not properly cooled.) Then it's for the features. The MSI supports 2 ethernet ports, one is realtech and another is Intel both with unique ports, drivers, and functions. You will find the performance of Realtech and Intels ethernet ports to be unique and work differently with different CPUs and routers. It's perfect if you have fiber internet (I do) and want to get the most out of the speeds.

The MSI BIOS was by far the best I ever experienced, very user-friendly, and allows you to change all sorts of things. The MSI Z590 has multiple built-in capacitors that prevent you from burning out your CPU when you OC it. However, as he said nowadays burning out your CPU is far more uncommon.

I disagree with the Asrock, they are basically comparing pure performance, and as you can clearly see most of the mobos were performing almost the exact same. It's about features more than anything and if they did any real form of OC they will find the MSI outperforms by far the other mobos. I think they really missed a lot of key points about how a mobo can affect performance and the usefulness of a MOBO. For instance, you won't ever find a cheap 100$ or less mobo with 2 ethernet ports that work uniquely and 6 SATA and 2 nvme that work all at the same time with no performance drop. None exist. And that is why people spend the extra money for a 150-200$ mobo, to be able to use those extra ports! That's why I replaced my 80$ mobo with 4 SATA ports and 1 nvme for the MSI Z590 with 2 NVME and 6 SATA ports.

I'm very disappointed in this video, they are basically comparing apples to cellary and try to state comparisons that don't even make sense and are completely irrelevant to the situation. People don't buy an NVME for instance to get an FPS boost on their video games, they buy it to reduce load times. However, that is what this video is doing, basically, it's comparing multiple NVMEs to see which gives the greatest FPS boost in video games. Maybe you should make a video like that next? That's sarcasm by the way and I wouldn't be interested at all in a video like that.

[The_Cyber_System]

This is the kind of video we need more of. Solid recommendation on a category of hardware based on thorough testing and value comparison.

[CrimsonEclipse]

Excellent video. I'd love to see this as a yearly thing (for both AMD and Intel boards) where you take the most popular boards from each manufacturer to give a comprehensive overview.

[vitacal]

Surprisingly had a pretty noticable improvement in Overclocking potential with a new ASUS ROG Strix Motherboard after my more budget level MSI Board failed. Now my 3000mhz RAM that was previously only stable at 2866mhz can run at even 3200mhz and my Ryzen 5 2600 went from stable at 3.7GHz at 1.3V to 3.8GHz at 1.3V making my overall experience just a bit smoother.

[CraftMine]

"out of factory performance"

*proceeds to set the power limit to 4000W*

Yes factory, indeed

[EmBoLabe]

It did in the Intel 4 Cpu era, Front Bus Speed and ddr1 vs 2 And Agp vs Pci
All in the same generation. It was insane back then.

[MrTransparentBox]

Would definately like to see if performance varies similarly on AMD systems.

[bobr]

Anthony is the man when it comes presenting and keeping the whole vid energized!

[kajurn]

I would've preferred to see this with AMD motherboards because you could at least run the memory on the same speed and timings. Or for the test to use 2133 memory.

[phillipfiorentino]

See... and right off the bat when you mention number 2 on your tests at 4:11, this is a heavy reason alone why people should follow this channel and others on LMG. Not only are you pointing out all of the objective results, you are helping viewers save money while presenting them the best bang for their buck that is still a high end performing part!

I will forever love this about LTT/LMG because they not only care, they know it matters!

[christiaanventer]

"across the..."
Me: don't do it.
...
Me: don't do it!
Anthony & me together: "Board!"