The price

[mszo]

Why do some motherboard cost $90, and some $900

everyone usually goes with the cheap ones, and lookin at the specs, there is usually hardly any differnce...just wondering

P.S.-I'm not talkin' about ones bundled with a processor

[Omega]

the higher priced ones are probably server mobos.

you'll get a wonderful gaming moby from Asus, Gigabyte, MSi or DFI for anywhere from 80-200$. depends what you want. non-SLi nF4 motherboards are pretty cheap, with the SLi ones more expensive, and RDX200 chipset'd mobos at the top of the spectrum.

[public_eyesore]

never seen a 900 dollar mobo. But normally the higher the price the better the board. Expect to pay 150 to 170 for a top notch board and dont expect to pay below 100 otherwise its normally crap

[Omega]

never seen a 900 dollar mobo. But normally the higher the price the better the board. Expect to pay 150 to 170 for a top notch board and dont expect to pay below 100 otherwise its normally crap


actually, alot of 80-100$ mobos ain't too bad, if you're fine with settling with a strange company. a friend of mine is running a Biostar T-Force mATX that he got for like 80$, hasn't had one problem with it.

[public_eyesore]

i should have said, arnt of good quality( overclocking and bios wise). Almost any mobo is going to work, it just depends if you want the bells and whistles.

[onelegout]

i should have said, arnt of good quality( overclocking and bios wise). Almost any mobo is going to work, it just depends if you want the bells and whistles.
What exactly ARE the bells and whistles? better integrated IO things or what? it confuses me!:D

[DaveW]

Usually things like SATAII support, built in 7.1 surround sound, built in firewire, etc. make up those extra bucks. You can save money by buying a board without features you won't use, eg: You have a graphics card and sound card, so buy the version of the board without built in graphics of built in sound. If you have an Audigy 2, for example, you probably have firewire-so you can get a better mobo with less features.

More expensive mobos are also made with better materials: so they'll last longer, run more efficient for longer, etc. Capacitors used on the Mobo have a varying lifespan: if you look up "The art of Electronics" they give a list of the lifespans of various capacitors, and there's a direct relationship between cost and lifespan/capacitance. As all the Mobos have the same size of capacitors (roughly), then this becomes a chart between lifespan/cost. Similar applies to all the rest of the parts. At the end of the day, the more you pay, chances are, the better the quality and expected lifespan of the board.

Hope that helps.

-Dave

[mszo]

Thanks for the help.

[Cevinzol]

never seen a 900 dollar mobo.
I've seen them well over $1,500.00 US but like Omega said they were server boards: quad xeon processors, 2 Gb ethernet NICs, SATA raid controller, more RAM than god, etc. A lot of stuff that would be under used in a stand alone machine. Also these boards are produced in smaller quantity and because of their mission critical requirements they are QC'd much harder, both of which bost the price.

When looking for a board you need to know
- What processor you want (I think this needs to be answered first)
- What socket that proccessor uses
- what boards use that socket
- What other features you need/want/can live with(out)
- What chipset is on the motherboard
- What is the life-cycle (How long before you replace it)

Those are just some ideas