What do these enthusiast level motherboards really gain you?

[Artunias]

I was reading the Gigabyte UD7 review. And here and other places give it absolutely astound ratings/reviews.

So I was just curious what do you really gain, or is it really noticeable increases in gaming performance by upgrading to one of these flagship motherboards?

Is it more just power management/overclocking? Or would you see noticeable gains in fps/load times/etc.

I'm putting together a new rig, it's fairly high end. Not going SLI or anything just a single card, but I'm curious if the Mobo would really make noticeable increases in performance over say an ASUS Pro board or something.

 

[S_I_N]

I beleive its all for like bios settings and features. Which make it "enthusiast" mainly overclocking ease and what we want. MAX IT ALL OUT!!!!

 

[SieB]

Enthusiast Motherboards are for extreme overclocking and three to four SLI/Crossfire setups. They usually have more options, on the motherboard such as water cooling and more BIOS options for ocverclocking. They are also a lot tougher and more durable than standard motherboards which is why they are used for extreme overclocking with high voltages constantly pumped through them along with handling up to four GPUs.

That's how I see it anyway, I could be wrong but I reckon that's the jist of it.

In your case I don't think you would benefit from an enthusiast motherboard especially seen as you are not going to SLI. Just make sure you get a decent mobo that has the features you need.

 

[marick626]

Like everyone else has said, enthusiast level boards have more features as far as overclocking ability, number of pci-e slots etc. You don't gain any gaming performance from just a mobo alone. So if you run the same settings and hardware on a regular board than on an enthusiast board you will have the same performance.

 

[thestepster]

pricier mobo's always have the best power phases about like the p67 ud7 it has 24!! means more stable and cleaner power for the cpu

 

[timby]

I truly believe that you can get nearly the same performance from the middle of the line MB's. You may not be able to tweak the last bit of performance out of your rig without the aid of the costlier MB's. So I guess it depends on your pocketbook and expertise as to what is the best bang for the buck. I tend towards the middle of the line stuff and spend more where it counts (Better PSU, more RAM, Nice LCD/LED Display, etc.).

Just my 2 cents (Worth everything you paid for it).....