Show me a review where a motherboard makes a serious difference in performance. I'm not talking about a motherboard with pcie 1.0 bottlenecking a 4870x2 either, because that's just obvious.
I did a statistics project in which I changed the clockspeeds of CPU/GPU/VRAM, and ran 3dMark05. By and large, the CPU had the most effect, up to 1000 points for 440 MHz. THAT'S what matters in the long run. It's all about the CPU. I suppose that's where we differ, since I don't overclock at all, since it's pointless.
I've gone through two different motherboards for my system before I finally found one that was stable.
Sounds like you had some bad luck. None of my motherboards have ever gone bad, or didn't boot up.
LOL, the Frostytech rankings have no credibillity. I'm sorry, but there is no way that a device with no heatpipes, and a low thermal threshold is going to be one of the quietest heatsinks. Nor is it going to cool very well either.
Motherboards matter a lot for what you can do in the future. Your example of PCIe 2.0 is a good one. But things like ease of layout, ease of use, abillity to tweak things, stabillity, voltage regulation, cooling, ports, slots etc. ALL come into play. A motherboard doesn't have much of a role in performance, and people are well aware of that, but there is more to it than just performance. And I would disagree with you saying SLI/XFIRE is pointless. Xfire especially. You have the abillity to XF different cards together, etc.
Your statistics project is kind of flawed anyway. 3DMark 05 is inherently strongly CPU reliant, so of course it's going to have a large affect. Besides, it's been proven that most games now get a lot more FPS from a better video card, in comparison to getting a better CPU. If you're short on money and want more FPS, you splurge your money on a GPU, not a CPU. So yeah, I disagree with your CPU claim.
Overclocking isn't pointless, really. I get more performance for less. It's more heat, but it's still not enough to make the computer any louder, and it runs pretty cool anyway with my aftermarket cooler.
Why the fuck would you buy a base? just let everything spread out, it's cheaper and has good cooling if you have a fan permenantly at High right next to it, or several.
I guess you didn't catch the bottom of my previous post, but maybe I'll elaborate.
Your case protects your components from moisture, physical abuse(dropping a harddrive, anybody?), static electricity, and other objects that conduct electricity and could cause the hardware to short circuit. The case often times will quiet down a computer. Sound has to travel through the case, thus muffling the sound before it reaches your ear. Cases are aesthetically appealing too, much moreso than a pile of hardware and mess of ugly wires. In addition, cases are much more beneficial when it comes to preserving deskspace, or even space in general. It neatly organizes everything into a decently sized box; Spreading your hardware out would require a whole lot of space to lay out each individual piece.
So, you can have your unappealing, space consuming, noise producing, unprotected ugly computer while everybody else pays $50 for a case and laughs at you. And yeah, if you can't tell now, your tone, your reposting, and your apparent lack of time put into reading other people's posts wern't appreciated.
None.
