Are you building a PC for gaming? Want know where to start and what components matter more for gaming? We know that you’re curious whether a motherboard affects the gaming performance or not. Look nowhere as we have got you covered.
Motherboards are considered as the unsung heroes of the gaming industry as they don’t have any direct impact on gaming. But, since they provide stability to the overall system and improve various PC functions for gaming. In old days, motherboards were same for traditional PC usage and gaming, but now as high-end models are on the market, they are equipped with gaming motherboards that are much different from the conventional PC motherboards. In this post you’ll get to learn the importance of motherboard for gaming.
Does motherboard influence your FPS gaming?
Motherboards don’t directly affect the gaming performance but they make sure that your graphics card and the CPU perform properly. It doesn’t affect the frame-rate directly but it makes the PC more efficient and responsive and that helps in gaming. Due to this, the games load easily and faster too. Following are the important components that the motherboard affects:
CPU
The motherboard always influences the way you overclock the processor. However, not all the games are affected by overclocking the process, but it’s always a good thing to do so. The CPU socket tells you whether you’ll be able to use a particular generation of processor or not. Mostly AMD Ryzen’s and Intel’s processors are used and the popular sockets are AM4 and LGA 1151 respectively.
Only some motherboards allow overclocking which include the Z-series motherboards from the Intel side. The AMD Ryzen allows overclocking for all chipsets except the A320 one. For example, if you’re building a gaming PC with Ryzen 5 3600 processor you’ll need an AM4 socket because no other sockets would fit. Also, if you plan to design a gaming PC with i5-9400 processor, then you’ll need LGA 1151 socket as others won’t fit.
GPU
GPU is considered as a valuable component to the FPS games. The GPU uses PCle port that reads and transfers data and improves the overall performance of the game. The graphics card goes into the PCle x16 slot which is labelled and tells you how the slot is compatible with the slot in the graphics card. There are other slots too which include x1, x4 and x8 that allow you to connect WiFi adapters and sound cards.
Without a dedicated graphics card, you won’t be able to perform well in the game. So yes you can say motherboard help in improving the gaming performance because it allows the graphics card to read and transfer data through it.
Do you need an expensive motherboard?
In most of the cases, a cheap or mid-range motherboard would do your task and won’t affect the gaming performance much. As long as the motherboard matches the configuration of the selected components, you won’t be facing any difficulty. However, if you’re going for a cheaper motherboard, you’ll have no support for SLI or CrossFire. These motherboards have lesser overclocking ability, fewer niche ports, and fewer USB ports. Following are the features that add to the cost of a motherboard:
- Stable BIOS
- Extra slots and ports
- Cool lighting implements
- Perfect overclocking
- Water cooling
- Bluetooth and WiFi support
- System reboot, power, and memory buttons
If you’re building a gaming rig, it also depends on your personal satisfaction. If you’re new to PC gaming, then it is better to take professional assistance. The professionals have special tools and equipment to do the job and they are more experienced regarding the PC components for gaming.
We suggest going for a mid-range motherboard that is good enough for supporting the processor and GPU. The price of a motherboard depends on its looks and feature set; the higher end models are fancier. For example, an expensive motherboard will be equipped with fancy LED lights that would give a nice touch to your gaming rig. Also, a motherboard with 3 USB 3.0 ports will be more expensive than the one that is equipped with three USB 2.0 ports.
What makes a motherboard good for gaming?
A motherboard is a printed circuit board that allows the PC components to communicate with each other smoothly. A motherboard comprises of a lot of circuits, capacitors, transistors, connectors, heat sinks, and slots. Following are the features that make a motherboard good for gaming:
- Quality of components
- Overclockability
- BIOS
- Aesthetics
Overclocking
Overclocking boosts the overall performance and the price of the motherboard too. You can increase the overall clock speed of the CPU which leads to higher productivity and good gaming performance. If your motherboard has the ability to be overclocked, then do it. The motherboard chipset will allow you to push the limits of your CPU. Thus, it is imperative that you get the right chipset for the right CPU.
To know if your motherboard supports overclocking, pay attention to the voltage regulator module (VRM). The VRM gets power from PSU and acts as a power supply that can be used by the CPU only. If the VRM has more power phases, it can overclock better.
Longevity
To keep your gaming PC in perfect working position all the time, longevity of a motherboard plays an important role. Before buying a motherboard, make sure that it has good warranty time. Always keep a track on when your warranty is ending, so that you are prepare beforehand.
Choosing the best motherboard for gaming
To have a motherboard that is best for gaming, you must focus on the features that it comes with. It is important to pay attention to the compatibility factors such as M.2 slots and RAM speed. These features can benefit a lot for gaming. Following are the important factors that you must consider for improving the gaming performance:
CPU is the most important
When you’re going to pick a motherboard for gaming, you should also have chosen the processor in your mind. The most important thing to do is to find the socket that is compatible with the CPU and then get the chipset that is best for your CPU. So, to get a good motherboard for gaming, you must make sure that it is compatible with the processor.
Get the best RAM support
The other important thing to do is to make sure that the motherboard gets the desired amount of RAM. Most of the games in 2019 go well with 32 GB of RAM so if your motherboard supports 32 GB of RAM, it is good enough. There are motherboards that support 64 GB of RAM and are more than enough for a good gaming performance.
Expansion card support
A motherboard should support at least 1xPCl and PCle slots; these slots are reserved for GPU, sound cards, and network cards. For good gaming performance, you must make sure that the motherboard has enough slots so that it can cater whenever you need an extra expansion card. In short, consider the expansion card support in a motherboard for various types of cards.
M.2 slots
M.2 slots are for the gaming geeks so that they can install an M.2 drive. The M.2 slots are meant to improve the booting speeds and the loading speeds. These drives are faster than the HDDs and SSDs and can store a good amount of data too.
What is the difference between a gaming motherboard and a conventional motherboard?
If you play simple games like those that don’t require high-end configurations, then you can do good with a normal motherboard. However these motherboards lack the high-end features such as the M.2 slots, expansion slots, and the ability to overclock. The gaming motherboards are equipped with RGB lighting, more fan headers, more SATA ports, and more reinforced PCle slots.
A cheap VRM based motherboard won’t be able to power a high-end CPU which will reduce the life of the gaming rig and will also result in over-heating. So, motherboards are called ‘gaming motherboards’ if they are equipped with better VRMs or heatsinks, RGB lighting, and strengthened PCIe ports.
Conclusion
Whatever your budget or requirement is, there is an excellent motherboard available for your gaming needs in the market. As far as your motherboard is supporting the level of gaming performance that you need to achieve, it is the good one for you. However, if you feel that your game lags or the performance is not up to the mark, it is time to switch to a motherboard that is equipped with the features discussed above.
The thing that matters the most is that you have to make sure if the motherboard is compatible with the processor. There are some companies that focus on manufacturing motherboards for gamers only; they are equipped with LED light systems, have good space for adding GPUs, and focus more on the mainstream systems. Some of the best motherboard manufacturers include ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, and ASRock. If you’re looking forward to build a good gaming rig, motherboard will play an important role in this whole thing.