Here's what I need in a Motherboard.

features i could do without include:

parallel ATA connectors: really only need one for optical drives these days.
floppy disk connectors: haven't used one in forever.
RS232 ports: i can't think of one thing i own that uses these.
ps/2 ports: again, everything is USB now.

i say space those pci-e 16x slots way out... we don't need 6 pci slots anyway for a benching rig. one or two is fine.

my bh5 handles 4.1v no problem, so i say just go for the full 5v on the vdimm. 2v vcore is fine, none of my A64's really respond to anything more.

how about putting operating systems on a memory chip and integrating them into the motherboard? instant boot-up :) you could buy the board with whatever OS you wanted.

also it would be nice if the board would come pre-coated with acrylic conformal coating... just to save some time.

heres what I want in a board.

tons of voltage for everything, ram, cpu, pciex slots and chipset.

take all the PCI slots off there.
leave all the midi and game ports and such off there.
ditch the sound.
1 sata connection, no raid.
2 Pata Connections.
1 floppy (bootable memtest 86)
2 USB ports, and the 2 usual PS2 ports.

LOTS of Space between the SLI ports.

make all caps and regulators and stuff top knotch, not the cheap crap that saves you a nickel per board, but makes jumpy power and useless voltage ranges.

no flashing lights, or glow in the dark stuff.
put it in a grey box.
no advertising.
no serial ata cables.
no CD's.
no extra junk thats boosts the price.
just a piece of paper saying "download drivers at ATI"
you can even write it in crayon, if you dont wanna spend money on a printer.

make the power solid, not flakey.
don't care one bit how close Dimm slots are, as long as the power is good.

make a board, we don't need to mod-cause it comes perfect, ready to benchmark with and OC with, and has no extra crap that just throw a monkey wrench into the mix by making overly complicated boards, when we don't need or use 80% of whats on there...

hahaha...

one can dream can't he??

a skeleton board, made for overclocking only...

How do you plan to "download" drivers from ATI when your board doesn't have the ethernet drivers installed? :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by `schr0et

How do you plan to "download" drivers from ATI when your board doesn't have the ethernet drivers installed? :D

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hence previous post about throwing in a usb key. or usb floppy drive.

besides most everyone has atleast 2 other computers @ their disposal lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grayskull

Now a question:

Are there any common motherboard features that you can do without? I already mentioned that space is at a premium on the enthusiast boards of today. What would you get rid of to make space on the board for exciting new features? :)

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Yes...Great question...Here's my answers:

1. Lose Firewire support...most people don't even use Firewire anymore considering USB 2.0s current dominance.

2. Retain only 2 regular PCI slots, this to make more room on the mobo for dual PCI-E 16x slots

3. Kinda like #1, but lose all the auxiliary connectors for un-needed additional USB 2.0 Brackets, and firewire brackets.

4. COMPLETELY get rid of PARRALEL and SERIAL connectors on the back of the board. Retain the 2 PS2-type key/mouse plugs, have Ethernet and a block of 6 USB 2.0 plugs on the rear panel. Go totally new-school on this one...

5. Try to group ALL SATA plugs in a row. Instead of splitting it up into pairs on opposite ends of the board. (Like the MSI Neo2 having 2 SATA near AGP and 2 near lower front.)

6. Please have at least 3 3-pin fan connectors, in logical places.

7. If your feeling daring, try totally leaving sound OFF the motherboard. While it may fly in the opposite direction the industry is taking, totally get back to what an enthusiast motherboard is supposed to be. A "bare" platform that is designed to simply FLY! :D

I'm going to go in a slightly different direction here.

I have a gigabyte K8NS Pro here, I like all the features, and I'm using a good majority of them. IDE Raid, Sound, USB ports, onboard USB headers, PCI/AGP locks.....etc.

I'd say make a couple versions, one with all the features, and one with maybe some cheap 5.1 sound, Ethernet, a couple USB ports, PS2 ports, maybe one SATA connector, and one IDE connector. But, give them both good voltage/overclocking options. 2V cpu, 4V ram, and then options for the chipset, video card voltage, and whatever else can be adjusted.

This way, you pretty much have the entire "enthusiast market" covered. The aircooled people who still like to have a nice setup, along with the cascade cooled speed freaks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hollywood

Yes...Great question...Here's my answers:

1. Lose Firewire support...most people don't even use Firewire anymore considering USB 2.0s current dominance.

2. Retain only 2 regular PCI slots, this to make more room on the mobo for dual PCI-E 16x slots

3. Kinda like #1, but lose all the auxiliary connectors for un-needed additional USB 2.0 Brackets, and firewire brackets.

4. COMPLETELY get rid of PARRALEL and SERIAL connectors on the back of the board. Retain the 2 PS2-type key/mouse plugs, have Ethernet and a block of 6 USB 2.0 plugs on the rear panel. Go totally new-school on this one...

5. Try to group ALL SATA plugs in a row. Instead of splitting it up into pairs on opposite ends of the board. (Like the MSI Neo2 having 2 SATA near AGP and 2 near lower front.)

6. Please have at least 3 3-pin fan connectors, in logical places.

7. If your feeling daring, try totally leaving sound OFF the motherboard. While it may fly in the opposite direction the industry is taking, totally get back to what an enthusiast motherboard is supposed to be. A "bare" platform that is designed to simply FLY! :D

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agreed

Wants:
Lottsa voltage for everything
Expansive BIOS settings
Top of the line hardware monitoring that works (temps, voltages, rpms, etc)
Only one PATA IDE connector (legacy)
Only one or two PCI slots max (legacy)
On board LAN, but only one!
4 SATA ports minimum
On board SATA RAID 0/1/5
On board sound
At least 4 USB ports on back
Mobo Power LED (trust me on this one)

Leave Off:
Serial Ports
Parallel Printer Ports
Firewire support
PS2 ports
Infra red
Floppy support

^^Basically what he said, but I think 2 PATA connectors rather then 1.

The sound should be awesome, THX certified 7.1 surround with all the bells and whistles. I want to be able to laugh at the Audigy 2 in terms of raw audio processing performance and features, also I would like a MIDI in, optical and coax out, plus the 3 regular connectors (perhaps have these items in a special add on card that you pay a bit extra for in deluxe mobos). The only reason I ask for this, is I don't like Creative very much. I think they stifle the audio industry, due to forcing their own standards and stuff, like with Glide and 3DFX, so this product should also add support to an open standard audio API like OpenAL or something. And adding direct support for a fully programmable audio DSP, like how video cards are programmable, would be awesome!

I want it to be able to do SLI with Nvidia video cards. Sure you're ATI, but this is not a video card and reducing the consumers options will only loose customers.

I'd also like to add, leave off wireless internet. I can buy add in cards if I want those things.

Oh and if it's possible perhaps add support for higher HTT clock speeds. I suppose it's somewhat rundant, consider there's already oodles of HTT bandwidth available, but whatever it would be cool. :) lol

I think taking off too much stuff will limit the boards appeal.
And the cost savings probably wont be as much as people expect.

For example if your allready buying a southbridge/chipset with sound processing your paying for a large ammount of the onboard sound cost, regardless if you use it or not.
The physical layer to decode the sound is cheap in comparison.
If ATI produce a budget chipset (like nvidia's MCP and MCPT) then you can make some cheap boards without these features. But I think enthusiasts will pay the extra for the right product.
Cost is NOT a big issue for most of us if we are getting the ultimate overclocking board.

Removing IDE and floppy connectors just reduces the boards appeal to some customers (myself included) and although the extra board space may be usefull I dont think its worth the compromise.

I did remember that gigabyte had a add in power card for one of there boards. This is a way of getting more space for power regulation without sacrificing PCB space.
I dont think gigabytes solution was very effective, but its an avenue worth thinking about.

The ability to use Nvidia SLI cards is important to me. The more options I have as far as graphics the better. Unless of course ATI's dual card solution is FAR superior in terms of performance and cost...

The most important thing is to have a good bios team who will continue to update and improove the bios for overclockers. DFI seem to have the edge in this department at the moment, but there is still a way to go before we get everything we want.
The more options ATI can provide for manufacturers the better.

Good luck in the chipset buisiness ATI, im looking forward to using your chipsets in the future.

I think most of it's been covered, but I'll throw in my 2 cents. :) 1 IDE header, no floppy, no parallel or serial ports, no PS/2, no firewire, just adequate USB 2.0, good clean voltage, good onboard sound, NO 3-pin fan headers, but possibly fan monitoring could be done with an add-in card, less PCI slots, probly 2 is more than enough, positioned as far away from the graphics as possible, and of course, HSF mounting holes, with lots of room for really big HSs. :cool: And use only top of the line caps & resistors, etc. Sinks for the MOSFETS in a separate bag would be cool, because I always end up lapping sinks anyways, and it'd save the board makers a lot of time & trouble. :) Good luck to ATI, in the chipset business! :toast: BTW, as far as liability concerns, just make it VERY clear on resellers' websites & such, that your enthusiast boards are NOT for first-time builders, and that the buyer understands and accepts the risks of pumping 4v through their RAM or whatever. :D ;)

on board sound is always a joke to me, it's never very good, even when it's the best people can get.

personally, I'd rather not see onboard sound on there.
just makes me waste money on something I don't need, and probably won't ever use.
a good sound card these days is usually only about $40 and can easily best the best onboard sound solutions I've seen over the years.

but the serial, and parralel ports and such need to go.
those things are from the dark ages.
I've never even seen a computer that uses them...

PS2 ports keep.
USB just isn't as fast, once you tweak out a good mouse to run at 200 mhz instead of the 125 mhz max of USB, and plus, PS2 mice are just always supported, where some USB mice are hard to support from no name brands.

caps and all, top of the line.
don't put a ton of cheap crap on there that makes the power jumpy and flakey.
if I set 1.7 volts in bios, I want it within about .005 volt always.
so 1.7 volts is 1.695 atleast.
not set 1.7 volts, and get 1.625 volts, then 1.585 under load, like what happens with canterwood motherboards.
the need for "Droop Mods" should not be a factor.
make good solid power, not flakey stuff.

oh yeah, in the Bios.
please make real bios readings there.
not a joke bios like gigabyte boards.

I wanna see the Vcore, Vdimm, VAGP, Vchipset, the 12v, 5v, 3.3volt, the Chipset Temps, the Cpu Temps, and basically any other thing you would normally find in a Abit Bios, or DFI Bios too. Epox is the same too I think...
but most companies Bios readings are nearly non existant, or barely useful.
like Asus is notorious for having basically useless Hardware Monitoring on thier bioses.
so make the Bios actually useful, with real hardware monitoring please.
like abit, epox, or DFI do...

not like gigabyte or Asus.

if you can't do a board with tons of voltages to meet everyones demands, atleast try to be above the usual board limits.

most companys limit you to 1.7 Vcore, and 1.8 VAGP, and 2.9 Vdimm.

if you can't meet extreme voltages, that we all hope you can, with like 2.0+ volts for the CPU, 2.0 VAGP, and 3.6 volts Vdimm...

then atleast take it up a notch from the usual limits to atleast...

1.85 Vcore.
1.9 VAGP.
3.2 Vdimm.

even a board with rather mild voltages like this would be better then 90% of the boards already out there.

obviously, we can't expect you to fully drop support for older stuff, cause the market still uses some of these things...
like floppy drives, and PATA support and such.

but try to be different, and drop the old printer ports, and the game thing, and welll... about half the stuff thats usually on the back connection area of the motherboard.

USB, and PS2 ports would serve almost everybody, while making a definate attempt to move hardware forward, not try to keep out dated archaic hardware users happy, while taking potentially useful space from everyone else thats moved outta the dark ages long ago.

oh yeah...

cap and resistor layout and such.

keep the area around the CPU clear for the most part.
alot of heatsinks and waterblocks just aren't usable these days, cause they leave little to no room around CPU's these days.

seen the DFI 875T?
theres barely room on that motherboard to fit your fingernail between the CPU socket and the caps and such that are a millimeter away from it.

and for the north or south bridge chipset cooler things.
use holes, not hooks.
hooks like the Abit IC7 has around the northbridge, just makes it impossible to use.
hole pattern, so if we can, use things like waterblocks on it, without worrying about hooks popping out and killing us as they shoot out of the motherboard at the speed of light...

OPP, that mobo looks awfully familiar.

my wishlist for a S939 mobo (most of the stuff already mentioned):
OC stuff:
-strong CPU powersupply (capable of feeding 4GHz 2.2V FX chip if needed)
-strong RAM powersupply (capable of feeding atleast 1GB of BH5 @3.8V)
-BIOS voltage adjustments up to 2.2V Vcore, 4V Vdimm, 1.9V Vagp+chipset voltage
-all ram tweaks (yes I know there already there) - btw does the A64 support ram dividers for higher than 200MHz (such as 200HTT/220RAM etc) ?
-DIMM slots so that DC mode uses 1&3 slot (gives just enough space to add some RAM cooling)
-Simple overclock tool (similar to Franck's CLockgen) that comes w/ driver CD (FSB, multiplier and Vcore adjustment from Windows) + temp/voltage monitoring would be useful too
-1 x PCIE slot and loads of room next to it (also a single PCIE video card that does around 10k Mark05 would do nicely :D)

Other stuff:
-NO integrated VIDEO! (unless its R9800Pro-level or better w/ DVI)
-NO integrated SOUND! (unless its Audigy-level or better w/ RCA and optical digi-outputs)
-2 x IDE, 4 (or more) x SATA (RAID 0,1,0+1), 1 x FDD
-FULLY LOCKED IDE, SATA etc so that harddrives wont go nuts once running in the 300FSB zone
-8 x USB 2.0, 1x firewire
-3 PCI slots (which are as far from the PCIE slot as possible)

But what I'd really like to see is a PCIE, DualDDR400 etc mobo for Intel Dothan chips :D

oh yeah.

how about some interesting ram ratios.

3:4
4:5
3:5

something higher then 1:1...
so we can really push ram to the limit.

I need a socket 939 mobo with AGP :P I can't think of anything more than has allready been said.

An overclockers dream dothan mobo:

vdimm upto 4.2 without mods
vcore to 2.5v without mods
2 sata ports
1 pata channel
2 usb ports
infinite fsb increasement (by 1mhz increments)
2x PCI-E 16x (for multi gpu:D)
both ddr2 and ddr1 support
four or three phase power for cpu
four or three phase power for ram
24pin ATX and 20pin ATX psu support
all pci/agp/pci-e/sata/pata bus's changable and can be locked to a specific value (in 1mhz increments)
3 pci slots, 2 pci-e 1x slots
no built in networking unless its just a basic 100mbit or a 10mbit.
no built in sound/audio/raid.
realistic temperature/voltage sensors.
socket 479 and dothan support.
nice clean layout and spaced out to make room for graphics card phase changers.


it contains hardly any built in features, great power systems, support for 2 gfx cards and has great voltage/frequency options.

would it ever be a possiability to have a onbord tv wonder ve? nearly all mobo's these days are the same with nothing to seperate them with. i think a tv tuner would be a great inexpensive addition to a quality mobo. mabey not on enthusiest boards but gen pop boards. i would like to see some flexability with overclocking but also a good on board sound/video/tuner combo for builds that can be less costly. not for gaming but for general internet usage, budget computers.

xtreme voltage options would be nice.
If thats not possible, just make the mobo so, that mods can easily be done.
Without cutting and soldering into traces and such....
i hate soldering into traces :mad:

One point is that current winbond based temperature and voltage monitoring solutions are useless.
Very very innacurate indeed..

So innacurate that thay may as well no be on the board at all.

If a winbond chip is all you can use, then dont include those features.

If you can fit somehting thats of a usefull accuracy then please do so, as it would save me allot of trouble poking with my multimeter.

Grayskull, I don't mind Windows overclocking utils like Clockgen, but mobo makers try to flash everything up to make things seem cool for enthusiasts (read: n00bs). In the end it just becomes cluttered and annoying, like Windows XP. It might be just me, but I don't like all the flashiness. I just want something that works and works well.

The perfect Windows overclocking utility would have all the overclocking options available in the BIOS in Windows (all voltages, HTT speed, LDT multi, CPU/FSB ratio (mulitplier), RAM timings, etc.) and it would have a simple layout.

Just to clarify my stand on onboard sound, if the chipset has native support for it anyways, and the quality is at least as good as Soundstorm, I'm for it. It saves room in your case. What needs addressed tho, is it shouldn't affect CPU utilization. And a simple stereo output would be adequate for me, since I run a line into my stereo anyways (gotta use good speakers ;) ). There should be a SPDIF (?) output for those who need it, but certainly there's no need to clutter up the I/O with a lot of jacks. :rolleyes: ;)

one more thing, again i emphasis Serial Attached Scsi, but something else.

nvidia did it, idk how, but they have their sata ports hooked up so your don't have to do F6 to install the drivers for windows to recognize the drives.

you must do this. and to eveyone who said they don't need firewire, i would just like one firewire on the back like the k8n neo2 has, one is enough, for something like an ipod, camcorder, or other device.

You people are crazy (no offense)...ATI isnt going to listen to us when we say...no floppy connectors, no ps2, no sound, and 1 pci slot and no firewire.

There MUST be a compromise or else we will get nothing that we want because ati will think we are retarded. Even overclockers need features. Hard core clockers who just want a benchmark score will buy like 30 boards from ATI at most, which doesnt equate to much of a profit for ATI. Many overclockers still utilize firewire, pci cards, and onboard sound. I own a computer company and usually need to build budget systems that I overclock heavily. It helps having onboard sound a lot. The savings to benifit ratio for not having sound is just terrible. They will save what like .05 cents and a miniscule amount of space on the board. And you're forgetting that many MANY people have ipods which connect using firewire :stick: . I dont think not having a floppy connector would go too well either, unless you can boot from a usb floppy or if not having a floppy connector would save A LOT of space. 2 pci slots minimum. Many people have sound cards and tv tuners, not to mention wireless lans. I think you only need one firewire port and one usb port. 4 usb ports is PLENTY and so is one firewire port. DEFINITLY do NOT include a parallel port or seriel port. THese things take up so much space and are rediculously unused. I havent even seen something that uses a seriel port. RAID is also a must, because overclockers overclock to get speed. If they don't have fast hard drives, then whats the point of being able to get 300 extra mhz if your hdd bandwidth is cut from 100mbs to 60mbs. Maybe a lower end board could be manufactured without RAID, which would make sense.

Otherwise, please have a dual bios or recovery system that works or include a flashed bios chip in with the motherboards. Use high quality vr's mosfets caps and other components. On a budget board this isnt really necessary. Vdimm to 3.3v at least, vcore to 2v at least, and many more bios options. 2 3pin connectors near where the rear fans would go are necesary, but after that, more 3pin connectors arent needed. In case you have extra space on the board, maybe you could add a 4-pin connector. It would be cool to be able to connect all your devices to the motheboard instead of routing them everywhere to the power supply :). And dont forget cooling! Cooling the mosfets, while a convenience, isnt needed because most overclockers have 20 mosfet sized heatsinks laying around. And plenty of room around the cpu socket!!! Make sure the PCB is red since you're ati, and ati=red. You could always make it a really ugly green to smack Nvidia's face. But you can only do that if its a good board :)


I tried my best to balance out features for OEM and regular computer enthusiasts and overclockers. I guess a lot of people are going to disagree with me because im not really on anyones side :eek: ...not the overclockers, or the OEM's/regular enthusiasts

You know what we need?

USB that works.

I'm sick of USB keyboards not working when trying to enter the bios due to sudden reboot or when using memtest...

If USB worked correctly we wouldnt need PS2 ports at all.. you could load up the board with 10+ USB ports and a bunch of firewire ports then we wouldnt need ANY internal slots other than those for the video card(s)... would be great for overclocking and still allow those that want a ton of stuff to hook up whatever they wanted to USB or firewire.

This is really just the base idea, I have a much better one than this, but i'm not going to let it out in the public since we are already dealing with PCIe and it would probably be better to find a more influential person to tell it to.. anyone with some time on their hands will figure it out anyways ;)

i need only 2 pci slots, one for my sound card, and the other for my capture card.