Questions about motherboard build quality to determine best value when overclocking

[mutantmagnet]

I was curious about what dictates the various pricing levels in motherboards. What I began to notice is that:


1) AMD boards at similar price brackets have more power phases than Intel boards on average. Does having more phases allow you to have longer lasting boards to overclock with? Does more phases help with overclocking in other ways?

2) There is huge jump in price for both type of motherboards if you want to buy a board where the mosfets are protected by heatsinks. In your experience do these boards have better engineering going into them compared to "unprotected" boards?

3)Almost all of the lowest end boards had very erratic arrangements in their phases. From your experience is it harder to use after market heatsinks to upgrade these boards? Do you think the value in using these heatsinks which easily offer $10-$20 price difference between the boards mentioned in observation (2) still doesn't make this as capable of motherboard strictly for overclocking purposes?

[pH(x)]

I'm an extreme layman but let me lay it out a little for you .

1) from what I understand more phases means smoother and stronger power delivery so that gives a more stable overclock

2) boards that I have had with MOSFET heatsinks generally had premium features, and had a more solid look and feel to them, but that's probably not always the case

3) no, just buy a better motherboard. if this was practical to do I feel there would be more enthusiasts buying cheap boards and popping heatsinks on them. i've never heard of this working out well for an extreme overclocker.

[mutantmagnet]

Thanks for the input.

[mutantmagnet]

For anyone who was interested in this topic I came across a very useful article that tries to provide more specifics on VRMs the newest motherboards use.

http://sinhardware.com/index.php/vrm-list