First post, by Holering
Can't help but notice motherboards getting awfully generic. No matter what, you're gonna' be stuck with onboard sound, onboard LAN, and onboard USB. What if I want a unique build with only USB 3 (or how bout' firewire and no USB whatsoever hehe), an exotic soundcard, dual GPU video card (only one 16x slot used, or quad sli/crossfire), multimedia capture card, completely wireless LAN, and bluetooth. Isn't that already using 7 expansion slots? I'm thinking, isn't it better to only have two ps/2 ports (kinda like those older AT mobos), increase expansion slot count to 10-12, and get a nice chop down on mobo price? Heck I'm getting a pcie 1X card that has two sata channels and an IDE port, and it's only $9.00 (some have 4 sata ports +IDE but their actually two sata channels with selectable jumpers for esata/sata).
Here's an example:
MSI Z97 Gaming AC looks absolutely stunning and is aimed at PC enthusiasts according to GURU3D.com. Has three PCIE 16X slots with sli/crossfire support, gorgeous heatsinks on nbridge and sbridge, 12 phase VRM, and all the overclocking features you can dream of.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_z97_ … d_review,2.html
It really is a great piece of hardware. But with all that stuff on there how am I going to choose the soundcard I want, as well as all the ports and LAN features I want. Buying that $300.00 mobo seems like a lot of money without letting me choose what I want. Heck it even has a display port and hdmi port (yeah... way to go for onboard video. Not!). All the onboard sound, usb ports, lan port, and other stuff where the i/o shield is, is already taking up half the space available in the back of an ATX case 😲 . Why waste all that money and effort without knowing what a PC user is going to want in their system? Why force very specific hardware down everyone's throat?! It's like they're trying to make an embedded-proprietary PC ITX design go supersized...! Why not pay me $300.00 for buying stuff I don't want or need instead? Especially stuff that has to go inside my ATX case no matter what. Are they making these for Hitler risen from the grave?