Choosing a motherboard

what criteria does Jow Forums use in selecting a motherboard? I see no reason to buy anything other than the bottom of the barrel or a top of the line. What does the middle market get you?

>shit VRMs until you get to the top tier
>shit for expansion slots
>cheap PCI slots that can snap off if you ever want to swap your GPU
>barely any USB slots
>no integrated wifi, have to shell out extra bux

If you're buying a shit motherboard to save money, fine. But if you're gonna step up even a little bit, you should probably go all the way up to the top of the line.

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What motherboard you got now faggot?

Asrock B450m pro 4

I choose whichever supports the CPU I want, and has the most features whilst being a reasonable price.
Features I look for are M.2 slots, IOMMU grouping, power delivery, bios, PCIe slots, if it supports bifurcation, networking, etc.
I don't care about looks because I have a pc case without a window, as I am an adult.

I buy the cheapest one. That is my only criteria

The middle of the market is honestly the best place to be, I have no idea what your faggot ass is talking about
Starting at $130-150 is when you get into the high end chipsets and everything is pretty usable
VRMs are usable enough for 24/7 OCs
You start getting Intel NICs
Audio is unoffensive with higher end realtek chips, good enough to not need a DAC
Rear IO stands to be populated and not bare

There's a lot less to differentiate boards then there used to be. Most boards with the same chipset have the same features. Even slot layouts are largely the same. It's down to overclocking stuff and VRM quality really.

I upgrade once every 5-8 years usually. So buying even a $450 motherboard is nothing to me because I intend to keep it for so long. I'll usually go through 3-4 GPU upgrades before getting a new CPU/board. Before I got my 1700X and asus Crosshair VI, I had an Intel 990X, top tier X58 board and it held my 990X at 3.8GHz it's entire life.

Ryzen 7nm will be the first time I upgrade this early. Buy cheap, get cheap.

I forgot to add
>no integrated wifi, have to shell out extra bux
Who the fuck actually uses wifi on a desktop?
No matter how long an Ethernet cable needs to be it will always be cheaper and better performance than what any wifi card could give you

I buy the board with most LEDs and the least functional plastic covered heatsinks.

>Who the fuck actually uses wifi on a desktop?

Cheap bastards like me.

I've had times where I want to use it but even then its no good to have it on the motherboard, since I want to run Linux and therefore care about having the right wi-fi chipset.

>PS/2 port
>enough USB ports
>decent VRMs
>8 or more SATA ports
>very minimal or no RGB
>don't need to sacrifice your first born
And here's my motherboard.

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i avoid sata/usb chipsets that aren't intel/amd.

Gamer aesthetics ofc. I needed to ascend to the republic.

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how to tell when a realtek audio chip isn't shit?
and are there usually not alternatives to realtek on higher end mobos?

Actual implementation matters more than the chip.
My board has the ALC892 and it's more than decent enough. However other boards with the same chip may not be.

>no thermal armor
Yikes! Do you even military gaming?

>ascend to the republic
...of gaymen

>PS/2 port

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>mobos

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