Simple, Bare-Bones Motherboards?

basic0 writes "After my Windows box recently lost its life in a puff of awful smelling smoke, I tracked the fault to the motherboard. Now I'm in the market for a replacement board, but all the boards I find seem to be all-in-one models with on-board everything. I already have a good graphics card, NIC, USB audio device, etc. I just need a no-frills motherboard like I used to be able to buy. It seems like a waste to buy a board with all the built-in stuff (and probably pay extra for it) when I'm never going to use it. Has anyone else had similar experiences? Do a lot of people actually use the on-board stuff? Is it still possible to purchase a motherboard that's *just* a motherboard?"

Comments

You'll end up paying more

[Anonymous Coward]

You end up paying more for a bare-bones motherboard because of their rarity.

Re:You'll end up paying more

[Trizor]

And besides, there are all sorts of advantages to the redundancy the cards you already have will provide. Should something go bad, you'll have a back up, as well as a control set to compare against test results. I'd say get a board with onboard components and maximise yoru use. 2 NICs is especially nice if you find your self in a situation that requires odd network topology and weird on box configurations.

Re:You'll end up paying more

[morcego]

You end up paying more for a bare-bones motherboard because of their rarity.

Actually, it is a correct, if limited, summation.

When you think on market scale production, one fact is simple: the more you produce, th lower the individual unity cost. That is why, today, a dot-matrix printer is more expensive than a laser one.

Considering the great majority of motherboards produced are those "on-board" models, and the demand for "clean" boards is small (and getting smaller each passing day), the natural tendency is that the production cost pre unit for a clean board is higher.

On the other hand, I do like clean boards better. The chances of a failure is reduced, since the number of components is reduced too. That can also lead for a higher durability.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the "on-board" mobos are cheaper when you buy then, but clean ones tend to be cheaper on the long run. At least for me, since I never throw away a working computer. I just move it to other functions (disk server, firewalls etc).

Re:You'll end up paying more

[Sique]

There is another aspect: Chip sets.
To have a chipset being accepted by the motherboard manufacturers, it has to come with easy implementable reference designs and with a small board real estate, that is: a minimum of used area for the chips itself and for the connections to other functions. So chip sets tend to integrate as many functions as possible, because thus board manufactures need less additional circuits and wiring to put those functions at the boards. A large portion of the boards in turn are sold to assemblers anyway, which are keen on boards with many functions already builtin, because then they don't need to put additional cards and ports into the boxes they are assembling.
So for a board manufacturer to get into the assembler business to sell boards he has to offer fully integrated boards, and he will choose fully integrated chipsets to deliver.
And if he has once designed fully integrated board series, what's the point in designing stripped down versions again? He will use the same chipsets anyway, because he has all the testing equipment in place for those, he reuses the design of the wiring (once the masks for wiring are done, the manufactunging costs are the same, independent of the number of wires), so all he saves are the few cents for the actual sockets and the soldering of the sockets to the boards.
Basicly a "bare" board then is nothing else than a board without the sockets, but electrically the functions are there. But to manufacture those boards intentionally you need another production process, another QA process, another packaging. It might be cheaper to just sort the boards according to their final testing results and then specify which functions are 'there' (those that work in the tests).

all-in-one boards...

[l33td00d42]

... are cheaper in my experience, since they're geared toward the value market.

quit yer whining and buy a motherboard.

Finally...

[Kr3m3Puff]

After my Windows box recently lost its life...

Thank god... one less Windows user out there now. I am sorry to inform you that they no longer make motherboards for Windows as you might as well install Linux or buy a Mac...

Re:then dont use it

[SydShamino]

>> And why do modern boards still have serial and Parralell ports? They aren't used by 75% of the rest of the world, why are they even included as standard on ALL boards? On Some us because they still have some value but ALL?

My new (as of January) Dell at work doesn't have them. It just has 6 USB ports (8, if you also count the two on the front).

Dell can remove them, because they are selling a complete system and know that customers don't need a PS2 keyboard slot, for example.

The separate motherboard vendors still include them because it is cheaper to sell one motherboard version than it is to sell two, where one has a reduce featureset.

In a few more years they will be phased out. It just takes time. ISA took forever to be phased out as well. PCI is obsolete now, too, but even you might hope that they keep a few PCI slots around for a few years until all your old PCI add-on cards have been replaced. (Assuming you don't use all motherboard built-in features.)

Onboard not that bad

[Psionicist]

I used to reason exactly like you once and tried to use my software preferences when I choose hardware, no bloat etc, but eventually I found out that hardware "bloat" is not that bad, unlike the software kind. My most stable boxes are the ones that use the onboard components, whereas my old plain vanilla motherboard with a 3rd party soundcard hangs pretty frequently because of god-know-what compatibility issues. When you get onboard audio, at least you know it will work with the chipset.

Good Barebone motherboard

[Beuno]

Ive had very good experiences with ABIT barebone motherboards, which I normally use on servers.

So get a passive backplane

[Animats]

If that's what you really want, you can buy a passive backplane and plug in CPU and peripheral boards, up to and including dual Xeons Passive backplanes are used in specialized industrial applications, and will cost you far more than a "loaded" motherboard. This is not something desktop users buy. But they do exist.

Device Driver Support if you're running Linux

[billstewart]

If you're running Linux, try to find out if the drivers are available for the built-in parts. They probably are - builtins tend to be pretty vanilla standard Southbridge parts, so enough other people often have them, and Knoppix can probably find them. But otherwise you may need to use your own boards.

If you're running Windows, the integrated on-board stuff will work fine, and as another poster says, you could use the built-in graphics to run a second monitor, which you'll find very addictive. If you're a gamer, you'll probably want to use your own video card, but otherwise it's nice to have your system be cooler and quieter with the built-in video.

Try searching

[DaEMoN128]

Mwave, TigerDirect, Directron, Newegg....there are many sites that provide these barebones motherboards. I have never seen one for less than 80 dollars though. I have found all in one integrated boards for much cheaper. If you are looking for a barebones system though, try Tyan, MSI, or Giga-byte. ASUS tends to pack everything onto the board, soyo and abit are the same. I havent heard or had much experience with epox, dfi (they also have good reviews, and I believe the lanboy is fairly barebones but expensive). Do about 20 minutes searching and you can find what you are looking for. I personally recommend a Giga-byte board. I have had nothing but great luck with them.

Best of luck in your search.