Design your Dream Motherboard!!

[ImaginAsian]

I know we all got some pretty good ideas on what would make a Dream Motherboards so chime in with your ideas! You don't have to put the basic stuff...just stuff you think a dream motherboard should have even if it is way out there!

Here's My List (off the top of my head)

1. Dual-Bios (BIOS savior)
2. Integrated 100/10 NIC
3. x-Phase Power Mosfets (whatever is needed + 25% margin)
4. No Jumpers or Dipswitches - all configurations done in BIOS
5. PCI/AGP Only
6. Fully Programmable PCI/AGP Dividers
7. Seperate Voltage controls for Memory and I/O
8. Mobo status link via LCD Display - Errors and other goodies
9. 6 fan headers

[lurch63]

um dual socket 462's not always for servers, and dual nics like servers would be cool too, drop those lan game pings, :) 1 dip switch, clear cmos, instead of jumper, or something with more of a lever, little bigger than a dip switch, raid 0+1 scsi hard drives....

[AmStoned]

That's right, Duo AMD mobo, slap some 3Com duo NIC, AGP Pro + (6) 64bit PCI, AGP/PCI 1/5 divider, god damn Zalman NB26 Heatsink on that NBridge, while you're at it slap another one on SBridge, ATX connector placed Abit style, Epox style bling bling LED error display, 4 phase mosfet, 2 DIMM slot (man don't be wasting no space with them empty slots on my mobo bitch), and.... give me 8x 1200uh (The big ass kind) Capacitor in Black. In fact, make everything on my mobo black, and put a huge green Cannabis Leaf emblem on the surface of the mobo PCB, and Big Pimpin' on the back.

[Darksword]

I'll add..

6 PCI - no more, no less

Integrated 5.1 Digital Sound

ONE unified driver for the whole motherboard - nForce style!!

Three DIMM slots. ( I like my expansion options, dude :D )

No freakining capacitors near the damn Northbridge. Some people like to Blorb them, and dammit, they should be able to do so.

NO stupid AGP Pro slot that nobody ever uses. ( God, I hate Asus mobos )

NO stupid ACR, CNR slots that nobody uses ( Damn Asus again )

NO sucky integrated video. If you're going to put video and sound onboard, it has to be good. GeForce3 Ti200 or better.

NO wacky placement of the DIMMS and IDE channels. Everyone should model their boards after Abit. Period.

[Orange Peel]

Better and stronger socket design with (as DK said) no caps or chips near the CPU and easy mouning holes for big ass HS and water blocks.

and most important of all.....

A magic jumper that resets the board back to factory condition. Very useful when you have just fried the board when your water cooling goes wrong.

[floppybootstomp]

Well between you all, I reckon you got it all covered. I'd like to see just 6 PCI slots and just the one standard AGP slot; 2 or 3 DIMMS - not fussy; Integrated sound only if it's good quality 5.1; and no jumpers whatsoever. I'd mount the CMOS reset jumper to a key operated switch that could either be mounted on a front 3.5" or 5.25" panel or on a rear mounted PCI blank panel. The ideal mobo should also be supplied with a good range of mounting hardware, the ones that come with the case often leave a lot to be desired. Also, yep, get them caps away from the immediate area of the CPU and if possible, nor fragile surface mount components in that area, either, cos if you're using a tight-clip cooler if you slip with your screwdriver or whatever, you could shear them off (MSI take note).

And not to do with the mobo, but I read elsewhere today that IA had a mobo mounting plate with a hole cut out under the CPU, so you could fit board mounting coolers without taking out the board. I like that :) And all credit to 0-60 for doing it :)

And on a nit-picky note (feel free to flame :D) AS, the sign for capacitance is uF (microfarads) not uH (microhenries - inductance). Ner ner :p

[floppybootstomp]

Originally posted by danball1976


Plus 8 DIMM slots that handle 1GB each.



You wot?:confused: How would 8Gb RAM benefit the average home set-up? Not to mention justify the average budget?

Me no understand :beatsme:

[ImaginAsian]

I like the idea of the CMOS reset switch being tied to a front bay!

As for the 8 DIMM Slots...hehehe...although an interesting idea i doubt it that will ever be possible. You can only imagine the delay hit between each slot...it's already bad enough with three and four!

I also want the clock generator to be heatsinked!

[AmStoned]

Flops,

Thanks for the correction. Thought it was along the line and guessing. Okay, take out the AGP Pro slot, and add some duo channel RAID SCSI on-board. That'd be sweet.

[miller]

I would like....

* The Vcore voltage to be adjustable up to 2.6v.

* The PCB to be 4 layer black to match the Asus GF3 cards.

* No damn little capacitors or any other mobo peices in a 1in area around the socket so it will be easier to insulate for extreme cooling.

* To have integrated Sound and LAN like the soyo dragon.

* And last but not least I would like the mobo to have a little speaker from which the mobo could talk to you with A.I. about how its feeling, what improvments you could do for it to make it run faster...etc. :D

*Note* Only the first four were serious...

[Rando]

Looks like everything's covered except vcore adjustment, I'd like to see one that adjusts to at least 2.5, the XP133 is supposed to deliver at least 1.9, not enough.....burn baby!:burn:
And a real thermistor built in that you can actually slide up next to the core.

edit: Looks like Miller beat me to the punch....Flops I like the push button CMOS reset.....oh, and how bout a pcb covered with pretty white daiseys, and pink roses and..........:instant d :D

[catcorpse]

I love the ideas, but I would like a clear Mobo, see what's tickin inside. I would also Like something kick ass that is a micro-atx. Seems that all micro's are shit boards. (I know Nvidia, but we shall see)

[floppybootstomp]

IA: The Clock Generator heatsinked? A little OTT, methinks, but it wouldn't do any harm.

As for the CMOS reset switch, it could be done done quite easily, providing you're a dab hand with a decent soldering iron.

All you gotta do is remove the jumper, first taking a note of the settings, solder and fly three thin wires to the switch of your choice, label it, and you got it.

The reason I suggested a key operated switch is that I wouldn't like to think what would happen if a third party inadvertently flicked the switch while the system was running :confused: Using a key would ensure no mistakes.

The idea of it, coupled with a complete BIOS config, is that you wouldn't have to take the case side off and fumble each time you were tinkering. It'd be nice to do everything from the outside, IMO.

I didn't think about the cosmetics. I'd personally favour a deep purple board with hidden yellow PCB tracks that only showed under a UV light. I figure with a case side window, that'd look really cool.

The idea of a standard BIOS Saviour is great, surprised no manufacturer's come up with the idea yet.

And AmStoned: Lame response my man :) I expected at least an online kick in the nuts for being so petty :D

[ImaginAsian]

Originally posted by floppybootstomp
All you gotta do is remove the jumper, first taking a note of the settings, solder and fly three thin wires to the switch of your choice, label it, and you got it.

The reason I suggested a key operated switch is that I wouldn't like to think what would happen if a third party inadvertently flicked the switch while the system was running :confused: Using a key would ensure no mistakes.

The idea of it, coupled with a complete BIOS config, is that you wouldn't have to take the case side off and fumble each time you were tinkering. It'd be nice to do everything from the outside, IMO.

The idea of a standard BIOS Saviour is great, surprised no manufacturer's come up with the idea yet.

Looks like a mod job you can demonstrate for us Flops :) It would be a great article to write once the front-end ges put in place!!

And the BIOS saviour is actually done already...Gigabyte's Dual-Bios boards have that feature...weird that no-one has jumped on.

And to hell with only the clocker generator being heatsinked, I want all exposed dies to be heatsinked :P

Hey Rando...me thinking Vcore up to 2.5V will not be needed as the CPU's shrink due to reduction in linewidths. As the technology improves, less and less power is needed so I think 2.0V Vcore would be great for now and more then enough in the future! When the next-gen CPU's require only 1.4V to run, a 2.0V would be on the verge if not already of oxide breakdown and melting the chip :eek2:

Also, the next processors should all feature a built-in thermal diode which if used properly by the mobo manufacturers would give you the most accurate CPU temps this side of a nurse!

I think the caps can only be so far from the CPU Socket...my pathetic electrical enginering degree tells me that :)

[Rando]

Good point, but hell, at the moment, some of the 1.3's and 1.4's won't run stable at the recommended vcore, I'm sure that'll change with the switch to .13. I'd still like to see some sort of wired thermistor that can be manuevered to fit against the core, my damn GF Pro has one, I see no reason why it couldn't be implemented to a mobo:D

Flops, I may give that a try, although I think I'll see if I can find a three-pin connector that'll fit the cmos header instead of using solder, some days the crab claws are a little shaky:D

[lurch63]

i've thought about the cmos switch idea , as in doing it, the big fear being some moron switching it when they weren't supposed to, (like me accidentaly) but a key switch good idea, i agree with you flops, though i don't have the time right now, my intention is to mount things like reohstats, cmos, usb all in the front, my pc is in the corner of the basement, its a bitch get to, would be nice to be able to not have to move it, when i want to put my game controller in, or if i go a little too far on an overclock, but thats what winter break is for, hmm, what hasn't been said,

well just to be one up on IA, 183watt peltiers for every die and integreated chip on the mobo, make it hit superconductivity temperatures :) , lurch

[Dramen]

Most good things being said already, here is just a few of my wants:

1. Like flops mentioned, better mounting (tooless screw ins) and also a covering of some kind on the back of the board that would aid in heat dissipation and covers everything except mount holes, no exposed circuitry.

2. Headers for temps, voltages, cmos reset, ram usage, to eliminate using thermal probes and third party software (no wasted resources) for readout to exterior displays.

3. Lets start phasing out these bulky ide/floppy connectors with round plugs/round cables.

4. Go back to the easy way the simm modules popped in.

5. 66mhz pci bus right now!;)

[Dramen]

Continued...

6. Trash the serial and parallel ports, which would also free up some resources/irq's.

7. Standard ports, should include: ps/2, usb, lan, firewire.

8. Not only should the bios have backup like IA mentioned but it should also have it's own cache memory.

Off the wall stuff.

1. How about the cpu socket can just be snapped into place on the mobo, kinda like hot swapping. Would make cpu/hsf switching a lot easier.

2. All HD/Raid controllers should have their own cache memory which is upgradeable just like ram.

To be continued...:sleep:

[AmStoned]

Hmmm... The CPU socket thing reminds me of something all CPU manufacturers should do - Don't put no freaking studs on the side of the socket for el cheapo HSFs. 4 hole HSF installation only. Sure's hell don't want to crap my new XP. Damn, am I bragging again?:D

[Dramen]

Guess we all know now who's got a new alpha!;)

[Techvillage]

I agree with all thats been said above so far except Db's 8 dimms. Fore the home user, 8 dimms are OTT. However 8 dimms are not unusual. Server motherboards can have 8. In fact Compaq workstations we have at work have 8 dimms, so it's not like they are in the exclusive domain of servers.

I like the idea of integrated components such as nics and scsi, but don't like the fact you more or less gotta throw away the whole board if one of the integrated components fails on you.

So, have motherboard branded nics, scsi, firewire and sound daughter cards.

Also gotta have SCSI RAID 5 Yeah.....:cool:

[Mad dog]

What 'd like to see is the ability to expand the ammount of expasion slots you have. i.e. contiously add on more duaughter boards fo either PCI or ISA or more AGP for as long as you case can take it. I always find that i never have enough expansion slots.

Oh and theres nothing wrong with wanting to have 8GB or RAM on a home system. After all this is a dream mobo. Is some of my dreams i can fly so i doubt asking for 8GN of RAm is pushing it that much.

This is meant to be a sillly over the top kind of thing so just let lose.