Motherboard features matter more now that CPUs barely change

Published 3 minutes ago

After a 7-year corporate stint, Tanveer found his love for writing and tech too much to resist. An MBA in Marketing and the owner of a PC building business, he writes on PC hardware, technology, and Windows. When not scouring the web for ideas, he can be found building PCs, watching anime, or playing Smash Karts on his RTX 3080 (sigh).

Published 3 minutes ago

It used to be that a new CPU brought substantial IPC gains, more cores, and faster clock speeds with almost every upgrade. This hasn’t been the case for a while, since modern CPUs have pivoted to incremental gains and efficiency improvements rather than game-changing performance jumps. The difference between a previous-gen and current-gen chip, outside of CPU benchmarks, has shrunk to the point that the motherboard has assumed greater importance. Your motherboard’s power delivery, PCIe lane sharing, and socket longevity now matter more than the raw performance of your processor. With power limits, boost clocks, and thermals being significantly impacted by your motherboard, it’s ever more important to pick the best motherboard features for your money.

A CPU upgrade doesn’t feel like one anymore

It’s no secret that jumping to a new CPU or even a new platform doesn’t give you anywhere close to the performance jump that it used to years ago. We’ve had high core counts, decent single-core performance, and thermally efficient CPUs for years now. Comparing an 8-year-old CPU to a modern chip will show you a huge performance gap, but gen-over-gen improvements have become slimmer than ever. In some cases, newer CPUs have been slower than their older counterparts, especially in gaming. You don’t need to look further than AMD’s Zen 5 and Intel’s Arrow Lake lineups for proof.

The Ryzen 9000 CPUs were marketed as a big step up from the Ryzen 7000 chips, but they turned out to be little more than a refresh. And Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs were actually slower than the Raptor Lake processors in gaming. These days, people change CPUs only if they’re forced to switch to a new platform or if they’re investing in a specialized chip like one of the gaming-focused Ryzen X3D CPUs. Otherwise, retaining your years-old CPU has never been easier. A 5-year-old CPU today isn’t as outdated as a 5-year-old CPU used to be back in, say, 2015. With CPUs barely changing every generation, the motherboard can play a bigger role in determining your PC’s peak performance and overall longevity.

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Motherboard VRMs and power limits determine peak performance

Your motherboard is the key to unlocking your chip’s potential

Your motherboard’s VRM (Voltage Regulator Module) is made up of MOSFETs, chokes, capacitors, and controllers. It is responsible for converting the incoming 12V power from the PSU into various lower voltages required by your components. Not only that, it ensures clean and consistent power necessary not just for overclocking, but also for high-performance CPUs at stock settings. Not all motherboard VRMs are made equal, which makes it necessary to study the number of phases, their amperage rating, and the underlying build quality before picking a motherboard.

The quality of power delivery determined by the VRM design can make the same CPU perform very differently on different motherboards. On an inferior board, your high-end CPU might never reach its maximum clock speeds or maintain them for long due to thermal throttling on the VRM. A higher-quality VRM design is more efficient and able to supply enough current reliably to support the CPU’s boost behavior.

Then, you need to know about the power limits defined in your motherboard’s firmware (BIOS/UEFI). While PL1 defines the average power your CPU can draw over longer periods, PL2 is the maximum power it can draw for short bursts. Settings like "Tau" determine the duration for which your CPU can stay at PL2 before falling to PL1. These power limits define your CPU’s behavior under any given workload. The degree to which you can tweak these limits varies between chipsets, manufacturers, and tiers of motherboards. So, you won’t be able to unlock the maximum power of your CPU on a budget board, whereas an enthusiast board will have the underlying hardware and firmware optimizations to allow the CPU to fully stretch its wings.

When CPUs from different generations don’t differ much in terms of real-world behavior, having a high-end motherboard for a high-end chip can make a significant difference to the overall behavior of the CPU. If you’re an enthusiast who can’t rest without maximizing their processor’s performance, you might benefit from investing in an expensive motherboard.

Check carefully before buying your motherboard

When choosing a motherboard, buying only what you need might not be the smartest decision. You might need just one M.2 slot right now, but you’ll soon need more to add additional NVMe SSDs. The number of M.2 slots varies between motherboard models, so you need to pick one that suits your current as well as future needs. Typically, motherboards priced around $200–$250 will provide you with four M.2 slots, which should be plenty for everyone but the most advanced users.

Being a power user, you also need to consider PCIe lane sharing. The number of PCIe lanes varies by the motherboard chipset, with high-end chipsets having more lanes than entry-level and budget models. Components like the GPU, NVMe SSDs, and expansion cards use PCIe lanes to connect to the CPU. Due to the way PCIe lanes are shared between the primary PCIe and M.2 slots, installing an NVMe SSD in the latter can sometimes halve the number of PCIe lanes available to the GPU. While this represents a minimal performance loss to the average user, enthusiasts might want to be wary of such PCIe configurations. You can check the number and distribution of the PCIe lanes on a particular motherboard before buying it to ensure you’re not caught off guard.

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Your board’s I/O and socket decide its longevity

It’s all about a motherboard you can invest in

A decently stacked I/O is important for any user, but even more so for power users who wish to connect tons of devices and don’t want to sacrifice any performance. For instance, a high number of fast USB ports, USB-C ports, multi-gig Ethernet, and Wi-Fi 7 (at least Wi-Fi 6E) is necessary if you’re an advanced user who demands the most from your hardware. You should look for Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ports, which offer 40 Gbps and 20 Gbps speeds, respectively. 5Gb Ethernet is fairly common on consumer motherboards, but you might need 10GbE for your home network. An advanced I/O is one of the things that will contribute to a longer-lasting motherboard.

Lastly, your motherboard’s socket is important since it determines if you’ll be able to retain the same board between CPU upgrades. This is something AMD users have been doing on AM4 and, more recently, on AM5 motherboards. Intel made it possible for a while for its 12th, 13th, and 14th Gen CPUs, but introduced a new socket with its Arrow Lake CPUs, and is set to change it again with Nova Lake. Platform longevity doesn’t just save you some money; it also allows you to plan your PC’s lifecycle better. You can pick a budget or mid-range CPU now if it fulfills your requirements, and upgrade to a high-end chip in a few years if you have the confidence that the socket won’t become outdated by then.

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Your motherboard’s features can matter more than your CPU’s raw performance

The big performance leaps we used to see with every new CPU generation aren’t really a thing anymore. The key to unlocking the best out of your high-end system lies in your motherboard’s power delivery, PCIe lane configuration, I/O, and socket longevity. Together, these features determine your CPU’s peak performance and your system’s longevity. When buying a new motherboard, consider the VRM quality, connectivity features, and platform to decide if you’re investing in the right board for your needs.

CPU performance has plateaued