Gadgetory

the genome is deep cools extreme liquid cooling solution a stylish case with an integrated LED backlit captain pumpin CPU blocked 360 millimetre radiator and helix style reservoir to keep your system running cool and quiet click the link in the description for more information choosing a motherboard can be a daunting task especially for first-time PC builders even after you've figured out the basics what socket type to get to match your CPU what form factor the motherboard should be to match your case how many expansion slots and memory slots and SATA MDOT to you dot 2 or USB connection points you need there still might be 10 plus options to consider with varying quality features and pricing so today I thought I would run down my five favorite motherboard features those extra useful ones the bonus add-ons that might not even be necessary for your computer to work but are definitely worth paying a few extra bucks for whether you're building an AMD am 4 system or an Intel LGA 2066 or 1151 based PC or if you've got your sights set on the upcoming thread Ripper processors and that platform keep an eye out for these fantastic motherboard features so let's start with the basics surface mounted power and reset buttons these used to be a premium feature on premium boards but then they became pretty standard even on budget motherboards but recently I found that not all boards have them even some higher-end options they come in a variety of shapes and sizes as far as the buttons themselves but all I really care about is that they're physical buttons they're at least somewhat well labeled so you can tell which one is which if you build outside a case you're on a test bed these are going to let you power your build on or reset it without having to short a couple pins with the screwdriver if the minor convenience yes but if you're caught in a troubleshooting loop they can really help you out I've also had a case where the power button is on the case died on me and by unplugging the front panel connectors from the motherboard and reaching inside the chassis to use the surface mounted power buttons I was able to more quickly figure out what was going wrong an LED post readout is another feature that you'll find in a lot of motherboards especially when you get up out of the budget territory and into the mid-range an LED post readout does a few things when your PC first boots it's going to cycle through a bunch of codes as the system tests everything on the motherboard to make sure it's all working in connected properly if there is a problem you can watch that readout to see what it says when the system hangs or resets itself and then you can check the chart that comes in the motherboard manual to see what was happening when the error occurred memory initialization error maybe you've got a bad RAM stick or maybe you use the wrong DIMM slots boot device err maybe check the BIOS settings for your SATA controller it won't always be able to show you exactly what the problem is but it will give you a lot more to go on than just my PC won't boot post LEDs will also often switch over to displaying your CPU temperature once you flewed it up which can be really handy for an at-a-glance check of how hot things are I just wish more motherboards have the option to actually turn that post led off after the system boots because it can often clash with other case lighting now if I had to choose a number one feature on this list I think it would be this the ability to update your motherboards UEFI also known as the bios without a CPU or memory installed Asus originally introduced this feature under their branded name USB BIOS flashback and since then gigabyte has also introduced it to some of their motherboards they call it Q flash plus just copy the new BIOS onto a USB Drive plug it in and connect up power to the board from your power supply and you can update without a CPU or memory installed updating your BIOS is a lot more common than it used to be but if your power goes out or someone kicks the AC cable while the BIOS update is happening it can brick your motherboard this feature can allow you to recover a corrupt BIOS or if you have a motherboard with an older bios version like say you have a z170 Intel board that originally only supported skylake processors and then you have a newer CPU like a kV like 7700 K which will only work with v 70 if you update the BIOS you can get around in this kind of catch-22 situation without having to go and find and borrow a skylake processor from someone just so you can update your motherboard here's another basic but vital button that you don't always find even on higher-end boards a clear CMOS button positioned on the rear i/o Polly CMOS is used to wipe your systems bios settings by having it there it allows you to do it without even having to get inside the case kind of like power and reset buttons clearing your CMOS can be handled by shorting a couple pins on the motherboard and with budget boards that's usually how it works this is inconvenient I mean even sometimes super inconvenient there's parts installed on top of that pin out that block access to it making it a button is upgrade one and then putting that button on the rear i/o is upgrade to if you want quick access without even having to remove your cases side panel practically speaking this will help you out most if you're dabbling with overclocking if you find you pushed your system too far and you're not even seeing a display on screen anymore clearing CMOS will reset the system to factory defaults and get you up and running again four favorite feature number five I wanted to single out gigabytes new fan stop mode that some of their ex $2.99 motherboards have it will turn all of your system fans off if temperatures are low enough to eliminate fan noise but then I decided to expand this to more generically recommend advanced fan controls any decent motherboard should allow you to set up a custom fan speed curve based on system temperatures and it should allow you to do that from within the BIOS or from within windows and some fans can also be tied specifically to thermal step sensors that might exist on the board or CPU or GPU speed for pin fan headers on the board allow you to connect either three pin voltage controlled fans or four pin PWM controlled fans and including a dedicated fan header for a pump it's nice to have as well software can take fan control even further too for example ASUS motherboards with fan experts can run a safari so will be that tests all the fans you have connected to the motherboard headers and tune them based on their minimum and maximum rotation speed MSI and gigabyte also have been developing their fan control software for years they offer a ton of customization options as well so those are my five favorite motherboard features and you might have noticed some features that didn't make this list RGB LEDs and/or RGB LED headers for example can be nice to have aesthetically but I still consider them to be optional and ultimately a function over form kind of guy still also some boards have a ton of other surface mounted buttons aside from the power and reset those allow you to manually control overclocking functions which I also typically don't look for as you lose access to them once the board is installed in a case for an open test bed or a hardcore overclocker they can be handy but that's a relatively small group among all PC builders this was just a 5 item list though so I'm sure I missed some other excellent motherboard features if you guys have a minute and you want to post your own personal list of favorite features down in the comments I would be very interested to see them thanks for watching this video though guys as always like share and subscribe if you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time