RayLopez99 said:
Here's a more general question: who cares about the mobo? if a mobo supports certain operations, isn't that only true for bootup, and after that it becomes irrelevant?
For example, supposed the motherboard supports SATA3. After bootup, the mobo hands off to the OS, and the OS supports these SATA drives, yes? So if can bootup, the mobo has performed its duties, and no need to worry anymore? Hence any mobo that supports the hardware you have is 'good enuf'? There is no interaction between OS and mobo after bootup?
RL
There is a small amount of BIOS code that runs, while the
OS is running. This is only an issue with audio workstation
design (only people working with low latency audio,
care about the side effects of this issue). The code runs
under System Management Mode. When SMM is invoked, the OS
is no longer running. It's a very crude form of timesharing
(and I don't know if the concept has been updated over the
years by Intel or not). Maybe SMM steals 30*100usec or
about 3 milliseconds per second of operation time. I don't
really know what controls SMM rate, whether it's just
a timer signal connected to SMI, or some system timer
is set up to do it. There have been motherboards, with the
Asus iPanel connected, where it appeared the SMI signal
on the iPanel header, triggered SMM to update the iPanel
display.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Mode
(Suspected to use SMM code for support...)
http://ht4u.net/old/2001/asusipanel/ipanel_eingebaut2.jpg
*******
You buy motherboards, according to the set of hardware
interfaces they support. Say, for example, you're holding
an M.2 drive in your hand, and want to plug it in. Then
you need a motherboard with an M.2 socket. Or, with expansion
slots (PCI Express), that could hold a separate card. The
advantage of integrated connectors (onboard M.2) is the
overall system cost is lower. I can get a USB3 port on
a motherboard for peanuts, whereas adding a separate card
might cost me $25. For example, in an impulse buy at the
computer store, it cost me $25 for a serial port, $25 for
a parallel port, and so on. If those ports are already
on the motherboard, the incremental cost is a lot lower.
For the manufacturer, back in the day, those two interfaces
could be added for the cost of the connector alone.
For gamer purposes, you may want slots for more than one
video card. They make more expensive designs, from the
CPU on down, for that purpose (LGA2011 with 40 lanes). That
can double the cost of the basic system, if you throw in
the bells and whistles (best of everything). But the video
cards might cost $500 a piece, so it's all relative. The
whole project is going to be expensive, and mainly for
bragging rights. That's what some of those people do,
is waggle their three or four video cards, in your
face. What they don't tell you, is how uncomfortably
warm it is in their computer room, when they're gaming
You don't need a home heating system, if you buy
all that stuff.
Another selector for motherboards, is the adequacy of the
design. Whether there were shortcuts taken or not. In a past
Anandtech review, they managed to "burn out" several
motherboards under their review, by putting 130W
processors in the socket. And as it turned out later,
there was advanced information available that would
in a subtle way, have warned that the motherboards
in question were only good with 65W or 89W processors.
So when you're looking at the cheapest motherboards,
there's a danger they could burn out on the first
day, if you haven't been reading all possible documentation
before hand. If you select a mid-range priced motherboard,
one with good reviews from hundreds of buyers, less is
likely to go wrong with them.
Paul
