There
are many logical reasons why we should consider upgrading the motherboard in a
computer every few years. One of the most prominent and important of those
reasons is the pursuit of a higher speed factor, support for many devices, the
latest hardware, the ability to keep pace with the requirements of modern
operating systems and heavy applications, and enjoy an enjoyable experience
while exercising New game titles.
But
there is a question that always comes to my mind before I upgrade the
motherboard in particular, which is do I really have to replace the
motherboard, or is it possible just to upgrade some other components and save
money for something else? Well, the answer to this question depends on several
things, and these things we will explain to you very briefly through the
following lines. And remember to look at the article Does Motherboard Affect
Computer Performance?
Does the motherboard affect the performance of the computer?
1- There is some damage to the motherboard
This
problem is not impossible but it is rare and happened to me maybe more than
once. On one occasion it damaged one of the pins of the central processor.
Fortunately, I didn't lose the whole motherboard and was already able to use it
very, very normally, except for one feature, the twisting of these pins made me
unable to use the internal GPU. I had an external graphics card, but it drains
a lot of power and I don't use it much in games, so I've always preferred to
rely on the integrated graphics processor. I had no choice but to buy a new
motherboard.
At
the same time, I had many problems with motherboards before, such as a damaged
power capacitor that "silently" explodes and causes internal fluid
leakage, which is a very silent problem, but it was causing the motherboard to
overheat and all overclocking failed.
Unfortunately,
if you encounter any of these problems or for example damage to some of the
SATA or USB ports, you will not be able to take advantage of them, however the
computer will not crash and will continue to operate normally. But to take advantage
of these ports again, you have no choice but to buy a new motherboard,
especially if the current motherboard is out of the warranty period.
2- You are looking for specific advantages
There
are so many great features that some users may need and "literally"
have to buy a new motherboard just for it. For example, some of us may plan to
own an M.2 SSD and the current motherboard does not have any M.2 ports. But in
my personal opinion, there are other very important advantages that may lead us
to think about changing the current motherboard. For example, there are boards
that contain professional sound cards or there are boards that support higher
levels of RAID arrays to protect your data on all storage drives.
Or
there are motherboards that support Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4, and there
are motherboards that support automatic overclocking of the RAM and the
processor. There are motherboards with WiFi cards. Regardless of the reasons,
they are very many and different and there are actually many of them that may
push you to buy a new motherboard specifically for it.
3- Changing the CPU generation
All
motherboards support a different number of CPUs. These processors can be found
on the CPU Support List page on the motherboard manufacturer's official website.
It depends on the type and characteristics of the central processor that you
have. If you have an economic or middle-class processor with two or four
processing cores, it is possible that there are eight-core processors that are
also supported for the same motherboard that you have, and certainly, the new
8-core central processor will be much better.
But
if we assume that you have a 6th or 7th generation processor but you want to
buy a 10th generation processor to take advantage of the larger number of cores
and threads and higher frequency speed, then we have to change the motherboard
to a motherboard compatible with the new processor socket. These are the main
reasons why we always change the motherboard, which is to buy a processor from
the newer generations.
At
the same time, you should plan smart before upgrading the central processor,
meaning that the ninth generation of Intel processors is not much different
from the tenth generation, but if you have a fourth or sixth generation
processor, you will certainly see a noticeable difference in performance if you
buy a processor from the generation The tenth.
4- Having RAM with faster speeds
In
my personal opinion, the performance increase between generations of RAM is
relatively small, but if you now own a platform that works with DDR3 RAM and
wants to buy DDR4 RAM, you should at least replace the motherboard first. Newer
RAMs will be significantly faster, but as we mentioned a while ago, they will
not affect all work. The only case that may require changing the motherboard
for the RAM is if you are still using DDR2 RAM and then moving to the DDR4
platform will make a terrible difference in the level of performance because of
course you will have to buy a newer central processor and then the entire
platform will be able to make a very big difference In terms of performance
compared to the old platform.
The difference between modern technologies for RAM: DDR4 and DDR5
5-
Have a modern graphics card
Of
course, if you now own a very old platform that is more than 7 or 8 years old,
you will not be able to take advantage of modern graphics cards because in a
very large proportion you will face a bottleneck problem with it. The
bottleneck problem will occur with the new graphics card because you do not
have a modern central processor, and then the graphics card will not work at its
full capacity.
So
if you want to buy a graphics card for engineering design work or even for
gaming, at least you should first make sure that you have a modern CPU that can
keep up with the new graphics card and that it will not cause a delay in its
performance.
The official unveiling of the new RTX40 series graphics cards
6-
Faster data transfer speeds
Fortunately,
you can always buy a SATA 6Gbps SSD to take advantage of its higher speed
during the Windows boot process, massive software installation, data transfers,
etc. But if you want to own a modern NVMe PCIe SSD storage solution then you
should consider upgrading your motherboard first and make sure it also supports
the NVMe PCIe protocol.
You
may not then notice a noticeable difference between a SATA SSD and an NVMe SSD
in games, during the Windows boot process, etc. But of course, all modern
motherboards offer faster data transfer speeds through their M.2 SSDs and USB 3
ports.