About 10 years ago, a high-end motherboard would increase PC performance, both in gaming and heavy workloads. High-end chipsets include more features than lower-cost chipsets, the same goes for high-end memory controllers.
The price difference between high-end and popular motherboards is quite high
Now, the memory controller is embedded in the CPU and motherboard chipset which brings a lot of benefits such as providing more PCIe lanes, more SATA ports and faster USB. For example, AMD's B650 and X670 chipsets but the popular B650 motherboard can connect to many devices, meeting usage needs as long as AMD decides to stop using the AM5 socket launched in 2022.
The same thing happens with cheap Intel motherboards, although Intel tends to change sockets for new CPUs more often than AMD.
Budget quality motherboards now have high performance
Well-made budget motherboards now come with a good quality voltage regulator module (VRM) – a most important feature to look out for as it provides clean and stable power to the CPU, helping The CPU uses a lot of power and reaches clock speeds as advertised. Poor quality VRM will cause lower CPU performance because the CPU cannot use the power needed to reach maximum speed.
Components on motherboards are increasingly improving
They also come with 2-3 M.2 ports and 4-8 SATA ports for storage expansion. Additionally, it typically offers a high-speed USB port count, multiple fan and RGB headers, or even headers for AIO liquid coolers. Furthermore, some come with fast Wi-Fi chips, mid-range audio solutions, and a handy BIOS restore button when upgrading to a new CPU.
Barring a faulty component, modern motherboards can last a long time, which is great for taking advantage of the trend of CPU manufacturers using the same socket for multiple generations of CPUs.
Missing some premium features but not important
Compared to high-end motherboards, budget models lack some important high-end features like Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4. But is it necessary? Actually, not unless the user is a professional video editor or camera operator who needs a super-fast USB connection to transfer lots of video to a PC. If you're a gamer or a regular user who doesn't copy too much data from outside every day, don't pay for things you don't use.
Even with expensive VRMs to power top-of-the-line CPUs for overclocking, it's either overkill or many of the features aren't valuable to the average PC user. Some high-end motherboards support PCIe 5.0 for the graphics card PCIe slot, but even the RTX 4090 is only compatible with PCIe 4.0, so the investment is a waste, at least it will take a few more generations.
High-end motherboards also have 4 or more M.2 ports, but is that still necessary? And even when exploiting 2-3 M.2 ports on popular models, users still have up to 6 SATA ports for HDD drives to store content.
High-end motherboards have many features that are not so necessary
Or with a DAC audio solution on high-end models, but again is it necessary? The Realtek ALC1200 chip on the budget motherboard still works quite well. Even as an audio enthusiast, spending money on an external solution will be more valuable.
With Wi-Fi modules, users can still find great solutions on mid-range or budget motherboards, including Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. The high-end model has Wi-Fi 7, but this standard is not too necessary, especially since it requires a Wi-Fi 7 router.
Similar to the countless RGB ports on high-end models, it's really not that necessary. Even with 10 Gbps Ethernet ports for NAS systems, users can still get around it by purchasing a separate card for a price much lower than the difference between high-end and entry-level solutions.
Ultimately, unless a specific high-end feature is required, users should not pay extra for an expensive motherboard. Instead of investing like that, spend the money on a stronger graphics card, a good CPU or faster RAM/SSD.
