The Ultimate Motherboard: Initial design V15

[RotoSequence]

There are a lot of motherboards on the market, all of which cater to different parts of the market. The ultimate statement of perfect design is the enthusiast board. However, there is always some sort of flaw in these boards, criticisms, critiques, and or niggles that people can find.

Bit-tech, the challenge is this; design the ultimate enthusiast motherboard. Here are the current planned layouts and feature lists, which are subject to user input; please contribute what you feel would make this a better motherboard!

Current Version Posted April 2nd 2006. New color scheme, revised power circuitry, and a re-designed heatsink. Its come down to the point where there really isnt much that comes to mind for core board improvements. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the achipset lane count for RD580 is in fact 40, not 48. As such, allocation will be changed slightly.







Version 0.14

Version 0.12

Version 0.11

Version 0.10

Version 0.9

Version 0.8

Version 0.5

Version 0.4

Version 0.3

Version 0.2

Version 0.1

-Socket AM2
-4x DDR2
-Configurable PCI Express slots; 38 lanes available. Select between X16, X8, X4, X1, and 0 lanes per slot; Default configuration is 4x X8 slots.
-8 Phase power regulation circuitry
-Status LEDs for all components
-8 SATA 2 Connections with Raid 0, 1, 0+1, and 5
-6 USB 2.0 ports on back panel + headers for four more
-Two IEEE 1394 ports (A and B), potentially with headers for two more (A and B)
-2 Gigabit ethernet ports
-All passive heatpipe cooling
-Onboard High Quality Audio (Creative X-fi?)
-Five 3 pin fan headers
-5.25" bay control module
-Onboard Power/Reset and backpanel CMOS reset

Have at it, bit-techers; what would you do to make it better?

[atanum141]

awesome job....this project needs passive/heatpipes on all mossfets/capasitors(sp?) for uber OC's...also good choice on the audio.

[Rh1n0x]

Something that delivers a vdimm of higher than 3.0V.

Oh, this isnt the 'I hate my Asus A8N thread?' oooops.. sorry ;P

No seriously;

good placed (4) 3-pin fan-slots with onboard fancontrol?

[RotoSequence]

Originally Posted by Rh1n0x

Something that delivers a vdimm of higher than 3.0V.

Oh, this isnt the 'I hate my Asus A8N thread?' oooops.. sorry ;P

No seriously;

good placed (4) 3-pin fan-slots with onboard fancontrol?

I like it, I like it

Atanum, the Mosfets and other high heat production regulator circuitry is covered by the heatsink zone to the right of the socket

[Bindibadgi]

Not enough space around CPU socket
DDR slots wrong way, hinder airflow out the case
Heatpipes just push heat into case, not out of it
Heatpipes get in the way of long cards
Loss of PCI and PCIe ports
Xfi over P// port???
Top SATA plugs are awkward to plug in
Only 4 USB in the rear?
No Firewire b?
No wireless?
Where's your chipset?
Still using p// and serial ports?

[RotoSequence]

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

1. Not enough space around CPU socket
2. DDR slots wrong way, hinder airflow out the case
3. Heatpipes just push heat into case, not out of it
4. Heatpipes get in the way of long cards
5. Loss of PCI and PCIe ports
6. Xfi over P// port???
7. Top SATA plugs are awkward to plug in
8. Only 4 USB in the rear?
9. No Firewire b?
10. No wireless?
11. Where's your chipset?
12. Still using p// and serial ports?

1. Addressable in design.
2. As opposed to their normal location which hinders airflow into the case?
3. Heatpipe system increases surface area for high heat components to passively vent.
4. Heatpipe and heatsinks near PCI slots are lower than ports
5. Quantity of PCI and PCIe ports adjustable
6. Parallel ports too common to abandon IMO; X-fi is ultimate audio
7. Will adjust
8. Not four, eight (dimensions of components will be worked out)
9. Good point. Half firewire B now.
10. Maybe wireless will be present.
11. Chipset is under the two heatsink fin areas closest to the bottom
12. Parallel is too common to abandon (and useful IMO). Serial is not present.

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by RotoSequence

1. Addressable in design.
2. As opposed to their normal location which hinders airflow into the case?
3. Heatpipe system increases surface area for high heat components to passively vent.
4. Heatpipe and heatsinks near PCI slots are lower than ports
5. Quantity of PCI and PCIe ports adjustable
6. Parallel ports too common to abandon IMO; X-fi is ultimate audio
7. Will adjust
8. Not four, eight (dimensions of components will be worked out)
9. Good point. Half firewire B now.
10. Maybe wireless will be present.
11. Chipset is under the two heatsink fin areas closest to the bottom
12. Parallel is too common to abandon (and useful IMO). Serial is not present.

2. They would be better designed like BTX - in line with case airflow
3. I understand that, but like the OTES system is better where heat is expelled passively out the back not back into the case
4. according to the picture the heatpipes interfere with both x16 slots
5. P// on a PCI backplate and mobo pin-out would be better.
6. Xfi on a P// port?? WTF?? PCI you mean?
8. Yes, 8, but including more on the rear is generally more useful. Like DFI.
10. Maybe? Not ultimate then is it.
11. Chipset heatsink must be small enough not to interefere with full length PCI cards

[Mister_Tad]

all i want is someone to make a top-end enthusiast board with onboard u320 and pci-x

[JADS]

You know if you used the Nvidia nForce 2200 MCP then you could bolt on another three nForce 2050 chips in tandem yielding 80 PCI-E lanes, 16 SATA II ports, 4 GBit ethernet ports, 4 PATA ports, and 10 USB 2.0 ports. Although due to the way the 2050 works you'd have 3 fixed configurations of 16,1,1,1 PCI-E lanes. Still a motherboard with 4 PCI-E 16x ports would rock don't you think? Plus you'd have 9 fixed PCI-E 1x lanes and 4 flexible PCI-E 1x lanes to plug in various onboard chips to support everything from 1394b to SATA to SAS to X-Fi onboard to well anything really

[RotoSequence]

Originally Posted by Mister_tad

all i want is someone to make a top-end enthusiast board with onboard u320 and pci-x

Originally Posted by JADS

You know if you used the Nvidia nForce 2200 MCP then you could bolt on another three nForce 2050 chips in tandem yielding 80 PCI-E lanes, 16 SATA II ports, 4 GBit ethernet ports, 4 PATA ports, and 10 USB 2.0 ports. Although due to the way the 2050 works you'd have 3 fixed configurations of 16,1,1,1 PCI-E lanes. Still a motherboard with 4 PCI-E 16x ports would rock don't you think? Plus you'd have 9 fixed PCI-E 1x lanes and 4 flexible PCI-E 1x lanes to plug in various onboard chips to support everything from 1394b to SATA to SAS to X-Fi onboard to well anything really

Maybe for the eATX version...

[JADS]

Originally Posted by RotoSequence

Maybe for the eATX version...

If you can't get it onto an ATX mobo you're just not trying hard enough

[RotoSequence]

Version 0.2 now posted

Chanegs:
-SATA ports now easier to plug in
-Parallel now attaches via cable to motherboard
-Wireless support added
-Motherboard USB/Firewire/Power headers relocated

[Mister_Tad]

the ram slots are pretty tight, not much ventilation if youre running 4 dimms

[KayinBlack]

I would go for a custom 8-phase power supply, possibly with water block mounting points for it, custom water block mounting options around the socket (possibly metal strips embeddsed in the board, along with an improved backplate), and possibly adding a layer of those "heat dissipation strips" over the entire PCB, not only to aid in heat dissipation but also to protect valuable traces...

Sorry, just saw the 8-phase suggestion...

[otm3x]

I would suggest that a few more points of this creation.

1. consider the space for SLI of 2 slots Video cards. Save space for some PCI-express
and PCI cards.

2.a heat pipe design concept like Abit's... but placing the heat spreader of the heat pipe cooler : a. out of the case ( re-mountable ) b. Upwards to catch more air.

3. place the CPU before the chipsets
place the Rams near the PSU. horizontailly.
all mossfets/capasitors at the top - right of the Mobo with the power connector

4. consider using 2 heat pipes

5. use a special colour theme.

[KayinBlack]

Might I suggest a black/silver theme?

I am partial to Chaintech's black/gold, but silver suits me betta. The white Sapphire board is another fun idea...

[Techno-Dann]

Looks good thus far... Make sure the chipset heatpipes are low enough to go under a long video card.

Maybe move the Northbridge up slightly, so the cooler isn't under the vid card at all. It'd make watercooling easier. Move the southbridge up so it sits between the two video cards, so you can slap a big passive cooler on it, or a waterblock.

[Ab$olut]

lcd text read out of a problem insted of beep codes led's or numbers

[Shadowed_fury]

Originally Posted by Mister_tad

the ram slots are pretty tight, not much ventilation if youre running 4 dimms

Or 2, If you have to use Slot 1&2 or 3&4 for Dual Channel

[Tim S]

onboard on/off & reset buttons.