I would love to see a board that comes stock with UV reactive traces! That would be the most amazing looking thing ever. I've been on the idea ever since I saw the graphics card mod where the guy drew all over the back traces with a UV pen.
Transparent would be UBER-cool, but if you go for coloured PCBs you'll more than likely have to compromise your hardware preferences. It'd be cool if mobo/component manufacturers provided a online service like Nike.iD where you pick your mobo, choose a design (maybe a photo, (Relix's face anyone?)) choose connector colours maybe a choice of capacitor colours and heatsink/fan colours Altho practically impossible what about a mobo which's surface is an OLED screen
Black is nice and all, if paired with 1-2 matching colors, like dark red and maybe violet. My personal favourite would be fully dark red though, something like Abits Fatal1ty boards.
I've some conformal coating which is interesting stuff. If you're patient, and have a scalpel and some masking tape, then you can have any colour board you want. Mask, spray with conformal coating, paint. Obviously you need to be fastidious about sockets, heatsinks, and some chips, but we have to do all this before we can conformal coat them to run under phase change anyway (the conformal coating essentially makes the board water proof, it's like insurance if the insulation fails).
I don't care as long as I can easily read the labels printed on the board. What I hate is when I'm trying to read the labels on a board (without removing it from the case) and I can't read the labels because: 1) there is too little contrast between the ink and the board or, 2) the board is too glossy and all the light is reflected back when I use a flashlight.
black or red for sure, and i like the idea of a transparent one - imagine orac3 with that... mmmmm tasteh Also I remember the soltek mobo i had ages ago that was purple and lovely looking. Now i'm stuck with ugly yellow/brown from ASUS - although my gfx is card red and my soundblaster is black and of course then you got my green memory modules... and the garish orange of my SATA cables and then the stock grey IDE cable Altogether its a good thing my case hasn't got a window.. [EDIT] fixing the continuous sentence i wrote [/EDIT]
Transparant?! Anyone got a picture of that? Would be very cool to see all the copperlanes and things. I prefer transparant if it does exist. And otherwise I prefer black. Depends on the casemodtheme too, but mostly black would be nice. EDIT: I've seen transparant in Google, looks more green. I thought it would be really transparant like plexiglass Anyone got a picture of a camo pcb colour then?
whatever is cheapest tbh its not like really look at the motherboard, as its facing a wall (so a case window would be pointless)
i'd have to say black at the moment, just because it fits sooo well with the emerging colour scheme in my rig - dark green/black mobo, ram with black heatspreaders, v1 asus silent square (silver with black trimmings), creative audigy 2 sound card...as an ATI guy i'm finding it a shame that most of the cards are red
the other thing I might like to see is a chrome board. I don't think that is feasibly possible, as it would probably conduct current. I'm thinking of an aluminated mylar type finish. you get my meaning? It would look absolutely sweet.
black and white are extremely nutral colors and will match in most any color scheme. I would like a white mobo just as it would look very clean, currently running that nasty orange color, had a purple mobo that was a lot of fun, and I would get a pink one just to stand out, but all my full custom cases are windowed so I don't care as much anymore. as far as uv traces, the homebrew way is to get UV gel pens, which could be found at most any office supply store and simply retrace the leads yourself. transparent would be amazing but I'm not sure if that's technically feasible
I have a 'old' soyo dragon platinum mobo. That looks awesome in my Terminator themed mod from 2002. Its kinda silver looking with black marks. Here is the board in question. Transparent motherboard or vidcards would be awesome. Put it in a transparent case and you got a cool icy looking mod. And we then can finaly see the claim of 8 layer pcb's and watch the energie flow through the copper lanes
Ahhh Soyo, whatever happened to you?? They were one of the first with some crazy PCB designs. Realtek 10/100, Cmedia 6 channel audio, VIA Firewire, Highpoint RAID 0+1, 5 PCI slots, Keyed USB shrouds and holes!!! around the CPU socket. Lovely board.
And you know what? the watercooled soyo T2 mod is still running since 2002. its running here on the desk @ work as a product presentation demo machine without any problems. And its a good conversation starter when meeting new clients. They look at it and inspect it closeup and most of them say: "i have never seen something like this, is that water?"
