This is my personal review of motherboards for gaming. Having been a gamer for a long time, I must say that it’s quite an important fact that most gamers tend to keep an eye on their overall system specs. This can get quite manic at times since you always want to make sure that your current configuration does meet, if not exceed, the minimum or recommended system requirements games have.

I remember I went through a period where I was constantly checking to see if I meet the minimum system requirements as games came out. This was a depressing task, since I was seeing more and more demanding games coming out I was always left behind. Another thing that was a problem for me was the thought of having to give up my configuration for a new and better one. Weird, right?

I soon identified my problem quite easily, since I knew it was about the upgradeability of my system, and since my then-current system was jam-packed with RAM and the best processor my motherboard could carry, I knew it was time to let that old motherboard go. As soon as I made up my mind, I went and got myself a new motherboard.

But I didn’t just get any motherboard, I got one that ensured I was set for a period of time without having to upgrade pretty soon. The bad thing was I had to give up my processor since I was moving to a newer socket, but the good thing is the new spectacular system performance and the much improved visual appearance my games have.

Also, since my old system was relying on older system memory modules (DDR2), I had to give those up as well. But it seems that was a good thing indeed since older modules tend to cost much more / GB than newer DDR3 modules cost here. Again, weird!

Now I won’t go into details about my current configuration, but I have to say it has been a change for the better in the way I game. Also, I use graphic design software pretty much and I’m very impressed with how smooth it runs now. Just adding an effect to an image is a smooth process, while on my old machine I encountered serious performance issues. I’m very pleased with my system functionality and I even plan ahead for upgrades now, since I’ve seen the immense potential of newer computing hardware.

One piece of advice I would give to those seeking to make the jump to a newer configuration is to do your research. This means you should look for the newer processor sockets that support the best CPUs either from Intel or AMD. Also, your motherboard should have room for plenty of system memory, even if you don’t install it in the first place. Sometime in the future, you might need to expand your memory capacity and an extra slot or two should be nice to have.

If you’re as enthusiastic about games as I am, then you should also look for gaming motherboards that support more than one graphics card. This is a great feature implementation by some manufacturers which allows you to link up two or more graphics cards in SLI for NVIDIA cards or CrossFire configuration for ATI GPUs.

After you’ve done your research for the new configuration you intend to have and you’ve compiled a list of these features only then is the time right to get a new gaming motherboard.