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If I Could Design A Motherboard

04.08.08 - 02:45am

This is one of those dream posts where I detail what is most likely impossible and expect the industry to respond. I doubt I’d ever see anything like this board, but perhaps those in important positions could take a few notes? The ideas mentioned below were the resulted after a short discussion with a friend which sent my mind into a day dream, maybe we’ll see something like this in years to come.

Does It Come In Black?

First and foremost, a black PCB would be high up on the list of things desired. Why? It just looks slick. To top things off though, black 24 + 8 pin connectors, black PCIe connectors, and black SATA connectors. If it can be black, it’ll be black. A standard ATX sized PCB would also be in order with all your typical mounting holes.

This is what I started with.

Less is More

Most motherboards are positively cluttered. There is so much junk on them that I am amazed at how they route all the traces through the layers. To start things off I’d remove every fan, USB, printer, serial, parallel, firewire, and IDE header on the board. This alone would clear up a good bit of real estate, remove a number of supporting ICs, and help lower costs. There are only 3 pairs of pins that I would like to see, Start, Reset, Clear CMOS. These three pins along with the CMOS battery should be located in the bottom right corner of the board, out from underneath any large video cards and any components that require insulation.

After removing most of the vital components.

Clean Power

I have only a very basic understanding of DC power circuits but what I do know is that the more phases there are to a circuit, the smaller the ripple and the more stable the power. With that in mind, the 12 phase power on the X48 Black Ops from Foxconn and the X48T-DQ6 from Gigabyte seems to be doing really well and would be a great number to start with. I’d have to say it would also be a nice thing to have maybe a 4 phase circuit for the DDR3 to help smooth out the memory voltage spikes. I don’t believe the PCIe slots would need much in the way of multi-phase power given each card has it’s own onboard voltage regulators, but a healthy bank of capacitors would help to counter any droop under load.

The slew of components.

Just a Board, Please

I see no reason to ship an enthuasiast level board with stock heatsinks unless they are really well done. I would offer two versions of the board, one bare board and one heatsink equipped board. By just arranging the mosfets so that a standard PWM heatsink can be strapped to them, the northbridge with standard holes, and the same for the southbridge and the board would be set. Otherwise just package the board in a nice bubble-wrap sleeve and a plain cardboard box and ship it out. By not including accessories, large packages, or heatsinks, costs can be cut while still offering a top of the line board.

The finished hackjob motherboard. It’s just a 5 minute idea.

Limit Onboard Functions

I’d say two USB ports, a gigabit ethernet port/controller, and an HD audio controller would suffice for onboard input/output. I would prefer 3 PCIe 2.0 slots with 2 slots in between the 1st and 2nd slots and the 2nd and 3rd slots to to permit the use of standard GPU pots. There would be 1 PCIe 1x slot sitting above the 1st PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and then 1 PCI slot below the last PCIe slot. Otherwise just clean and clear PCB with the necessary capacitors to feed the PCIe slots. That is it, just the bare minimum needed to run a system and bench with it.

A Clean Socket is a Good Socket

Going back to the PWM and the CPU socket, a clean area around the socket makes insulation a breeze. I don’t know if small SMT transistors can be used in place of the bulky electrolytic capacitors in analog PWM circuits, but the small SMT resistors used in digital PWM circuits are ideal. You can easily insulate over these and help create a better vapor seal for sub-zero benching. Moving the chipset down and to the right would also help and relocating the memory modules to the right an inch or more would also help. Basically I’d like a good 2 inches of “clear” board between the socket and any other components.

Conclusion

I am certain all this information will never be put to full use, but I imagine there would be a slim market for such a product. I personally would buy atleast one board. In my 7 years of being involved with custom PC builds, I’ve never used the onboard USB ports, rarely used the onboard floppy connector, and in the last two years rarely used the onboard IDE connector. I’ve never had more than 2-3 USB devices plugged in and with hubs being so cheap, connectivity is easily solved. I’ve never used 2 gigabit adapters at a time either, 1 is just fine for benching. I feel I’ve chopped out most of the fluff in current motherboards and built something the true enthuasiast could appreciate. I’d liken it to a tube-frame open-wheel race car, just 4 wheels, a motor, and a steering wheel. There’s no power steering or air conditioning in this ride, just brute force.

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