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4 display outputs for onboard graphics? Why lol. I'll take the dual ethernet ports.

Make that four. And ten gig, please.

QSFP28 PLS

Just put the fiber transceiver on the board.

Which one? The 4x10gbe rj45 (OKAY, thats no optic)? LR/SR? How many km between you server room and your gaming station? When 100gbe ont?

Quad monitor+tv or 3 monitors and a vr set.

Whats the point if 2 ethernet ports?

Separate network for NAS or local services. Or bridged bonded for more bandwidth

Bonded is more bandwidth. Bridged is just letting traffic flow between them.

Thanks, that is what I meant

Bonded ethernet ports are for redundancy and concurrency, which is not quite additional bandwidth. (Just calling that out to help squash any misconceptions of how bonding works. It is technically more bandwidth, but you won't see total throughput of the two links unless you are transferring multiple files.)

Yea, it definitely does not help a single stream hit higher bandwidth, that's for sure.

(ok well it definitely could, but it'd have to be something at a higher network layer that'd know how to set up and juggle multiple data sources, like BitTorrent, or some other similarly 'smart' client)

Of course either way, it requires the external connections to actually be separate. If they ultimately try to cram down the same ISP service, bonding becomes a waste.

I use load balanced links to my NAS since it is primarily used for photos and other small files. I do get fairly close to full utilization if Windows needs to rebuild all the thumbnails or if my servers happen to read the NAS SMB share at the same time.

Still, it is kinda pointless except in the rare cases it's not. 99% of the time it's only one link that gets used. My NAS and my switch support it so there isn't really a reason not to bond them.

Why does this have so many names?

Some stuff calls it bonded, sometimes it's teamed, sometimes LAGed or aggregated or bundled or link channelled or ethertrunked or smartgrouped or Multi-link trunked etc. etc.

No idea! If I had to guess, the weird ones come from marketing and not engineering. "Bonded" has been a term for a looooong time, not that I actually remember/know the history of it.

I'm sure some of the things you cited try to make up for deficiencies vs basic bonding, but networking can only get so complicated until you hit higher networking layers.

Yeah. Wikipedia calls it "link aggregation" and the standard is IEEE 802.1AX which also calls it that and the protocol LACP. I think the real reason for so many names is that the standard wasn't developed until later so everyone built their own competing incompatible implementations with different names and it was a mess for years.

Linux implemented it with the Linux bonding driver and switch manufactures made up their own proprietary extensions for it but the standard didn't become a thing until like 2000. Seems like "teaming" is one of the most popular names for it.

The bonding I guess is fair game... But a bit odd if you only have a 2.5g and 1g ports... You would probably want those symmetrical.

But separate networks? Have you considered VLANs?

Also for bridging

Once you've bonded what do you use that speed for? There's no way my hard drive can handle 3.5G write speed.

Network speeds are GBit, not GByte. A single HDD already saturates a 2.5G port

Hmm well then the question becomes how come when I'm downloading something on Steam over my 500Mbps connection it has to pause downloading periodically while it continues writing, as if the download is faster than the hard drive?

Because steam games are compressed and your CPU can't extract them fast enough

Huh ok, I wasn't expecting that to be the bottleneck but it makes just as much sense!

See raid0 (but be safe and do raid 1+0). Also maybe it's a server, so read speed is more important (usually).

Ain't no integrated graphics pushing all that shit. But at this point, it's the only thing available. 😂

Onboard graphics these days can certainly push 3-4 monitors, but you ain't gonna be playing any games on it. At least nothing demanding. Could probably play stuff from the early 2000's and before. Which, I mean, who needs anything else? Halo CE, my beloved...

That would be fine for office work, not so much for games.

4 on-board DisplayPorts on my work desktop work just fine. Now, I'm not doing gaming. But I have dual 50" curved ultra-widescreens, a 55" wall monitor, and a 15" compact displaying email.

I'm glad work paid for it.

Double the websites, duh

How are you envisioning running a VR headset off of integrated graphics?

Excuse me? You lost a network port, and a PS/2 port. And we need to fight for more DisplayPort in the world.

What's the advantage of DP over HDMI? I see the ports more frequently these days but rarely see monitors that take direct DP input... Mostly HDMI.

I keep having to buy DP->HDMI converters

Mostly HDMI

That is because of lobbying. The reality is that HDMI has loyalties and isn't a free standard like display port is. Display port is also superior technologically: it is compatible with usb-c (thunderbolt), supports higher framerate, and has higher quality (up to 16K).

isn’t a free standard like display port is.

Ah, that's all you had to say - I'm sold.

I was expecting a lot of technical AV geekery that doesn't really apply to me but that bit speaks to me. I'm a simpleton. If it displays a terminal, an IDE, and a browser then it's probably fine for me.

Thanks!

DP is an open standard, HDMI is proprietary and licensed. That's the biggest difference.

DP is an open standard, HDMI is proprietary and licensed.

That's all I needed to hear. Count me in.

Thanks for the info!

I feel like computer monitors DP is pretty common, but I also specifically try to get them. DP is pretty rare on TVs. They're functionally the same technologies, but most TVs won't include DP.

I had to replace a few recently and only found HDMI but I was specifically looking for the cheapest monitors possible so maybe that had something to do with it. I also needed them ASAP so I was only looking in local stores.

I'll look closer next time.

I've seen the opposite more often, where most monitors will have HDMI and DP, but several that only had DP (usually miniDP) and Type-C ports. I don't think I've seen any since the early 2000s that only had HDMI (and usually DVI or VGA).

Also, just make everything USB-C and give me 100 of them

Why would you want more usb if they aren't all usb3 anyway? Make them all 3s

Make them all 4's if we're casting wishes.

Also where's the 10G ethernet!?

16x USB 4, 1x 10 GbE, 4x SFP-DD, 2x HDMI, 2x DP, 2x GPMI. Oh, and a couple XLRs for audio connectivity. It's really not much we're asking for here.

XLR's... lol golden.

They're settling on 10 x 1g ethernet ports instead

You need a much better chipset to support 3.0 speeds on all of them at the same time. If you want to share speeds a well made usb hub will do.

In reality most people go for the cheaper option and focus more on RAM pcie and CPU features.

I have an old printer that only works up to USB 1.2 for some reason.

I can flash my Poco F1 in bootloader mode only through an ancient USB hub. The fastbootd in recovery works also without, so it must be a firmware bug.

Don't need USB3 for mouse, keyboard, printer, external dac, etc.

I’d settle for affordable components at this point.

Please sir, may I have some RAM?

I want the second pic, but with the ps/2 port and the secondary NIC port. ALL THE PORTS!

Uh, no? I would like to keep the PS2 port, thanks. And the extra ethernet port. And they should add VGA, DVI, and RS232 serial ports.

that dual NIC was looking a little sweet.

the asus p8z77 v deluxe let me down so bad!

Displayport can daisy-chain.

Doesn't that limit things like resolution/refresh?

The igpu isn't going to keep up with that much credibly anyway.

TIL

You can't kill the ps/2 port and not be called a genocider.

If my Linux machine freezes I still want to be able to use the keyboard damnit

Even some windows gamers still use it, it's more resource efficient than other inputs.

gotta live with the times man, we're up to ps5 pro now

And more SATA ports on the mobo.

Where is the PS/2?

In the past, where it belongs

Next you say the audio jack is obsolete?

Why would I say that? Don't put words on my mouth

That was a idiom. PS/2 (just like the jack) has some advantages over the "replacement". Also some disadvantages of course. While your phrasing implied, it is entirely superseded.

That's like assuming I want bicycles gone because cars are the "replacement".

Absolutely everything has advantages and disadvantages. That doesn't mean that we should keep every option out there.

The advantages of ps/2 are basically nonexistent compared to its disadvantages. And that's not true for audio jacks.

Am I to trust my OS to decide to pay attention to me? My OS can freeze!

Itdoesnt belong wkenge

Yeah, that top image is a fantasy.

I currently have three USB ports, and one of them is used for power. 😭

2.5G? So 2017.

10G? Nut.

10g on a non full-atx board.

No we don't, no one is wasting PCIe lanes for a bunch of external ports, and Motherboard manufacturers already pack it plenty full as much as they can without it.

We want cheap hardware and more than 16 lanes on affordable CPUs again.

Feels like the damn 90s with these AI inflated component prices.

The "what we want" version would require some pretty severe fuckery on the main board, like a secondary chipset or a CPU with even more PCIe lanes, but I don't disagree with the "want" part!

On that note, you might as well just use hubs, which you can then potentially place more conveniently anyways.

Where's the second lan porr?

Op. This is me irl. Not random meme dump.

I mean, this is what I want IRL...

They have to account for the fact that not everybody can afford new peripherals. There's only so many converters and adapters us poors can cram back there.

But i can't afford the extra chips though.

Just get rid of the wifi on board and give me more USB with those lanes. If people want that (and I am sure, but it seems weird on a board that also has double nics and one is 10G) just let them have a shared lane resource small m.2 (b/g) so they can add a plug in card, which also doesnt rule them out from the next big thing if you really like to be on the newest gen wifi/bluetooth stuff.

I'm pretty sure I have that exact board, I use the WiFi because it's hard to get an ethernet connection to my computer without using something like powerline ethernet which is slow

I got a big usb hub and stopped caring about this.

Having the ports at the front of my desk where I can plug things in and out more easily is nicer, too.

Obviously some stuff benefits from being plugged in "directly" but most things don't. In normal use you almost never max out what a single port can do.

My USB hub has rave mode if I pull too much power.

I'd want the ps/2 port but one of the cats chewed through the mouse wire. Ugh.....

See? Rookie mistake. Should have used a dog cable.

I don't want a single displayport on my motherboard. But I do want a couple more USB-C, though i'd rather have them on the case so that makes it a case maker issue

Gibe the ps/2 :(

I'd prefer more USBC. Less display port (I use USBC for that)

Now make them all USB-C

Oh hell no!

I'm a big usb-c fan, because it has a lot of advantages over usb-a like more data speed and power throughput.

But usb-a also has advantages over usb-c: much stronger connector and much cheaper.

For things like a mouse and keyboard, the advantages of usb-c are worthless, but the advantages of usb-a are not.

still doesn't make sense , the USB-C supports USB-A on both sides so if one breaks a simple flip would solve it as for physical strength , how ,much weight are you putting on there ? I only support USB-A connector because I got older tech and refuse to replace been mine for 20+ years and still usable and I'm used to it

I like to mountaineer with my usb cables.

I have IOT control devices in my night trailer , the USB cables serve double proposes as they provide physical towing as well as data connection for streaming porn for my dudes in the back

I have an obscure one that'd be nice RCA jacks for audio, fuck 3.5mm

Where's the ps/2?

But that would mean they would have to have smaller logos!!

Actually:

The on-board video ports are for emergencies when your actual GPU isn't working. One of each type is plenty.
That 2.5 Gb Ethernet isn't giving me any actual benefits in practice as no other component in the network supports it anyway. If you need more speed, go all the way to 10 Gb.
No one really has toslink equipment anymore and the optical standard on that connector is shit anyway. You literally get better audio from the analog ports.
Get rid of the fancy special USB ports as well as the legacy low-speed ports. Just give only the normal super-speed ports which always work well without odd hardware quirks or driver issues. And 4 are actually plenty. I connect at least one hub anyway.
Also don't waste precious PCIe lanes for useless bling like six SATA ports, multiple NICs, or Wireless. Just route the unused PCIe lanes to the PCIe slots. Maybe I want to add an AI accelerator later.

My phone doesn't fastboot on USB-3.

Add the usb c ports back

Agreed, there should be at least two. So many devices use USB-C now it's rather silly not to include it given it gets rid of an age old problem as well.

I'd like a 10G port on my motherboard. My router supports it which makes the network backbone 10G.

But you removed optical audio, USB C and/or thunderbolt, and chose the 1G ethernet over 2.5G.

Optical audio is somewhat an abandoned standard. The copper port is as good. And professionals use external devices connected to USB and synced in their digital audio workstation software now.
USB-C gets somewhat more frequent now. But USB-A is the mechanically superior standard for sort-of fixed installation (like on the back of a PC). And if you have a USB-C device, chances are, you also have an adapter already.
Thunderbolt is pretty niche. It's more a mac thing. It's nice to have - but 99.9% of the users don't have any matching devices and routing those PCIe lanes to a PCIe slot is better.
It is somewhat a hot take - I know. But if you really use the 2.5 G Ethernet, you probably want 10 G anyway. So just go for a board with that or add it via PCIe card.

I've was recently looking into different ways to get audio from a secondary media PC into an Audio Interface. I decided I wanted to keep the signal digital to use the higher quality DAC in the Audio Interface and decided TOSLINK would be the way to go. It seems like TOSLINK would be a good one size fits all solution for connecting a PC, game consoles, AV receivers, and HDMI splitters because they all seem to still include TOSLINK out ports.

I'm aware of the drawbacks, namely lower bandwidth and jitter. From what I read as long as you're just doing stereo audio like I plan to, TOSLINK can handle an uncompressed signal no problem. For the jitter, it seems modern devices with TOSLINK inputs have ways of mitigating jitter.

You seem knowledgable on the subject. Is what I wrote above accurate or is there something I'm missing when it comes to TOSLINK audio?

toslink was cutting edge in, oh, 1985. Bit on the limited side for bandwidth now.

You're not wrong, but if it has the bandwidth for stereo 24 bit 96kHz lossless digital then why does it matter? The main problem is it gets the clock rate or whatever from the signal itself making it susceptible to jitter, but I think modern devices mitigate that.

For stereo, TOSLINK is fine. But so is the copper port right next to it. I removed it because it's basically unused fluff for more than 99.9% of all users. I used that port (on a dedicated sound card) once to connect a DTS 5.1 active speaker system (marketed at gamers like me) back in the 00s. It doesn't really have enough bandwidth for 5.1. But I'm no audiophile, so it was fine. Thing is: Just plugging in the copper cables works as well and provides the full bandwidth.\

And motherboard-integrated DACs are pretty good now. Even audiophiles can't hear the improvement in stereo in blind tests (they probably can hear copper sounding better in 5.1 though).
It's basically the Betamax of audio connection standards. Technically better, but market adoption is negligible.

Onboard video ports aren't really emergency ports anymore, they are low-end ports. High end CPUs don't have iGPUs at all, so the onboard video ports are completely non-operational.