I opted for the Asus ROG Strix X70-E motherboard when I built my current gaming PC in 2020. Sure, it wasn't as high-end as the Crosshair VIII Extreme, but it was definitely a premium board, especially considering there were plenty of cheaper options available at the time, including the B550 options, which were more than adequate for my Ryzen 5900X. Back then, I assumed spending extra on a premium motherboard would pay off in the long run, but after five years of using one, I can confidently say that's not always the case.

Yes, in some ways, it was better than the cheaper options. For instance, the BIOS was clean and well-organized; the VRMs ran cool, and the board just looked really cool inside my Phanteks P500A case. But soon enough, I started to realize that I barely took advantage of the "premium" features I paid for. In fact, some of the selling points turned out to be more marketing fluff than practical advantage. If I could go back, I'd have happily saved an extra $100 and picked a board that just focused on the essentials.

3 I didn't need the extra PCIe lanes

B550 motherboards offered enough PCIe 4.0 lanes for my setup

When I bought my motherboard, the PCIe 4.0 standard was still relatively new, but manufacturers had already started releasing hardware to take advantage of it. For instance, the RTX 3090 was one of the first graphics cards to support PCIe 4.0. There were also plenty of PCIe 4.0 SSDs available on the market. I wanted to ensure my motherboard had sufficient PCIe 4.0 lanes for both the GPU and NVMe drives, but looking back, I never even purchased a second PCIe 4.0 SSD.

Even a B550 motherboard would have been enough if I had only planned to install a PCIe 4.0 GPU and SSD. I ended up spending more for extra lanes that I never used in five years. I learned the hard way that unless you're running multiple storage drives, you don't need to worry much about the number of PCIe lanes. So, if you're looking to buy a new AM5 motherboard for a Zen 4 or Zen 5 CPU, make sure you don't overspend on an X870E motherboard unless you really need the extra PCIe 5.0 lanes. An older B650E motherboard would be just fine if all you want is PCIe 5.0 speeds for your GPU and primary NVMe drive.

2 Overbuilt VRMs are overkill for most users

I never even overclocked my CPU to benefit from them

Manufacturers are quick to brag about how robust the VRMs are on their higher-end motherboards, and while that may very well be the case, the average user wouldn't find it beneficial. People aren't overclocking their CPUs nearly as much as they used to a decade ago. After all, most modern CPUs already run hot out of the box and offer very little overclocking headroom. Still, I thought the overbuilt VRMs would be handy if I ever decided to use AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive feature, but I quickly realized that wasn't enough to push the board anywhere close to its limits.

Nowadays, I'd much rather undervolt my CPU to lower its temperatures, get better sustained performance, and reduce its power draw. But the thing is, undervolting puts less strain on the VRMs, making all those extra phases almost pointless. You don't have to sweat even if you have a mid-range B550, B650, or B850 motherboard. Unless you're serious about manual overclocking, you won't see any practical benefit from having a premium motherboard that's built to handle way more than what most users will ever throw at it.

1 I never used the high-end onboard audio

Wireless and USB headsets/speakers bypass it anyway

One of the many selling points of pricier motherboards is their "premium" onboard audio. My Strix X570-E, for example, featured the SupremeFX S1220A codec with two op-amps for superior audio performance. At the time, I assumed I'd get a cleaner sound and better dynamic range no matter what headphones or speakers I used. I wasn't aware that I needed to use the audio jacks on my motherboard to actually benefit from the onboard audio codec, which came with its fair share of drawbacks.

Ever since I built this PC, I've only used wireless gaming headsets and USB speakers, which bypass the onboard audio entirely. They all have their built-in DACs and amplifiers, so they don't need to rely on the motherboard's audio hardware at all. Looking back, I could’ve gone with a cheaper motherboard that used a basic Realtek codec and not noticed a single difference in sound quality. Premium onboard audio is for audiophiles with high-end analog headphones or speakers that plug directly into a 3.5mm jack, but that's not me.

The average PC user won't benefit from a premium motherboard

After five years of using a premium motherboard, I've learned the hard way that just because something looks flashy and is packed with marketing fluff doesn't mean it's worth the extra cost. I would've been just as happy with a more affordable X570 or even a mid-range B550 board. Sure, it might lack the aesthetic RGB details the Strix X570-E has, but I could've used that extra $100 toward faster RAM with tighter timings or a high-end AIO CPU cooler. I'm sure many of you can relate to this, but if you're just building a PC for gaming or productivity, chances are you'll never use most of the features that drive up the cost of higher-end motherboards.