[jfm7491]

...to a computer's performance? I game and render things out a lot. Someone told me that almost any motherboard will do.

[chekeir]

Yes, it's crucial.

[Foodstamps]

yes, it matters a lot, especially if you want to upgrade

[joel m]

Well you can look at it this way, you'll want a motherboard with a pci express x16 slot, that (unfortunately) doesn't come on all motherboards. You will also want something that a good chip-set because a slow backside bus can ruin any gaming experience despite having a great gpu and cpu. To sum it up, yes it is very crucial to pick a motherboard that is suited to your needs, you also want to think towards the future as in how long will this motherboard work for the games you want to play in terms of processor upgrades. This is especially important if you are a gamer.

[Greg at MCAL]

The selection of the proper motherboard and video is more critical to both gaming and 3D rendering than the selection of the CPU. Both processes are more involved in the manipulation of large amounts of video information which requires 2 things fast access to large amounts of RAM and a fast GPU (That is Graphics Processor Unit not CPU). These are where the actual action takes place in both of these processes (not saying the CPU is not important but it is 3rd in the list not the 1st that many think). A screaming CPU is useless if you cant get the data quickly or display the data quickly so be sure to shop for a high quality motherboard, low latency RAM of the CPUs FSB (Front Side Bus Frequency slower RAM will slow the system and faster RAM is a waste of money) , good video and a decent CPU. A matched performance is better than overspending on a single item as the slowest component denots the speed. The AM2 system by AMD puts the memory controler on the CPU reducing some of the reliance on the quality of the motherboard but only some.