What is it about more expensive Motherboards that makes then more expensive?

I'm about to pull the trigger on a new gaming rig build, but I'm really wondering why some of the mobos are so much more expensive than others.

For example, here are 5 cards by Gigabyte that vary largely in price:http://tinyurl.com/699g2wn

I plan on getting the cheapest one out of the bunch because it seems to have everything I need.

So are there any really big differences between the $169.99 board and the $349.99?
Even looking at the side-by-side comparison I can only make out minor differences.

I hope some of you with experience can enlighten me a little and let me know if there's reason for me to go with a different mobo.

Here's a link to my full build plans if anyone is interested:http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13086494

I personally spend always around $200, unless it invovles spending like $50 more on getting a feature that would be worth it on, (more PCI-E slots that I'd use, etc) I usually get gigabyte UD4/UD5 boards, because they come with the most features for their price and generally have the most buyers, so they have better support from the community. but I just tend to stick around $180-$200.

More USB 3 ports

More SATA 6gb/s ports

more than 1 x16 PCI-E slot

Better overclocking

better VRM cooling

looks better

other than the number of slots, theres not much of a difference, any real performance differences are negligible. Its all made of plastic, silicon and copper in some chinese factory.

All motherboards have a chipset. This is the minimum specification set by Intel and AMD in order to confirm that it works with their CPUs. Usually these chipsets specify X number of ports for SATA, USB, PCI-E, etc.

A motherboard maker simply can't just scale up the number of ports. The minimum specifications are rather tight. If a motherboard maker wanted to add more features they would have to add additional controllers to allow for more ports. Most motherboard makers do not make their own controllers so they have to purchasae 3rd party USB 3.0 controllers, SATA controllers, etc. This makes any additional ports beyond specifications costs quite a bit since the extra controllers are relatively expensive.

This is why each additional feature seems so much more expensive. You're likely to see a $20 - $35 jump just for an extra pair of USB 3.0.

The really, really expensive motherboards tend to be loaded with PCI-E and USB 3.0. This is super expensive because the traditional specifications make this almost impossible as the total bandwidth allocated is nowhere near the ability to support 4 slots of 16x PCI-E along with the bandwidth of USB 3.0. This combination requires clever use of very expensive controllers.

So it sounds like I personally wouldn't benefit at all from a more expensive board.

In which case it looks like I'll be going with this one:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128493

Thanks for the help!

I have always found most of the features of expensive boards to be rather useless. The only thing I would benefit from is overclocking the CPU a bit more than what a cheaper board would letme do.

But considering that the motherboard is the most frequently outdated product in a computer, I refuse to buy a super expensive board.

And chances are you wouldnt really be benefiting from the extra features of the board before it gets outdated. It will be a long time before people would need plenty of USB 3.0 ports, we dont even need 1 yet. Same is the case with SATA 3.

If you dont plan to using SLI or CF then you really dont have to spend too much on a motherboard.

If you dont plan on overclocking CPU then you can furthur save some $$.