What Is a Motherboard
The motherboard is the main component in the computer. This is some times also referred to as the main board or system board. (Some techies abbreviate this to Mobo) All these mean the same thing. Every computer component more or less connects directly to the motherboard and this allows them to communicate between one another. This said, unlike nearly all computer components, a mother board is not based upon speed or memory capacity. So it does not mean the better board you have the faster your PC. On the other hand it is a very crucial component and should be thought that the more reliable the board is the longer your system will tend to last.
Which Motherboard Should I Buy?
We would advise to invest into branded boards which have a manufactures warranty for at least 24 months. Keep in mind a retailer’s standard warranty is always 12 months, but it is always worth enquiring how much the manufacture warranties the mother board for. We have found ASUS to normally have a 3 year warranty on their motherboards and MSI to have a 2 year warranty on their motherboards. INTEL also seem to have reliable boards too, so if you are going to purchase a board, we strongly recommend to only purchase these 3 brands.
Types of motherboards
There are hundreds of different types of motherboards available on the market, each one having different components, chipsets and available capacities. (Chipsets explained in detail later) However, these are broken down into 2 main types. AMD mother board and INTEL motherboards. This is also sometimes referred to as the AMD platform and INTEL platform. This quite simply means if you are using or planning to use an AMD processor then you would require an AMD mother board, and if you require or already using an INTEL processor then most definitely you would need an INTEL motherboard. There is no compromise in this situation as there is no motherboard ever manufactured for AMD which allows and INTEL CPU and vice versa.
Below is an illustration of an AMD platform motherboard manufactured by MSI.
This is an illustration of a typical motherboard given the size known as a FULL ATX. A full ATX is the biggest type of motherboard available and can be housed into all standard sized computer casings / chassis.
Motherboards also come in sizes of Mini ATX, Micro ATX, Standard ATX and finally FULL ATX as shown above. These sizes do not determine the speed, efficiency, and life time or anther factor of the motherboard. However, they are simply designed to their standards of sizes to fit a specific range of computer cases or chassis’s. Micro ATX being the smallest of the boards are most likely on the miniature casings found on the high street. An example of this would be BIOSTAR’s IDEQ range of computer casings. (See Below)
Typical computer casings have motherboards already built into to them that are specifically designed to work for the casing. Sufficient cooling, available space for upgrades and price are some of the things kept in consideration with the case and the motherboard.
| Hardware |
|---|
| Central Processing Unit |
| What Is A Hard Drive |
| What Is a Motherboard |
| What Is An Optical Drive |
| What Is RAM |