Motherboard
The motherboard, or mainboard, is
the one component that really
brings together all the others, and
as such, is often considered one of
the most important components of
a PC, and one that should be
chosen carefully. The motherboard
connects together the CPU, the
RAM, and all attached drives via
the chipset, which can perhaps be
best described as the central
nervous system, or spine of the PC.
The chipset is usually a differentiating feature of the motherboard,
frequently a central element in the
motherboard product name, i.e.
the GA-Z87X-D3H motherboard is
based on the Intel Z87 Express
chipset.
Today’s modern chipsets like the
Intel Z87 Express chipset are more
compact than in previous two-chip
solutions which used a North and
South Bridge configuration.
With Intel 8 series chipsets,
advanced features such as the
memory controller, 2D/3D graphics
and dedicated video
decoding/encoding have been
added to the CPU itself .This means
that the chipset today is more
commonly responsible for connectivity such as USB, SATA and PCI,
PCI Express as well as audio and
networking capabilities. The
motherboard also supports a range
of add-in-boards or cards that add
additional functions such as
dedicated graphics processing, which most
commonly use PCI Express slots to interface with
the board.
Another important feature of the motherboard is
the BIOS, or Basic Input Output System. This is the
underlying software layer that connects individual
hardware components together. It’s important that
advanced users learn to configure the BIOS settings
in order to manipulate boot priority, drive configurations and overclocking etc. This will be covered in
more detail later in this guide.
When selecting a motherboard, one very important
consideration is the motherboard’s form factor.
Generally speaking there are four common form
factors available today, each characterized with a
different overall size. In order of size (largest first)
these form factors are E-ATX, ATX, Micro-ATX and
Mini-ITX. The form factor of the motherboard will
ultimately dictate the eventual size of the PC, and
of course the kind of chassis used. Standard ATX
motherboards require a full sized towe ȁ