Ah, my favorite subject.
Motherboards or Main boards are the heart of the
computer. Where as the CPU is the engine. The term Motherboard came about with
the advent of the IBM PC, the memory, processor, and controlling chips were on
one board (motherboard), while all input and out put was done by a board that
was inserted into a slot. You had one board that had the keyboard, one serial,
one parallel, floppy port, and video, it was monochrome (single color, mainly
GREEN it was called a daughter board. You could also have a color video board
you inserted, a CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) and have 16 or 256 colors
(depending on if you wanted a Volkswagen or a Corvette).
Today most Mother Boards have all the components embedded on the board,
video, sound, keyboard, mouse, serial, parallel, network adapter, floppy drive (
soon to be obsolete), hard drive/CD-ROM controller, and USB. Some manufactures
are so short sighted that they do not give you any slots to upgrade with. What
you buy is what you get, no upgrading them, the unfortunate thing is they are
not any cheaper than one with expansion slots.
If you are considering on upgrading or building your own system consider what
you want the computer to do. My main system case is over ten years old, it has
seen four mother boards and processors from the 386 to the Pentium 4.
When you make your list for the upgrade list all the components in one column,
the function in another, and the cost in another. Then go to the web and
research. Check different manufactures for the embedded functions, mouse,
keyboard, network, video (if you are not worried about high resolution) and
sound. If you are going to reuse your existing case check the dimensions of the
new mother board. Make sure that it will fit.
CPU: What processor fits the board? Are you just upgrading the mother board and
keeping the old cpu you have now? Can you upgrade to a faster cpu later? Can you
set the clock speed on it? Also check the type of "slot" or "Zif socket" for
your desired processor, your old processor may not work on the new board.
Does it have slots? How many? What type? PCI and APG are on the way out, the
newer cards are PCI-Express, they have a different pin out and will not fit
older boards. It may be cheaper in the short run to get a board that is out of
production that has all the features you need but remember it is a dead end
because the technology is moving on.
Check the type of ram that the board uses. Is it DDR or DIMM? Does your
application need more to work smother? Ram upgrades are one of the cheapest upgrades you can do to get the most "bang for your buck".
