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What is a Motherboard?

The motherboard is the main circuit board inside your PC. Every components at some point communicates through the motherboard, either by directly plugging into it or by communicating through one of the motherboards ports. The motherboard is one big communication highway. Its purpose inside your PC is to provide a platform for all the other components and peripherals to talk to each other. Different components will use different channels of the motherboard circuitry called Buses, aptly named as they carry data from one stop to the next. The fastest of these channels or busses used to be the FSB (Front Side Bus) this connects the CPU to the main memory bank via the Northbridge (which included a memory controller). In modern computers this has been replaced with faster point to point methods of connecting memory to CPU, you may of heard terms such as HyperTransport which is AMD's replacement for the FSB and QPI (Quick Path Interconnect) Intel's version. Other buses on the motherboards are still being used though and perform vital part of a motherboards operation. The PCI and PCI express buses connect add-on card such as sound cards and graphics cards and allow them to communicate with the rest of the computer.

Types of Motherboards

The type of motherboards depends on the CPU it was designed for. You can therefore categorise motherboards by which socket type they have. e.g. Socket A, Socket 478 etc. The Type of motherboard you buy is very important, as it will need to house your CPU, and they are not interchangeable. When buying a motherboard, it will always tell you what socket type it has and usually what CPU's it was designed to be used with. With every new generation of CPU, there is a high likelihood that a new socket type is required. Sometimes this is not just about making it fit, but because the pins of the CPU will be carrying different data and the motherboard must be able to match the CPU exactly. Unfortunately this has meant that in recent times upgrading your PC is not as easy as changing the CPU unless you are simply upgrading in the same CPU family, which doesn't very often have a good cost to performance increase benefit.

What to look for when buying a motherboard

As everything you have on the PC at some point needs the motherboard, you need to consider these components when buying a motherboard. For example, if you have a lot of devices with a PCI interface that you wish to use, there is little point buying a motherboard that only offers you 3 PCI slots. Like wise with memory, you have to make sure that there is enough slots for the amount of memory you have or wish to have and of course the type and speed of memory you wish to use (this is becoming less of a factor as CPU's motherboards and memory tend to be matched in families and need to be upgraded together for the most part)

The motherboard also needs the correct type of interface for your Graphics card, Hard disks and other items as well. You will find that most motherboards offer everything you need however it needs checking on when buying. Its especially important to pay detail to your motherboard if you want to use older components, which a new motherboard may or may not support. Hard drives for example these days use a Serial-ATA connection of some type, if you have a older IDE drive and still wish to use it, you need to make sure that the motherboard has sufficient IDE ports to accommodate your hard drives and CD/DVD drive etc

The major difference between motherboards that support the same CPU is the model of the chipset (more on the chipset later). Different chipsets offer different performance and different features in terms of memory support, AGP port speed, Multiplier numbers,  Bus speeds and much more. The chipset is not usually made by the manufacturer of the motherboard so you may find the same chipset on many different motherboards

Measuring the speed of a motherboard

Motherboards have got to be one of the hardest components to measure the speed of. Performance can really only be measured by benchmarking using the same components in several motherboards of the same type. You often find that motherboards with the same chipset have roughly the same performance in real world tests. The minor differences that do occur are down to the quality of the materials used and the quality of the manufacturing.

The Motherboards speeds that are quoted on the box are maximum supported speeds for other components. For example motherboards will quote the maximum FSB (Front Side Bus) speed. However without a CPU that also supports this speed, it will never be reached. Likewise when it quotes the maximum memory speed. The memory of this speed has to be present. The best way to determine the best motherboard for speed is to search the internet for benchmarks of the motherboards you are looking at, this way you can see how they stack up again similar motherboards in there class.

What is a Motherboard Chipset

A motherboard chipset controls all the data that flows through the data channels (buses) of the motherboard. The primary function of the motherboard chipset is to direct this data to the correct area's of the motherboard, and therefore the correct components.

If you wish to have a more in depth look at the workings of a motherboard chipset take a look at our article on What is a motherboard chipset

Components of a Motherboard

The motherboard The motherboard contains many connections for all type of components. Motherboards contain expansion slots such as the ISA, PCI, AGP and DIMM sockets. It also contains external connections for your onboard sound card, USB ports, Serial and Parallel ports, PS/2 ports for your keyboard and mouse as well as network and Firewire connections.

So the motherboard has a massive part to play in the workings of your PC. Components that you buy all rely on the motherboard to have the correct connections are available and working. Its best to buy a decent motherboard especially if you plan on buying extra's in the future.

More articles in the What is Category

What is your RAM
What is your Graphics card
What is your CPU
What is your Hard Disk
What is your PSU

Still unsure? please ask at the PantherProducts Forums where we may be able to help you out?

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