MOTHERBOARD

A motherboard is the central printed circuit board in some complex electronic systems, such as modern personal computers. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple computers, it is called the logic board It is also called sometimes mobo.

A motherboard is also known as a mainboard, system board, and logic board. A common abbreviation is ‘mobo’. They can be found in a variety of electrical devices, ranging from a TV to a computer and any other devices. Generally, they will be referred to as a motherboard or a mainboard when associated with a complex device such as a computer, laptop which is what we shall look at.

In simple words, it is the central circuit board of your computer. All other components and peripherals plug into it, and the job of the motherboard is to relay information between them all. Despite the fact that a better motherboard will not add to the speed of your PC, it is none-the-less important to have one that is both stable and reliable, as its role is vital.

A motherboard houses the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), which is the simple software run by a computer when initially turned on.

Typically, the motherboard contains the following components:

• The CPU (Central Processing Unit) 

• BIOS(Basic Input/Output System)

• Graphics card

• Sound card Memory

• Storage Devices(primary/secondary)

• Hard-drive

• Disk drives

• Parallel/serial ports

• Integrated peripherals

Along with various external ports and peripherals, controllers, required for controlling standard peripheral devices, such as the display screen, keyboard, hard disk, magnet disk, etc. There are a lot of motherboards on the market to choose from. The big question is, how do you go about choosing which one is right for you?

Different motherboards support different components, and so it is vital you make a number of decisions concerning general system specifications before you can pick the right motherboard.

If you purchase your case before the rest of the components, the first factor to think about concerning motherboards is the size or form factor. A form factor is a standardized motherboard size. If you think about fitting a motherboard in a case, there are a number of mounting holes, slot locations, and PSU connectors.

The most popular motherboard form factor today is ATX, which evolved from its predecessor, the Baby AT, a smaller version of the AT (Advanced Technology) form factor. Generally speaking, nowadays a standard computer will have an ATX form factor motherboard: only special cases require different form factors.

So now you know which size you need, what comes next? The following are all factors you need to consider.

The first important differential is which CPU the board supports. Two of the biggest makes of CPUs at the moment are Intel and AMD, yet you cannot buy motherboards that support the use of either: it will support one or the other, due to physical differences in the connectors.

This is often referred to as a type of platform; for example, an ‘Intel platform motherboard’ means with an Intel CPU. Furthermore, you must choose a specific type of processor, for example, an AMD Athlon 64 or Pentium 4.

Therefore, you must choose which CPU you want before you can choose your motherboard. Both Intel and AMD processors are capable of running the same applications, but there are differences in price and performance depending on which one you choose.

Also read:- What is Microprocessors chips? All about it: List of most popular microprocessors