Starting
Choosing a motherboard for pc is a very important and very first task as motherboard is a core component of your pc. Every other part of the Pc depends upon your motherboard and a large part of your Pc’s performance is based up on the motherboard you are using. Choosing a motherboard for the pc should be a first task for every person who wants to buy a new pc. I always saw people who purchase processor and then search a motherboard but this thing is wrong IMO. Motherboard should be select before selecting any other pc component and if you have good budget then buy the best you can afford. I've seen many good PCs bogged down by a bad motherboard.
How this article is helpful
In this article I will give you a brief description of a motherboard its features motherboards types sockets and many more and this article is specially for those who are new in pc field and want to buy a new
Before purchasing a new motherboard you need a lot of consideration because there are many many motherboards chipsets brands out there in the market and a newbie always confused after look at a lot the hardware. However I think a little knowledge on a motherboard is necessary for every body related to hardware or every body who want to buy a new pc.
CPU socket
A CPU socket is an electrical component that attaches to a PCB and is designed to house a microprocessor in the motherboard. It is a special type of integrated circuit socket designed for very high pin counts. A CPU socket provides many functions, including providing a physical structure to support the CPU, providing support for a Heatsink, facilitating replacement (as well as reducing cost) and most importantly forming an electrical interface both with the CPU and the PCB.
Right now the mostly used CPU sockets (in Intel processors) are three
- LGA 775
- LGA 1156
- LGA 1366
- LGA 1155(upcoming)
The interested part is the upcoming 1155 socket processors and chipset, Intel will introduce this chipset next year
From these tree LGA775 use frequently by many pc users in many countries there are still some peoples who are using 478pin processors and socket 441 (Intel atom ) and some more old sockets but I think people mostly use 775 1366 and 1156 so I will only discuss these three.
LGA 775
LGA (Land Grid Array) 775 is also known as socket T. unlike older CPU socket this socket this one don’t have socket holes as 478socket and older, but this one have pins which make there contact with the processor .this socket is used in The Prescott and Cedar Mill Pentium 4 cores, as well as the Smithfield and Presler Pentium D cores as well as core 2duo and core 2quad use this socket. Intel’s main reason for changing there processors into this socket is that new pin type offers better power distribution to the processor, allowing the front side bus to be raised to 1600 MT/s.
LGA 775 chipsets
- Intel® P45 Express Chipset
- Intel® P43 Express Chipset
DDR2 667/800 up to 16gb,support 45nm processors
- Intel® P35 Express Chipset
- Intel® P31 Express Chipset
- Intel® G45 Express Chipset
- Intel® G43 Express Chipset
- Intel® G41 Express Chipset
- Intel® G35 Express Chipset
- Intel® G33 Express Chipset
- Intel® G31 Express Chipset
- Intel® Q965 Express Chipset
- Intel® Q963 Express Chipset
- Intel® G965 Express Chipset
- Intel® P965 Express Chipset
- Intel® 946PL Express Chipset
- Intel® 945G Express Chipset
- Intel® 946GZ Express Chipset
- Intel® 945P Express Chipset
- Intel® 945PL Express Chipset
- Intel® 945GT Express Chipset
- Intel® X48 Express Chipset
- Intel® X38 Express Chipset
- Intel® 975X Express Chipset
- Intel® 955X Express Chipset
LGA 1156
LGA 1156, also known as Socket H or H1, LGA 1156, along with LGA 1366, was designed to replace LGA 775. LGA 1156 is very different from LGA 775. LGA 775 processors were connected to a Northbridge using the Front Side Bus. With LGA 1156, the features that were traditionally on a Northbridge are integrated onto the processor and support dual channel memory.
LGA 1156 chipsets
- Intel® H55 Express Chipset
- Intel® H57 Express Chipset
- Intel® Q57 Express Chipset
- Intel® P55 Express Chipset
LGA 1366
LGA 1366, also known as Socket B, This socket has 1366 protruding pins which touch contact points on the underside of the processor and accesses up to three channels of DDR3 memory via the processor's internal memory controller.
LGA 1366 chipsets
- Intel® X58 Express Chipset
LGA 1155
LGA 1155, also known as Socket H2, is an Intel microprocessor compatible socket which supports future Intel Sandy Bridge microprocessor LGA 1155 is designed as a replacement for the LGA 1156 (also known as socket H). LGA 1155 has 1155 protruding pins to make contact with the pads on the processor. Processors of LGA 1155 and LGA 1156 socket are not compatible with each other since they have different socket notches.
LGA 1155 chipset
Only minor information is available on LGA 1155 socket
- Intel® P67 Express Chipset
- Intel® H67 Express Chipset
- Intel® Q67 Express Chipset
- Intel® Q65 Express Chipset
- Intel® B65 Express Chipset
Choose the socket
I gave the features and specs of every Intel socket. you can select any socket you want but before choosing a socket first make sure you are selecting latest socket for the processor if you are on 775 socket then getting a new chipset for 775 socket isn’t a wise decision because the performance difference in every 775 socket is not too much so moving from 775 to 1156 is good decision but if you have a CPU which performance is better then 1156 then stay with your setup and no need to upgrade the pc only for a new socket or chipset. and one more thing all the specs here are officially specs means Intel motherboard come with these specs, many brands gives motherboards in good price with increase in Fsb and many other major features so this thing totally depends on you
IS this future proof?
Many people ask questions before buying pc’s that is this future proof? so keep one thing in mind, when you enter in the field of computers nothing is future proof for LGA 1156 Intel will introduce 1155 socket and many peoples are thinking 1366 is future proof but they don’t know LGA 1567 is here for some Xeon based processor and may be in future they will introduce core i9 in this socket so nothing is future proof and it’s the truth
Choose the processor
After choosing the socket choosing a processor is very important thing Intel processors from the range of 70$ to 1000$ are present in the market to its decision to choose a processor that not only falls in your budget but it should also be compatible with the chipset you selected . if you choose 1156 socket then you have to select one processor from core i3 core i5 and core i7 8xx, core i3 is dual core processor i5 and i7 processors are quad core but keep one thing in mind that all of these processors are much faster then old dual core and quad core processors are the technology is changed the socket is changed chipset is changed so every new socket is better then previous one if both are in same prices and soon same thing happens with LGA 1156 socket
Expansion Card Slots
The expansion slot is the PCB that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard to add functionality to a computer system. These slots are used to add different devices with the pc
Conventional PCI
Conventional PCI slot is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer. These devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself, called a planar device in the PCI specification, or an expansion card that fits into a slot. The name PCI is an initialize formed from Peripheral Component Interconnect. The PCI Local Bus is common in modern PCs, where it has displaced ISA and VESA Local Bus as the standard expansion bus, and it also appears in many other computer types. Despite the availability of faster interfaces such as PCI-X and PCI Express, conventional PCI remains a very common interface. Usually this device is used to add following cards with pc
- Sound cards
- Network cards
- TV tuner cards
- Video processing expansion cards
- Modems
PCI Express slot
PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) is designed to replace the older PCI slots and AGP and PCI-x (extra long PCI slot) slot standard. PCI Express is used in consumer, server, and industrial applications, as a motherboard-level interconnect. According to different motherboards there are ×1, ×2, ×4 or ×8 and x16 PCI slots. Some motherboards only have PCI-ex x16 slots and some one has x1 or x4 or all of these slots but there costs are higher.
Usually this slot is used to add graphics card with pc
PCI Express slot History
These are following PCI express slots and all of these specs are based up on PCI-ex x1 slot
- PCI Express 1.0
- PCI Express 2.0
- PCI Express 2.1
- PCI Express 3.0 (upcoming)
Choose your expansion slot and card
you saw the specs of all the PCI -ex slots, now its your decision to choose the right card for yourself as mentioned above many motherboards have PCI -ex 1.0v slot you if you have a card that support v.2.0 then its better to use its compatible card to get the full potential of the card, and one more thing generally comes in every body’s mind is, a PCI -ex v2.0 card compatible with 1.0v slot? So its answer is yes but you can not get full speed with 1.0 slot in the pc
Motherboard Peripheral
A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer but not part of it , it expand different things in the host pc’s. Some examples of motherboards peripheral are microphone, USB flash device and printer. Camera etc .there are many type of peripheral use for different purposes some of them are
- Storage
- Input
- Output
So always choose a motherboard that has more options to add different peripheral devices motherboards have USB, Firewire, parallel, audio, E-SATA, digital audio, and many other connectors used to add different peripheral devices so it’s your choice to choose the right motherboard for you according to your requirements
Choose the latest peripheral support
Always choose the latest peripheral support for your pc means always choose latest technology means motherboards have SATA -I, SATA -II and SATA -III connectors and they work with following speed
- SATA -I=1.5gb/s
- SATA -II=3gb/s
- SATA -III=6gb/s
So choose a motherboard that support at least SATA -II hard drives and optical drives so you can get good speed for you hard drives
And moreover USB (universal serial bus) is very important connectors in pc’s and have many uses and currently following version of USB connectors and devices are available
- USB 1.0=12 Mbit/s
- USB 2.0=480 Mbit/s
- USB 3.0=5.0 Gbit/
Check the difference between 1.0 and 2.0 and then 3.0 there is a lot of different in there speed (they can’t achieve full speed I mentioned but raw speed is near to these transfer rates )
Form factor
Form factor consist of the physical dimension of the motherboard there are many motherboards available in different types of form factor and sizes some of them are:
- ATX
- EATX
- Micro ATX
- Mini-ITX
- Ultra ATX
now its your choice to purchase a motherboard with respect to the size of your casing and with respect to the thickness of your wallet because size change the cost as well as specs I m not going into depth of this thing as article is becoming large and large .but I m giving you a general tip about motherboard, a normal Atx motherboard is enough for every rig and compatible with every Atx casing so if you don’t know about there sizes choose Atx or m-Atx motherboard
Motherboard brands
As I said before Intel motherboards are good but they give you the official specs of the chipset so its better to choose a motherboard of other brand then Intel, the price difference is small but the performance difference is great a G31 chipset officially offer 800-1333 MHz Fsb but many brands offer Fsb up to 1600 and vise versa. So many brands prepare motherboards with different advantages such as overclocking and many others, some of these brands are
- Asus
- Gigabyte
- MSI
- eVGA
- XFX
- Foxconn
- Biostar
- ECS
- Abit
- ASRock
- EPOX
- Foxconn
- Gigabyte
- Matsonic
- Microstar
- Optronix
- Soltek
Later I will write an article on different brands of the motherboards but In this article I will only give there names, and from all of these I will prefer buying MSI, gigabyte and asus motherboards.
Onboard Video:
If you are not a gamer or if you don’t want to add a graphics card into the pc or if you want office work then choose a motherboard that comes with good build-in video and right now the best build-in video available comes with core H55 and H57 chipset butt keep one thing in mind, to use the build-in video with H55 you have to use core i3 processor with this chipset or build-in audio won’t work
Onboard Sound
For home base users or for non gamers using build-in sound is good and recommended but for gaming, a sound card is still recommended, however, as some games have conflicts and other problems with onboard sound its recommended but not required and if you are gaming on headphones or on normal speakers then onboard audio will work just fine and if you are getting 1156 or 1366 socket motherboard then don’t worry about audio because almost every LGA 1156 and 1366 motherboard have HD audio so with this audio extra sound card is not recommended .
OVERCLOCKING
Overclocking became a important feature these days and for gamer I think its necessary to overclock the processor in order to get the maximum available performance. different motherboards have Heatsinks in different places too keep it cool and different motherboards have various overclocking features to get better overclocking result but all this depends upon the money , if you spend more money you will get good motherboard for overclocking and if you are purchasing a low end motherboard many overclocking features will be miss from the motherboard here is also want to clear some thing that majority of Intel motherboards don’t even allow overclocking and any single feature of overclocking so' I must say if you are a gamer then stay away from Intel and get a good branded motherboard like msi , asus or any good overclockers and In overclocking I prefer msi motherboard due to its good overclocking features such as DRMOS (and you will be amazed to know that many other brands are using same technology with different names) and overclocking Bass buttons and many other features .
FINAL WORDS
In the whole article I gave you general specs of all the slots, sockets, connectors of the motherboards now it’s your decision to select a good motherboard for your self according to your budget and requirements but remember an ideal motherboard should have these features:
- USB 3.0 x2(min)
- SATA -III x4(min)
- Firewire connector
- E-SATA connector
- Overclocking feature
- PCI-ex x16 v2.0
- PCI-ex x1
Atlast I prefer to buy msi motherboard .however, its up to you. Consider what features you need and then go get your motherboard and purchase the best motherboard you can afford and don’t scrimp on choosing a motherboard because it’s the most important piece of hardware in your PC
Good luck
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