Motherboards Review Guide

Before buying a new motherboard the motherboards review guide will show you the different socket types and the integrated motherboards parts. Your choice should be based on the socket type and the CPU supported by the motherboard.

Motherboards are often classified by their socket and the types of CPU they support. Currently, there are 2 types of motherboards: those who can support Intel Processors and those who can support AMD Processors

Motherboard components

The motherboard contains integrated components like:

The chipset The chipset is an integrated circuit which controls the majority of the resources

The clock and the CMOS battery
CMOS stands for: complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor. The CMOS is a battery that uses very little power, but in the computer vocabulary they always use it to refer to the BIOS.

The BIOS: All the information about the cheap computer you just bought is set up on a special computer language called the BIOS. For instance, the type of hard drive you are using, the amount of memory RAM, the type of CD-ROM; all these information and many more are store in the BIOS

System bus and expansions slots
The expansions slots allow the motherboard to support other parts like the graphic card, sound card, and network card. Older computer contained ISA expansion slot but nowadays computers are equipped with the PCI expansion slot much faster than the ISA and AGP slot for the graphic card.

Each range of CPU fits into a specific socket on your motherboard. motherboards are design with one socket type and cannot be made to take another. Current AMD CPU's use a socket A connection. Pentium 4 CPU's use socket 478 (because the CPU has 478 pins to connect to the motherboard socket types---------- compatible processors

slot 1----------------------------- Intel PII, Intel PIII (cartridge only)

slot A----------------------------- AMD Athlon (Cartridge only)

socket 423------------------------- Intel P4

socket 478------------------------- Intel P4(2nd generation)

754-Pin Socket--------------------- Athlon 64

940-Pin Socket--------------------- Athlon 64-fx

socket370----------------- Celeron, Intel PIII (not Cartridge), Cyrix III

Socket A------------------ AMD Athlon Thunderbird (not Cartridge), AMD Duron, AMD Athlon XP

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