Ultimate Motherboard Guide - Demystifying Motherboard Specs

A motherboard can be thought of as the foundation for any computer system. It is the largest component in your computer and provides pathways for all other devices, internal and external, to communicate with each other. Therefore, it is vital that you spend some time researching for a good quality motherboard.

Main motherboard specifications

Before you run out looking for a motherboard, it's best to know a little about the components that make up the motherboard.

Chipset

There are two main chipsets on a motherboard, the Northbridge and Southbridge controller. The Northbridge handles communications with high speed components such as the CPU, Memory, and graphics card. Conversely, the Southbridge handles communication from low speed devices such as I/O ports, hard drives, on-board audio and BIOS.

Motherboards are designed around these two chips, the Northbridge dictates what kind of CPU's and memory types are supported, whereas the Southbridge dictates things like the number of built in USB ports and whether or not the board comes with integrated audio, video, RAID, LAN, etc...

CPU

The CPU is inserted directly into a socket on the motherboard and is responsible for processing instructions. The types of CPU supported by a motherboard depend on the Northbridge controller chip.

Expansion Slots

The expansion slots on the motherboard allow you to connect external components, such as graphic cards, sound cards, RAID controllers, and other various add-on components. The slots come in varying speeds and some are intended for high speed components only, such as the PCI-E x16 and AGP slots for graphic cards.

Form Factor

Form factor refers to the size and shape of the motherboard i.e. its dimensions. When purchasing a new motherboard you need to be aware of its form factor because certain cases and power supplies only work with certain form factors. The most common form factor is ATX and these days most motherboards are based on the ATX form factor.

Memory

Sticks of memory or RAM are inserted into special memory slots on the motherboard; most motherboards typically have three or four slots. Motherboards typically only support one type of memory e.g. DDR, DDR2, DDR3, Rambus, since the different types have a different number of pins that connect to the slot.

Internal I/O Connectors

These are connections that connect directly to the motherboard from internal components or your computer case. Examples include power connector from power supply, USB, hard drive and fan connections from case, internal SATA connections from hard drives, etc...

Back Panel Connectors

These are the connections that you find on the back of your computer case where you plug in a mouse, keyboard, ethernet, printer, etc... The number and type of connections is dependent on the motherboard you purchase which mostly depends on the Southbridge chipset used in the motherboard.

BIOS

The BIOS is a small chip on your motherboard that initializes and prepares hardware on boot, so software can communicate with it. If the BIOS cannot initialize a hardware device it will send a special sequence of beeps to your computers' internal speaker that tells you which device is not installed or configured correctly.

Most, if not all BIOS's can be updated via special program from your motherboard manufacturer. The reason to update the BIOS is to fix hardware compatibility bugs, or to enable support for newer hardware, such as newer CPU's based on the same or very similar architecture. If everything in your system is working fine, do not update your BIOS, you don't want to chance an error occurring during a flash and the resulting hassle of fixing it.

Some Special/Unique Features

Ultra Durable

Some motherboards use newer solid-state capacitors that are less likely to leak or become defective. This is a relatively new feature and is nice to have if you can find it.

Advanced Cooling

Some motherboards add extra heat sinks to certain chips on the motherboard as well as a heat pipe for the north bridge; this allows the motherboard to run a bit cooler and is useful if you want to heavily over-clock your system.

Over-clocking enhanced

The motherboard, through the BIOS or a Windows application, provides fine-tune tweaking in regards to over-clocking. This type of feature isn't essential for over-clocking, most motherboards' BIOS provide some fundamental options that are used for over-clocking; this feature just provides more convenience and options to do so.

Dual Channel Memory

This feature allows you to install a pair of memory sticks in specially marked memory slots. This allows twice as much data to be sent from the memory to the memory controller, so it gets executed by the CPU faster. This feature will not double your speed, but may provide performance improvements with certain applications and hardware configurations, so keep an eye out for it. Also, this feature isn't dependent on the memory sticks themselves, just get a pair of the same memory and it should work in the motherboard.

Example of a motherboard specs

To get yourself familiar with looking at motherboard specs, go through the spec sheet of the Gigabyte DS3L motherboard.

www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx

How to pick out a motherboard?

Now that you have an idea of what constitutes a motherboard, you're almost ready to start looking for one. Today you can buy motherboards for under or around a $100 that are top notch, the catch is these boards usually don't come with features like on-board RAID, advanced cooling, dual PCI-E x16, etc..., but for most people these features will never get used, so save your money and opt for boards without them, unless you know you are going to use them.

Try to find motherboards that come with some on-board functionality such as on-board audio, USB ports, on-board LAN and SATA connections. Most boards, even the cheapest should have these features by now. Once you have an idea of what you need on your motherboard, just search around and make a list of some candidates. Once you have it narrowed down it is important that you do some pre-emptive problem finding. Your goal is to know the motherboard and all major issues with it before you buy it, you don't want to wait until you get slapped in the face with some major issue. An easy way of finding problems related to a motherboard is reading through negative comments and just using Google or whatever search engine to conduct searches like this "Gigabyte DS3L problems".

For more information on computers and electronics please visit us at BestMatchComputers.com [http://www.bestmatchcomputers.com].

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Social Media Newsrooms - The Ultimate Web 2.0 Tool for Your Business

Imagine having just one place to send the media, prospective clients, book reviewers, or anyone who wants to know all about you, your business, or your book-a place where they can:

* View all your major media coverage.

* See all of your past and present press releases.

* Look up all of your past and future events.

* Read and link to all of your book reviews.

* Download multimedia material like photos, company logos, podcasts, vidcasts, etc.

* View bios on each key person in the company, along with links to their social or business networking profiles like LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace, Second Life, etc.

* Check out your own purpose-built del.icio.us page linking to other sites relevant to your business.

* Subscribe through RSS feeds to any portion of information on the site.

* Share any content of the site with their friends or colleagues, via email or by posting to social bookmarking indexes like del.icio.us or Digg with one click.

* Send you an instant message using AIM, Yahoo Messaging, MSN, Skype, etc.

* Link directly to your latest blog posts.

* Search the site or the entire Web using either Google or Technorati.

* Link to other blogs or Web sites that are relevant to your message.

* See all Technorati tags related to your content.

* Comment directly on your media coverage, press releases, and events.

That place is a Social Media Newsroom (SMNR). Similar to a traditional online newsroom, it lists media coverage, news releases, events, media contact information, and so forth, but also includes social media and Web 2.0 elements that allow visitors to share and interact with its content.

The SMNR fulfills this traditional purpose while taking advantage of the tremendous indexing opportunities social bookmarking and RSS feed services like Technorati, del.icio.us, Digg, and Feedburner provide. Imagine that every entry made in your newsroom (all of your media coverage, press releases, bios, photos, vidcasts, podcasts, events, etc.) was not only indexed in Google and all of the other search engines, but also in popular bookmarking and RSS feed services-accessible by millions of bloggers and Web surfers. This is the true power of the SMNR for entrepreneurs, small businesses, authors, and small presses-exposure.

This fantastic exposure is a byproduct of the original reason the SMNR was created, but it has grown beyond a mere electronic repository. It has become the blueprint for the new media-a media that understands multimedia and wants a one-stop shop for every bit of material they will need for their coverage. This new media wants something that is fully downloadable and print ready, easily shared with their colleagues, with links and searches that will lead them directly to more relevant information. Most important, though, they want a place that welcomes their comments and invites interactivity.

If you already have a Web site with most of these features, you might wonder why you need a newsroom. First, a newsroom tells the members of the media and prospective clients that you are making a serious effort to make their jobs easier. A social media newsroom is akin to a press release, in that standardization is essential to allow for easy navigation and content extraction by the media.

Second, as mentioned earlier, a social media newsroom (if built using a platform such as WordPress) means that each entry in your newsroom, from a press release to a simple image, can be automatically indexed in search engines, RSS feed indexes, and social bookmarking services, since each entry is itself a separate page of sorts. This means someone can find your site by running into your company logo image, by searching for a blog on the subject of your business expertise, by looking up relevant sites tagged in Technorati or del.icio.us, or by searching for RSS feeds. Think of it this way: You can have one lottery ticket in the pot or one hundred-you figure the odds.

But, a social media newsroom should not replace your existing Web site. You still want a place for blogging and to have a more traditional place to present other information. You will also do all of your "selling" on your Web site. Your SMNR is not a sales tool! Your newsroom is meant to be a neutral place to present all of your media materials-just like a mega-press release.

Many small businesses or entrepreneurs may not have enough media coverage yet to justify a complete newsroom, but that does not mean they can't take advantage of social media optimization. These businesses and individuals should consider building their Web sites using a blogging platform like WordPress to power their sites. This provides all of the benefits of social bookmarking, RSS feeds, etc. and is a very easy way to build and maintain a feature-rich Web site. Of course, the perfect scenario would be to have both!

Deltina Hay is the principle of the companies Dalton Publishing and Social Media Power. She has worked in programming and Web development for 25 years. Ms. Hay's graduate education includes computer science, applied mathematics, and psychology.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.