By computershopper.com
31/07/2007
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/digitalliving/tips/0,3800004921,62030091,00.htm

	The Asus Blitz Formula (Special Edition) is a mainboard for gamers. (Click for larger image)

The motherboard is the foundation upon which your PC is built. Here's how to buy one that can accommodate all the components you want.

Form factor
The form factor sets the standard for a motherboard's dimensions and layout, as well as the positioning of mounting holes, expansion slots, and ports. Your case must support the form factor of the board you choose. Most of today's motherboards are laid out in the ATX form factor. Home theater buffs looking to build a PC for the living room should consider a smaller MicroATX board. These boards use the general ATX design but include fewer I/O slots, allowing for a shorter board that can fit in a smaller case.

RAM slots
Most motherboards feature two to four memory slots. (Because of their size, MicroATX boards tend to offer fewer slots than their ATX counterparts.) Regardless of the board you choose, make sure it has enough slots to accommodate your needs. For optimum performance, look for boards that support faster DDR2 memory.



CPU socket
Your most important decision when buying a motherboard is the processor family you want the board to support. AMD's various Athlon 64 CPUs are compatible with Sockets 754, 939, 940, and AM2, depending on the particular Athlon 64 subfamily. The socket number, in the first three cases, simply corresponds to the number of pins found on the bottom of the processor; the AM2 socket, the latest iteration, uses 940 pins and is the first AMD socket to work with DDR2 SDRAM. Sockets 478 and LGA775 support Intel Pentium 4, Celeron and Core 2 Duo processors, the only difference being that the LGA775 design has the pins located on the motherboard CPU socket, as opposed to on the CPU itself.

Storage
With Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives becoming increasingly popular, most new motherboards offer both IDE and SATA connectors. If you want to future-proof your system, make sure your board supports SATA drives.

PCI slots
Most ATX motherboards provide at least four PCI slots for expansion. While these standard PCI slots are usually present for expansion cards like sound cards and Ethernet cards, faster PCI Express (PCIe) slots also appear on most mainstream boards. PCIe slots differ among themselves, however, according to the number of links, or lanes, they support. For instance, a PCIe x16 slot provides greater bandwidth than a PCIe x1 slot. (A single lane can transmit 2.5Gbps in each direction.) As a result, PCIe graphics cards employ x16, whereas an Ethernet card might use x1. Any expansion cards you plan to use must be compatible with the specific slot types, of course.