Choosing your Motherboard
The motherboard is the backbone that ties your computer system together. Which mother board you pick will dictate what processor and ram you purchase. There are many different features that motherboards frequently make available. A list of some of the more common features is given here.
- Ethernet Port
- Video on the motherboard
- Audio on the motherboard
- SATA controller
- IDE Controller
- Number of USB ports
- Number of Firewire ports
- Type of video supported
- Type of RAM supported
Having an Ethernet port right on the motherboard can be very handy. The Ethernet port is used to connect your computer to a network or broadband Internet connection. If your motherboard does not include an Ethernet port, you will have to purchase one as an add-on card. I always buy motherboards with built-in Ethernet.
Video and audio on the motherboard can be handy depending on your situation. If you are building a computer for just general business use or browsing, a built in video and audio will save you money. The main downside is that you can’t upgrade. For my computers I usually get built-in audio, but not video. This is because I usually want a more upgraded video card, but care less about the latest sound card.
Most drives that you will add to your computer will be either IDE or Serial ATA (SATA). If you are going for an economy system, then use all IDE drives. For a more advanced system SATA gives the best hard drive performance. If you would like to buy a SATA hard drive, then make sure you get a motherboard that supports it.
Having firewire and USB ports on the motherboard is very handy. You don’t have to add additional cards to get these ports. Firewire and USB are generally used for video recording and adding external hard drives.
Make sure your motherboard supports the type of video card you want to use. There are three main standards for video cards: PCI, AGI and PCI Express. Your motherboard must have a slot that matches your video card. This will be covered in the video card section, later in this chapter.
You must also make sure that your motherboard supports the type of RAM you buy. If you buy DDR ram your motherboard must support it. If you buy DDR2 RAM, your motherboard must support it. DDR and DDR2 RAM chips are not interchangeable.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing to have happen, when building a computer system, is to buy something that won’t fit your motherboard. The following components, in particular, are the ones you must watch out for.
- Video Card
- Ram
- Processor
In the next section we will discuss what RAM you should use for your computer.
