Everything About PC Motherboard

There are many different motherboard manufacturers but not all of these have impressive products. Based on different reviews by experts and users, the two most trusted motherboard brands are ASUS and GIGABYTE. These two companies have been making motherboard for years now and have only been providing good and reliable products.

Based on performance, functionality, user friendliness, and warranty, these two brands are up there. Most customer reviews state that they’ve never had a problem with the brand and it’s reasonably priced. Gigabyte includes a lot of connectors for every kind of monitor, it is still pretty easy to use and it is almost always more affordable than any of its competitors. Asus leads with the user friendly parts and customer service care. It is the safest choice when you find yourself shopping for a motherboard.

Other notable motherboard manufacturers are MSI (Micro star international) and Diamond Flower Inc, both are Chinese based brands.

Computers are not the only ones with motherboard. A motherboard is basically the brain of a system. It is the memory and it is the way to connect to other peripherals. Computers and mobile phones have this. This week, people got a glimpse of the next generation motherboard of iPhone. This was not exactly planned by Apple but the photo got leaked in public and it revealed that it features the company’s new A7 chip. The new iPhone is also said to be including new Siri capabilities and a larger screen. None of these are confirmed officially since Apple is keeping mum about it. The photo and some other information was leaked by iOSDoc. They also mentioned that A7 chip will be a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, making it better than the tri-core chip found on the iPhone 5. It will also have 2GB RAM and a new version of iOS. iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S will be launched some time this year.

The motherboard exists to connect all the hardware together. Such as hard drive, CPU and monitor. It is made of several parts and each one has their own importance and use. In this article, you will learn about the parts and what it’s for.

Processor Socket – it’s the home for the CPU and the brain of the computer, and it is responsible for fetching,decoding and executing programs.

Memory – it is for the RAM. It’s the working place of the computer where active programs and data are loaded so that when the processor need them, it won’t have to fetch them from the hard disk which will take a longer.

BIOS-  is a Read Only Memory with low-level software that controls the system hardware and acts as an interface between the operating system and the hardware.

Chipset- A chipset is a number of integrated circuits built onto the board to provide specific functions. One part  may be an onboard component such as a modem or sound chip. Other parts may be used to control the CPU functions.

This article is to help people who would like to replace their motherboard on their computers. (Assuming that your current one needs an upgrade) This is not an easy task and if you do not have the patience and understanding for computers then this task can easily be frustrating. Here is a step by step instructions,

1. Make sure that you unplug all power sources before getting started.

2. Remove the casing and put all screws in one place. DO NOT LOSE ANYTHING.

3. Whenever removing anything, put a label so you won’t get confused.  Take out the motherboard and do it carefully so nothing gets broken.

4. Place the new/upgraded motherboard. Line it up properly. Attach all adapters, drives and power connector to the new motherboard. Check that everything is in place before putting the case back.

5. Turn the computer on and if it works properly then you’ve done a good job. If not, go over the same process and see if everything is in correct position and tightened securely.

A newbie in computer may intimated by the word overclocked. It is a free technique that can be done in tweaking the motherboard speed performance. It is all depend on the knowledge of the user on their motherboards. Overclocking tweaking or procedure may vary depending on the motherboard maker.

Overclocking is a process where the users try to alter the computer’s memory causing it to go faster than its default speed. As an example a 2.4GHz can be overclocked up to 2.5GHz or 2.6GHz higher. Thus the overall performance of the PC will increase and the additional speed will result more work done.

Not so good news on Thunderbolt. It has recently been reported that Thunderbolt Thunderbolt has infiltrated about 10% of new PC and motherboards and notebooks. This is from DigiTimes. The statistic is quite low but not really surprising considering how rare it is and all cables compatible with it run from around $40-$50 which is relatively high in price.  The controller chip for thunderbolt will cost you around $20, a lot more than USB 3.0 controllers, which cost less than a dollar each and is fast and capable enough to please majority of users.

Mac users have been enjoying the Thunderbolt, which was developed by Intel, because of collaboration from Apple. Power users with PCs were forced to sit and wait, Which could probably be the main reason for the low sales since there are so much PC users out there. The major and probably only appeal may be its ability to connect a powerful external graphics adapter to a thin-and-light notebook.

Computerbase, a German tech site, revealed some details on nine Haswell-compatible motherboards that are set to be released starting March of next year. This will come in the heels of or alongside Intel’s Lynx Point 8-series chipset models, which are expected to be announced during the first half of 2013.

The details on the nine motherboards are based from documents/slides from Intel (Slide 1 shown on the left) giving insight not only on their codenames, but actual specifications.

It looks like Intel has the whole range of users pretty well covered with their new set of motherboards, with even motherboard enthusiasts sure to be happy thanks to the Kinsley Thunderbolt and Roads End versions, which will include the latest Thunderbolt ports. Of course, you can do everything with these motherboards from your most basic surfing to using a FOREX platform, and even the most intense gaming.

Prices for all nine motherboards are still unknown.

Image via Computerbase

What is a Pc/desktop without a motherboard???? Nothing actually for it is the part of a computer system that allows you to make good use of the computing power locked in today’s multi-core computer processors. The motherboard is the binder that allows your processor(computer’s brain), ram(memory), Video processor and the many other peripherals you use to communicate with each other allowing them to function into one heck of a collection of technology that is the desktop of today.
As with most stuff you can buy, the cheaper the less reliable they are so the best brands do come at a price. It also tends to change frequently as technology evolves, older tech goes obsolete such as the IDE interface as it has slowly been taken over by the much faster SATA interface.

As expected for an ASUS board, the P5N-E SLI’s motherboard design lay out is very good, but not perfect. The southbridge has been left exposed without any form of cooling (although this is not much of an issue) and overclocking the P5N-E SLI may scare away some enthusiasts. The fan-less board design is an innovative. Its north bridge heatsink is very large though, allowing it to gather plenty of air-flow circulating around the case. Also the PCI Express slots were spaced far to each other unlike dual 8800 GTX boards

The Marvell 88E1116 controller is what drives the single on-board Gigabit LAN. Aside from having four internal SATA300 ports situated at the motherboard there is also a single eSATA port for portable hard drives.

The The ASUS P5N-E SLI’s 6-channel audio support comes from a Realtek ALC883 CODEC using audio sensing and enumeration technology. Plus it also has two Firewire (IEEE1394a) ports, one of which is located on the I/O panel. Besides these the P5N-E SLI includes a long list of ASUS brand features such as Q-Connector, O.C. Profile, Q-Fan2 and many others.

ASUS is known for producing some of the computer industry’s best motherboards, though ASUS motherboards can also be considered as one of the most expensive motherboards around. Lucky for us, that is not the case with the P5N-E SLI we are testing today, at least not the expensive part.

Every time you purchase an ASUS motherboard, you are not just paying high for a brand name because ASUS’ build quality is excellent and more often than not, the overall package. Its bundled features are also very valuable.

And now to add up in their long line of high performance boards, they came up with the P5N-E SLI which has been designed around the ultra-affordable Nvidia nForce 650i SLI chipset.

To be continued…