Motherboards usually differ in the kind of chipsets used in a computer. Hence, when selecting the best chipset that would match your preference, one must look into the factors like the RAM it will be capable of supporting and if it can sustain a PCI and the parallel ATA that is essential for older hard disks. After keenly checking on this side, it is also salient to find out the other functions handled by chipsets.  The integrated graphics is one element which is ideal for those who are into high end graphic detail, the kind of effects it has and the speed.

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…

Do you know what a chipset is? Well, chipsets are the main controllers on the motherboard – they allow the CPU to interface with the various components and expansion cards installed.

When choosing your chipset, always bear in mind the type of memory supported by the motherboard. Make sure that the board supports the type and amount of RAM you need. Generally, choosing a chipset that supports high speed memory will allow your system to perform better.

microATX, also known as ATX (sometimes transliterated as mATX^[1] or uATX^[2][3] on online forums) is a small form factor standard for computer motherboards, with a maximum size of 244 Xmm 244 mm (9.6 inches x 9.6 inches), but some uATX boards can be as small as 6.75 inches by 6.75 inches or 171.45 millimeters by 171.45 millimeters^[4]. The standard ATX size is 25% longer, at 305mm X 244mm (12″ wide x 9.6″ deep). Currently available microATX motherboards support CPUs from VIA, Intel or AMD. There are no known microATX motherboards for processor architectures other than x86 and x86-64. -Source

A typical motherboard from 2007 will have a different number of connections depending on its standard. A standard ATX motherboard will typically have 1x PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card, 2x PCI slots for various expansion cards and 1x PCI-E 1x which will eventually supersede PCI.

A standard Super ATX motherboard will have 1x PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card. It will also have a varying number of PCI and PCI-E 1x slots. It can sometimes also have a PCI-E 4x slot. This varies between brands and models.

Some motherboards have 2x PCI-E 16x slots to allow more than 2 monitors without special hardware or to allow use of a special graphics technology called SLI (for Nvidia) and Crossfire (for ATI). These allow 2 graphics cards to be linked together to allow better performance in intensive graphical computing tasks such as gaming and video editing. -Source

They are the brains of all computer systems based on silicon and a ton of minuscule electronics, shrunk down to the size of pinpoints allowing complex computations(from thousands to billions of computations per second). So what’s your processor type? Don’t know? Then you’d better start researching it for you may just be surprised at the many types, It is very important for you to know what kind of CPU or processor you are using when buying your motherboard. For your information, motherboards are made differently. There is a tendency that the motherboard you bought will not support your CPU. You need to know what type of CPU you are using because this will determine the type of motherboard that you should purchase.

Let me give you an example, If you’re using Intel Pentium 4 CPU, you must select a motherboard that is capable of supporting that model of CPU. The speed of the processor is important. Motherboards are created to satisfy every need of the CPU.

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.

The motherboard or the mainboard is the core of the computer set, each part of the computer relies on the mainboard to work its part correctly. One of the main functions of motherboard is to maintain connection between each computer parts and make sure that components are working well between them.

Lots of signs of motherboard crashes are that the PC won’t boot up. It does not reach the POST test. It shows erratic behavior. Or something else of any combinations of components is not working. Because all parts in computer is associated to the motherboard a particular parts may or may not work properly if the motherboard is damaged

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.