Motherboards
 
The Heart of the Computer
The Motherboard is big. Probably the biggest circuit card you've ever seen. Every component we talk about after this section is going to interact with the Motherboard in some way, most with a direct connection...
You are now faced with a very important descision. You have to do a bit of planning to choose the appropriate motherboard. The Motherboard is the most important piece of hardware in your computer. It is also one of the most expensive - competing in price with the processor. Decide now what speed processor you need.
Brief, quick, short, pleonastic paragraph (or 2) on Processors
Alright, I know this isn't the processor section, so I'll be quick, but this part is necessary. The processor is known as a CPU or Central Processing Unit. All the commands that you perform (keyboard strokes, mouse movement, clicks, running programs, etc) are routed to the CPU which follows the commands and instructs the various components to do their part to bring to pass the desired result. The Speed of the CPU is measured in MegaHertz (MHz - Million cycles per second). The faster the CPU in MHz the faster the above process takes place.
As an example, imagine a photograph opened for editing on your screen. You wish to change the size of this imaginary picture. You click 'resize', type in '50%', and click OK. This information is sent the processor which goes through each pixel of the picture and determines which color to make the cooresponding pixel in the resized picture. Below is an example:
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Original Image
50px by 50 px | Resized Image
25px by 25px | Resized Image
Stretched to show detail |
As you can see, the third picture is not the same as the first. Pixels were removed in the process of resizing, yet the smaller picture still looks good until it is enlarged. When you changed the size of the imaginary picture, the processor (which is imaginary too I guess) went through the first picture and made it look like the third, determining how to make the picture still look good when it is smaller.
This obviously took some thinking even though most computers could do a job like this instantly. Now imagine doing a full size photograph. There would be many more colors and many more pixels to go through. Or what if you were resizing an entire home movie? In these cases faster processor speeds are very important. I recommend not getting a processor less than 1 Ghz.
Almost done with this bit on processors. If you are into gaming, I'd pick up at least a 2.4 Ghz processor. If you just want a computer to use on the net and to word process with, 1.0 Ghz should be sufficient. Remember though, Money spent on your CPU and Motherboard is money well spent.
Finally, back to motherboards.
Now you should have an idea of what CPU speed you need. I highly recommend finding the processor you want before purchasing your motherboard. When you find a processor that looks like it's the one, check what socket type it uses (Socket A, LGA-775, Socket 939, etc). Now, remember that. You have to find a motherboard that has that same socket type. So, read the next section about motherboard features and then you can head off to the wild internet and find a perfect motherboard.
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 Tutorial:
• Intro
Hardware
• Cases
• Power Supply
• Cooling
• Motherboards
• Motherboards - Pt 2
• Processor
• Memory
• Kingston
• Corsair
• Hard Drive
• Video Card
• AGP Cards
• PCI Cards
• Express PCI
• Fun Stuff!
• CD/DVD drives
• ZIP/Floppy drives
• Other Drives
• Networking
• Cables
• Sound Card
• Modem
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