What to look for in a Motherboard

Required: YES Price: $50-$200 Links: TigerDirect Motherboards (P4) Motherboard Guide (see below)

What do you want from your computer?

Do you plan on burning CDs? burning DVDs? Listening to music on a large surround sound system? Networking with other computers in your home? Transferring digital pictures from a Camera? Do you need a Floppy disk drive? Will you be storing video on your hard drive? Do you want to play the newest games? Do you used Dial-Up internet?

Whoa!!! Hold it, too many questions at once. Sorry about that. But these are things you need to consider when you are looking for a motherboard. If, say for some reason, you need 8 sound cards so you can hook up the whole neighborhood for a massive block party, that will require a special motherboard. Though, I'm gonna say that 1 sound card is probably enough for anyone reading this tutorial.

The things most commonly requested are below:

I guess my point is this: Anything that doesn't come with your motherboard requires a port. I recommend finding a motherboard with the following:

• At least 2 PCI ports (for modems, network cards, and the like)
• 2 IDE Ports (for up to 4 Hard drives and disk drives)
• 1 AGP Port (for a video card)
• 1 Floppy Cable Port
• 2-4 Memory (RAM) Slots (for future upgrades)
• PS2 Mouse and Keyboard Ports
• Onboard Sound
• Onboard Video
• Built in Network Interface
• 4 USB ports Minimum

Yes, that was two lists at once, and again I'm sorry. This is important stuff of which you need to be aware, though.

Motherboard Summary

What? The summary already? Indeed. There is little more I can tell you without knowing exactly what your computer is for. I could go in depth about gaming requirements, video editing requirements, high capacity storage requirements, server requirements, and a thousand other types of computers. But, I'm not. You decide what features you want. If you everything on the Bulleted List above, you're motherboard should have everything you need to make a great computer. Just be sure that the socket type of the motherboard matches that of the processor you have in mind.

Okie dokie, even though we've covered processors already, the next section talks a bit more about them. I recommend reading the Processor Section before you do any buying.

Tutorial:

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