How to buy a motherboard
Level of difficulty: EASY
If you are planning to create a custom personal computer (PC), the first thing you should look for is buying a good motherboard. A motherboard is an essential part of any computing device which holds important components of the system and also allows room for outside connectors to be connected with the computer. It acts as a backplane which accommodates various electrical connections from different components so that they can communicate in a better way. A modern motherboard generally includes sockets (or slots), Chipset [it makes an interface between front-side bus, peripheral bus and the main memory of the processor), Flash–ROM containing the BIOS, a clock generator to produce the system clock signal, expansion card slots and power connectors which collects power and distribute them to various components like CPU, chipset, main memory, expansion cards etc. It may also contain logic and connectors for input devices like mouse and keyboard in addition. Modern motherboards are also coming up with heat sinks and mounting points for cooling fans to prevent overheating.
Materials Needed:- Purchase
Step 1
As we can see how important a motherboard is, it is difficult yet very important to decide which motherboard you should buy. Now how to decide? It varies according to your use. If you use your system mainly for hardcore gaming you should probably pay more attention on the CPU and chipset while undermining peripheral connectors and form factor issue. On the other hand someone with a power meter needs more peripheral features than other users. Chip set is the most important part of a motherboard. The major chipsets currently available in the market are Intel, AMD and NVIDIA. So the golden rule is that first choose your chipset and then the motherboard because even two different motherboards with identical chipsets will perform almost equally well. But it is not at all recommended to buy a cheap motherboard with integrated sound and/or vide chips.
Step 2
By now you must have been aware how crucial a motherboard is for the computer, some notes you must look into before you buy one. First, be active and look for reviews of different products on the market. Go through the instructions to find out the one which best suits your purpose. Secondly, make sure it has at least 3 DIMM (RAM) sockets. It should have at least two USB ports. Look for validity of warranty periods. This is all you have to keep in mind. Go ahead and buy.