Mainboards buyers guide

Introduction

The motherboard might not be the most attractive part of a computer, it is definitely one of the most important parts, as the motherboard is the place where all other parts of the computer connect with each other. The choice of motherboard influences your choice of memory, processor, hard disks and graphics card. This article touches on all aspects of the motherboard to help you decide what kind of board you need.

The heart of the motherboard is the chipset, a combination of chips that is responsible for the communication between, and the access of the various parts of the computer. A chipset normally consists of two parts, called the north bridge and the south bridge. Some boards will have a single-chip solution, meaning that both parts of the chipset are incorporated into one chip. As it is the chipset that has the biggest influence on the overall performance of a motherboard, it comes as no surprise that motherboards from different brands that use the same chipset will look and perform very much alike. Even though there are numerous manufacturers of motherboards, there are only a few companies that make chipsets, the biggest of these being Intel, as they make chipsets for their own processors. Other manufacturers are VIA, SiS, nVidia and ATI, each making chipsets for Intel as well as AMD processors. VIA and SiS are mainly concentrating on chipsets for budget and OEM motherboards, where the others are producing chipsets aimed at the mid-range and higher end segments.

A schedule of how a modern chipset is built up is shown below. In practice the actual functions can differ per chipset, and on the next pages we will try and explain the common workings of the north- and south bridge.